dear Bridget: the respect

Dear Bridget,

At this point in your life, you’ve no doubt heard a lot of lectures about authority. About how you should respect authority figures. And you’ve got a lot of those—teachers, parents, friends’ parents, etc. But as you get older, those authority figures will become fewer and fewer.

Don’t get me wrong, there will be plenty of people who will attempt to be authorities. But here’s a secret: once you’re an adult, you get to have more control over who’s an authority in your life. (more…)

dear Bridget: be okay with you

Dear Bridget,

You may not think so now, but it’s kind of a cool thing to be in the process of growing up.

The older you get, the more you grow to know and understand yourself. You get to encourage the traits you like, reshape the ones you don’t. You can look at people you admire and emulate the positive traits you see in them.

You’re shaping yourself. You’re becoming something, choosing what kind of adult you want to be. (more…)

dear Bridget: never surrender

Dear Bridget,

Yesterday was Women’s Equality Day. On that day, in 1920, American women were granted the right to vote. The name is a bit of a misnomer—being able to vote didn’t automatically result in equality—but it was a step in the right direction.

There were some incredible people, like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who fought a long, hard war so that you and I could cast our votes and have a say in the decisions of our country. Both those women died before they could see the victory they’d fought for. I’m sure there were days when they thought they were Don Quixotes, battling windmills that would only keep turning. No doubt they had moments when they were sure their hard work was in vain.

But it wasn’t. (more…)