My 2.5 year old daughter sits on the arm of the couch, intently focused on the tv show in front of her. She has an older brother, so she has conceded over the years to watching shows like “Blaze: The Monster Machine,” “Paw Patrol,” and other deemed “boy” shows. So, this morning, I turned on a new show for her. She loves Disney Princesses even though she doesn’t really know anything about them, so I tried out the TV show, “Tangled” (starring the princess, Rapunzel). I loved this movie, and so far I don’t have too much to say on the television show as this is most certainly not a show review. Something just struck me as I watched a portion of this episode and I knew I needed to write about it, cuz when I can’t get a thought out of my head no matter what I do, I know it needs to be written down.

Rapunzel is new to this princess gig. She is all dolled up in a gown and heels and struggling to walk down the aisle of her own coronation. After all, how do women walk in heels?! You can tell she has a spirit that wants to run free and a confidence to run with that spirit. She’d rather be barefoot and jumping mud puddles in the fields or really ANYWHERE except walking down that aisle.

Although I am very thankful for the change in the way girls and princesses are portrayed in these newer cartoons (growing up, I sincerely thought I needed a prince to be happy and I’d prefer there not to be Barbies in my house), I also hope I never give my daughter the impression that being classy and regal is not cool either. Or to be afraid to be the woman who walks in heels with all the class and chooses to wear lipstick every day. (I write more extensively on females empowering females in my post, Insecurity Cripples but Love Builds)

While I can personally relate to being uncomfortable all frilled up, I can also get caught up in that free-sprit, “don’t confine me,” “let me be me,””I’m just fine, thank you” attitude and that isn’t healthy either. After all, it’s super cool to be a take-no-crap, independent, confident woman these days, right?

Raising a boy AND a girl in this gender-sensitive, gender-confusing, gender-emphasizing  world has this momma going crazy at times. It can be insanely fun and intensely overwhelming at the same time. As I continue to learn more about my evolution as a woman even in my 30’s, I’ll just beg for grace to teach Lilia and Logan that it’s ok for a woman to be strong, but it’s also ok to be a little dependent. That it’s ok to be free-spirited, but it’s also ok to be put together. It’s ok to be confident, but it’s also ok to feel weak. It’s fine to be casual and rugged, but it’s more than ok to be feminine.

At the end of the day, whether its jeans/tshirt, heels/dresses, free-sprit, dependent, independent, classy, rugged, whatever we are, we are all unique and loved by our Father.

I guess I’m just trying to say, I just hope in our attempts to empower women we aren’t also pressuring them to be something that they aren’t.