Happy 13th birthday. This will be such an exciting year of change and growth for you that I particularly want us to keep in close touch with one another. Both of us are undergoing major transitions, so I hope we can understand and empathize with each other. I asked Grandma what she wished she had said to me on my thirteenth birthday. She didn't have to think about her answer. "Tell me everything. There's nothing you could conceivably do or say that I can't handle. You don't have to protect me from anything you feel or do." I liked that. I wished she had told me that when I was 13 What was left unsaid did far more lasting damage than anything that was said. So that's part of what I want to say to you as you blossom into womanhood.
I have lived 27 and 3/4 more years in the world than you have. I will be delighted to share any of my experiences with you, well aware that you have to find your own path. Sometimes I will forget and try to turn you into a newer, better me. I want you to point out what I'm doing when I do that. As you grow older, I identify more and more with you, so I will have to struggle not to force my old aspirations on you. But I have tried very hard in the past to respect your individuality. You were a distinct, dynamic individual from the moment you were born. I remember looking into your gorgeous, alert, intelligent eyes the day you were born and wondering if you would be too much for me. And sometimes you are. I am trying very hard to grow up enough to be a good mother to you. I have always loved your spirited determination to be your own person, what Barbara Williams, your nursery school teacher, called "your considerable sense of self." I want you to continue to feel free to tell me when I am making an obvious mistake with you or a not so obvious one.
I am glad you are so close to your father. My own teenage years would have been far happier if I hadn't been so intimidated by my father, so afraid of arguing with him, so afraid of getting close. You never have to choose between us; we will try to give you opportunities to be alone with each of us. You already know what very different people we are, but we are equally proud of our beautiful, brilliant, spirited daughter.
The worst thing that happened to me as a teenager is that I felt compelled to choose between my feminine and my intellectual sides. You live in a very different world, but you still will receive a lot of contradictory messages about what is really important. Don't choose. You can be both. Look at Aunt Jackie and Aunt Lynn, for example. A boy who holds your intelligence against you isn't capable of befriending or loving the real you. Don't waste time on such boys or men.
At this stage of your life close female friendships are far more important than boyfriends. At no stage of your life will close women friends cease to be vitally important. The longer I live, the more convinced I am that men and women are very different. Our world desperately needs women's unique qualities. Women need not become like men to succeed in life. Women need to support and understand one another. I would never go so far as one psychologist did when she wrote a book entitled, "Men Are Just Desserts." But don't ever neglect your girlfriends for some boy. I hope you continue to have friends like Michael who happen to be boys. I think that is particularly important because you don't have brothers or male cousins you see regularly. Peer pressure still discourages men and women from being "just friends," but I hope you can withstand that premature emphasis on pairing off. Daddy was my friend before he was my lover and my husband.
For most of this century mothers and daughters have been at odds with each other. That has been a tragic loss for women in general. Ideally your mother should be your most ardent supporter and confidant. No one, except your future husband, will probably ever love you more. In fact mothers have an even better track record than husbands. I hope we can continue to be friends. I know we will fight, but fighting doesn't diminish our closeness. Look at me and Daddy. When you were born, Uncle Stephen said, "Good, Mary Jo has a daughter she can fight with. That should make her very happy." He remembered my epic battles with my mother.
I hope we can continue to share books with each other. That might be one of the best ways for you to teach me lessons that you think I need to learn. Find me the right book to read. I often learn more from books than from my own mistakes. And you can always write notes to me if you find something too difficult to say. I can express myself in writing far better than I can face-to-face. I don't know if you're the same way, but you could try. I promise to save all your letters to hand down to your daughters. Wouldn't you have loved to see a letter from me to my mother at age 13? I would love to see it too. Recently I have remembered more of my teenage years. I'm glad. Getting to know teenage Mary Jo again will help me to be kinder to teenage Emma.
