Legally Blonde? We Should Hope the Same For All of Our Daughters

Sometimes I just don’t have the time to get up and change the TV channel and end up with some odd movie playing in the background while I’m busy going through records…

This afternoon is no different and Legally Blonde came on

Perspective is a funny thing.

I’ve watched this movie possibly several dozen times, it has been a welcome comic break from life.

Today it was something different. At the beginning of the movie once Elle decides she’s going to Harvard to win back the boy who just dumped her, her parents are explaining to her that she doesn’t need to do that because she is pretty.

She manages to get into Harvard and gets taunted and humiliated all the way but finally comes into her own because of her determination (and her brains) and you see her focus change from lovesick little girl into a powerful woman.

She does appear to be an airhead but I realized something very shameful (to me)… She is just like my daughter. She is not world wise, she is not hardened, she still believes that wishes come true.

I have done everything I can to take that out of her because I know the world is hard and it is cruel and I had no idea what she would do in life.

Now she has a wonderful husband who shields her and protects her, even from me. He gets on my case and tells me mom she’s not like other people that’s why I love her so much, I promise I will take care of her and try to protect her from this world. Now they have a daughter that I’m afraid is going to grow up bubbling wishes and sunshine.

It’s not that I dislike my daughter, it is that I am terrified for her and for my granddaughter. I wish we could all go around giving each other butterfly kisses and hugs but that is not the world we live in.

Worse yet she lives in Guatemala, a place where her husband has to go out to the back first and make sure there is not a dead body in the yard. A place where stray dogs abound by the 100’s and that my son in law has to spend hundreds of dollars every month feeding because my daughter seen them.

At the end of the movie, I cried. Mostly because I was ashamed of myself. Most of my true friends are much like Elle and my daughter and I value their loving compassionate heart but I haven’t done the same for my own child. Most of my best friends are like me, world wary and battle worn and the funny thing is: Most of their children are like my daughter.

My message isn’t to all the dreamers and the people who believe in people. My message is to those who are like me: If you have children please don’t make them like us, let them dream, let them wish upon a star, but most of all learn from them

Please keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart

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