If you were to see me on the street it's highly likely you wouldn't consider me feminine.  I don't have a very feminine walk.  I feel funny if I attempt to do things like swish my hips or wear a dress.  Heels only seem to accentuate my rather wide, large, flat feet.  I have always admired the way aprons look on other women...so feminine and pretty.  If I put one on I would probably feel out of place and shy...even in my own home.  As you can imagine...this creates problems sometimes.  I wish I were more feminine.  I wish that I could feel more like a lady;  especially when out in public (or in private) with my husband.  It has created problems with my self esteem and our marriage.  I know he would love for me to be feminine...and the older I get the more feminine I become, but it has taken time and I'm STILL a work in progress.

Ladies, it's our job to teach our daughters to be feminine.  Femininity doesn't have to be flowers and roses all the time (I don't believe so anyway).  It can be something as simple as putting on a little makeup or a hairdo that makes you feel pretty.  Our daughters see the way we act and often times will imitate us.  Shouldn't we be the best example possible?  I wish that my mother had taught me more about being feminine.  I think that I would have more self-confidence .  I think it would be easier to teach my daughter to be feminine if I knew more myself.  It's hard to teach something you're unsure of. We teach our daughters to read.  We teach them to chew with their mouths closed, how to sit gracefully in a skirt...and maybe even how to put some makeup on.  I think it's imperative that we teach them other things too.  Teaching them to cook, sew, decorate and put together an adorable outfit may not be skills some women find necessary in today's corporate-infused world, but in the long run these things will enrich our daughters' lives.  They will be happier, more self-assured and more confident.  They will make their families' lives richer just by being themselves.

I'm still learning a lot at my age...I learn from wonderful women like Shiloah.  I learn from books, the internet...any way I can find out something new I do!  I still don't know how to cut a pattern.  I want to be able to sew beautiful clothes for my daughters (and sons).  I want to learn how to decorate a home to feel more like a home and not just a place to sleep and store furniture.  I want to teach my daughters to be good wives and mothers.  I don't want them to make the same mistakes I have in my marriage.  It can make for some very trying times.  My husband came from a home where his mother had both worked and stayed at home during various times in his life, but she was a woman who knew how to make the men in her life happy.  I grew up learning how to be independent...with no true model of how a marriage should be.

Much of my married life has been spent learning.  It's been spent learning how to truly love a man, how to keep a household organized, and how to be a good mother.  I've spent it making mistakes.  I've spent it truly learning who I am.  I want my daughters to know who they are when they enter the "real world".   I think femininity encompasses all these things, and so much more.

I want better for my daughters.  Do you?  If you do then it's important that you help to teach them...because if we don't teach our daughters what being feminine truly is then who will? And how will they learn?  Will they think being feminine means wearing skirts that barely cover their backsides?  Will they think it is nothing but using body language to get what you want?  What does femininity mean to you...and how do you show it to your daughters?

 
“The woman's mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities.”

~ Margaret Thatcher ~

Kristen is a stay-at-home mom to four kiddos, aged 10, 7, 3 and (not quite) 10 months.  She lives in a small town in South Carolina with her soulmate, kiddos and assorted pets.  She blogs at Hands, House, and Heart Full about her life and learning how to be a better Christian, wife, and mother...while learning that life doesn't have to be as serious as she thinks.   

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