what our daughters really need

Anyone else read Elizabeth Esther? Anyone else following the Donald Miller blog saga? I didn't read the original post, and now it's been taken down. So my only opinion, really, is on EE's posts.

Do you know what I hope for my daughter?

I hope she can read a blog post from an author she really likes, and, rather than assuming she only deserves a man who doesn't respect women, she will think, wow, that was a stupid blog. And move on.

The better you know me in real life, the more likely it is that at some point you have looked me in the eye and said, "God you are stubborn." It's true, I am. If my mind is made up, there is nothing - no amount of arguing or pleading, no mishap or turn of bad fortune - that is likely to change my mind. There are times when this is to my detriment, of course (it turns out that sometimes people have a better idea than mine. Who knew). But in many ways, being stubborn is my finest quality. It means that I am not easily swayed.

I hope that I give my daughter that kind of stubbornness. I hope she has the confidence to read something, even by someone she respects, and roll her eyes. I hope she has the ability to be a wise consumer of information, to weigh opinion against truth, to hear differing perspectives and not be dismayed. I hope her worth as a person, or her value in a relationship, will not be drawn from popular authors of her time, but from a lifetime of love and affirmation from this vast canopy of family and friends into which she was fortunate enough to be born. Most of all, I hope her faith will not be threatened by the bickering and snipping among believers, but that she will see through the backbiting to the God who loves us all.

That is what our daughters really need.