The getting of wisdom: a letter to my daughter

My darling daughter, I still have so much to tell you. I would never dare dictate how you must be, or what you must think, as you have such a firm sense of who you are – once, exasperated that people kept telling you, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” you sighed heavily and said to me, “I want to be the tree.”

But after a life spent thinking about the often fraught yet glorious lot of women, I wanted to write these thoughts down for you.

First, demand respect, and give it. Sometimes, when you do this, you will feel insane, or be told that you are. Persist.

Use your brain. You will doubtless be praised for your sunny face, your kind ways and your grace, but you must also always use, protect and stretch your fine brain. Women threw themselves under horses, starved, marched and fought for you to be able to speak and be honoured.

Find friends with true hearts and love them long and loyally.

Never take your family for granted; love them unwaveringly. Practise forgiveness on all of them.

Keep in mind that the most important quality in a person is goodness. If you ever decide to loop your heart to another’s for life, make sure they possess a rare goodness, a decency that doesn’t crumble under fire. Beyond the head-spinning intoxication and stomach-curdling craving, beyond the fireworks and first flames, goodness is what matters.

Don’t make the mistake of dismissing decency as dullness. A sense of safety might be rarer than you think. So while we’re talking about relationships …

Know this, too: you deserve love. Real, enduring love. Buckets of it.

Remember Stalin. Every young woman, on the cusp of the volcanic desires of adolescence, should be shown a photograph of the young Joseph Stalin. Before he became a dictator who murdered millions, he was a revolutionary and romantic poet with thick, foppish hair, intense dark eyes and a handsome face – the kind of boy you might find yourself kissing in the back corner of a bar, oblivious to all eyes, clocks and caution.

Google him. Young Stalin was hot. But clearly not a keeper, as he was also a brute, a tyrant and a bad husband, who drank heavily, argued frequently and flirted with other women. He addressed his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, with “Hey, you!” and arrested her friends after they told her he was butchering people.

At age 31, Nadezhda shot herself after a humiliating public fight with Stalin at a dinner party, during which he had flicked cigarettes at her. I wonder how different Nadezhda’s life would have been if she’d learnt how to X-ray charm, distinguish between passionate intensity and true love, and identify signs of aggression, manipulation, abuse and control in even the most nascent relationship.

You know this is something I have reported on, a lot. At least we know so much more about which relationships to avoid than we did when I was a kid, when much violence against women was just “a domestic”. But still you must avoid people who would control, criticise or diminish you, in any way, or are jealous of you or make you feel small, or are drawn to your strength but then suck it dry. Stay with those who bring you comfort, understand you, and allow you to flower.

Know this, too: you deserve love. Real, enduring love. Buckets of it. Love is the greatest high on Earth. But remember Proverbs 4:23: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”

Be You. Be the best version of yourself you can be. Work to understand, and show, what it means to have integrity.

Know that you are loved. Credit: iStock

Dare. Don’t worry about what people think. Grasp every opportunity you are given and run at full pelt.

Don’t let the world crush your astonishing spirit. Once, when you were about six, we had parked on the road opposite our apartment and you were in a bad mood, angry about something, or just hungry, I can’t remember now. I was asking you to wait before we crossed the road, as I was scooping up your brother from the baby seat with one arm and gathering up groceries with the other. Repeatedly, I asked you to wait. Then I looked up and saw you walking across the road, slowly and deliberately.

When you reached the middle, you turned, paused, placed a hand on your hip and stared back at me. I called out sharply to you to watch the traffic, but inside I was torn: you were being such a little rotter, and putting yourself in danger, but the look on your face was pure pluck and rebellion.

Know that bad times will pass. They always do. Rubbish will get tipped into your life, occasionally vats of it, and sometimes this will be your fault and you must try to learn from it. But at other times it will be deeply unfair and all you can do is control the way you respond to it. Speak your piece but don’t complain; draw yourself to your full height. Keep moving, place one foot in front of the other, and know it will pass. If it won’t, do what you can to change it. But walk tall. Don’t descend to nastiness and vitriol, ever. As Michelle Obama so beautifully put it, “When they go low, we go high.” Find what makes you resilient.

Keep reading history. Actually, keep reading everything, but especially history – lives have been lived we can barely imagine. In that history you will find a seething mass of humanity that is always striving and reaching and falling and screwing up and being small and large all at once. You’ll learn that basic rights can be rapidly eroded, and evil flourishes when good people look the other way. You will find that humans are capable of extraordinary tenderness and extreme brutality, all in the one day.

