We were told daughters need protection, daughters need help, daughters need supervision.
Daughters need fathers.
We were told a daughter is a princess, and her father is the king. It doesn’t matter if this daughter is 5 or 35 years old. She is bound to her father’s kingdom, waiting for an approved prince to marry her and become her new protector.
I was one of those stay-at-home daughters. . . .
Read MoreBarlowGirl was a band made of three sisters, who wore a little bit of black leather, used black eyeliner, had hair with layers, and played guitar and drums like real rockers. To make it all okay (at least in my mind at the time), they sang about topics that had real impact on my life: modesty and purity. I was in love. I could listen to music with an actual beat and still be able to say I was being edified in my faithfulness as a stay-at-home daughter. . . .
Church has often felt like eyes staring at me. The eyes of other churchgoers: women who have given me the up-and-down modesty assessment, men I have been afraid of “causing to stumble” by any accidental skirt blowing, the little girls for whom I was taught I should be a model of virtuous womanhood. And then, of course, the eyes of God, which felt much further away, but still always watching me as if to catch all my mistakes. It felt like the eyes were always staring in judgment, looking to see if I fit the description of a “godly young woman.” I didn’t feel grace in those glances. I didn’t feel acceptance. I had a difficult time imagining God looking down on me in love. . . .
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