That one person can contain breathtaking contradictions, sinners can have moments of greatness, and saints can have streaks of darkness. Understanding this is crucial, as you will come to recognise what it is you can accept in yourself and others. You will also see that character is partly innate and partly built: make habits out of kindness, compassion, discipline, humility and honesty. Work hard on them. This will give you an unseen and magical strength.

Buy a really beautiful dress, one that makes you feel you were born in the planets, at least once in your life, and wear it like a queen. Actually, buy more than one. When you were a toddler you were baffled by the idea that it wasn’t normal to wear a tutu or sparkling frock every day of the week. Why stick your best clothes in the back of the cupboard, you thought, when you can saunter down the street in them this very day?

We went out for “fancy” family dinners in the local cafe, and one night you ordered me to dress properly. Which is how I found myself walking up Columbus Avenue in Manhattan pushing your brother in a stroller, holding the lead of our dog, wearing a gold-sequined minidress, and trying to balance in my heels. You walked alongside with your father, beaming.

Illustration by Liz RowlandCredit:

Listen hard. Show respect to every single person you meet, as well as those you don’t meet. See the best in them. Be the kind of person who makes others feel better about themselves, the world, everything – lift people up, don’t tear them down. Try to understand what grace is, and how it can stitch together an abyss, and can conjure the unthinkable.

Never expect another person to support you. This will free you. Find your purpose, or purposes, and live a life of meaning. Work hard to achieve financial independence, and buy a small place to live in as soon as you can.

Walk lightly on the earth. Be at peace with God. Never mock another person’s beliefs. Allow yourself, and other people, to make mistakes. Accept your family for their frailties. Love your brother, as he will always be your greatest ally.

Stare down bullies and don’t walk past people in pain. But allow yourself to be vulnerable. Cultivate a sense of humour. Show mercy to yourself as well as others. Look at the world, and try to shift obstacles blocking other people’s paths to equality and contentment, as well as your own.

When in doubt, uncertain of yourself and frustrated by everything, focus on other people. We have a saying in my family: “Some people are penthouse people and some people are basement people.” In other words, encountering friends, or strangers, can be like hopping into a lift. By the end of a conversation, or time together, you might feel lighter, happier, cheered. That’s a person who takes you to the penthouse. Or you might feel strangely flattened, a bit down. That’s a person who has taken you to the basement.

Your Pa, your Nan and your uncles are the former. You, too, should be a penthouse person: uplift people and show them love; don’t be quick to judge or criticise; look for the best in everyone; and remember what it is you share.

Lend a hand to anyone who needs it. Stand by those who are being trolled, or picked on.

Always buy the underpants that match the bras – without guilt. Accumulate, slowly, beautiful or sturdy furniture, and surround yourself with things that you love. Delight in generosity, learn its joy. Pray, or meditate, often. Find the kind of art that thrills you, and drink it in. Dance as often, and for as long, as you like. Inhale music.

Be fair. I know I have told you this so many times, but truly: treat other people the way you want them to treat you. Unless they are hurting you, being cruel to someone, or making people suffer, in which case you should run to safety or wither them to sticks with one of your stares.

Know you are loved. When you were born, the world rebooted and my heart permanently cracked open. It was like you had suddenly darted out of a portal from another world and landed on my chest, immediately staring into my eyes. You were instantly formed: stubborn, funny, flamboyant and confident, you defied anyone to stand in your way.

I was wheeling you around Central Park when you said your first word – dog! – and I held your hand when you wobbled your way to your first steps. You were never interested in crawling; you went straight up from the floor and into the world.

I marvelled, still do. I rode behind you in Paris when, even aged just 11, your feet didn’t touch the ground when you rode a bike along cobbled streets. It didn’t deter you; you used walls as your brakes.

You have taught me so much. About certainty, confidence, style and first-guessing. When you went through a lengthy phase of wearing your shoes on the wrong feet (mostly by accident), if anyone upbraided you, you’d stare back and say, “That’s Poppy style.”

You are so loved for exactly who you are.

Know that being a woman is magnificent. Soon you will be a young woman, blazing away on the Earth. Remember – as the female Indigenous elders taught me in Arnhem Land – that your elders and ancestors give you an authority; the authority of being female in this world. Of being strong and certain and bold. Of being able to create and nurture life. There are a million ways to be a woman: find your own and revel in it.

Shrug off anyone who would tell you to be less than you are. But perhaps I don’t need to worry about that. A moment ago, I sent you a text message asking you if there was anything I needed to know about your day and you replied, “Yeah you need to know that I am awesome.” And I wondered if – or hoped that – this might be the beginning of you demanding not praise, but respect.

Edited extract from Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and the Things that Sustain You When the World Goes Dark, by Julia Baird (Fourth Estate, $33), out on Monday.

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