A Letter to My Three-Year-Old Daughter: The Future Is Still Female. It Is You.

My little Satya,

I thought when you woke up this morning we would celebrate with ice cream for breakfast—a sweet treat to toast the new lady President we've been talking about for so many months.

It was a joy to take you to the polls yesterday, in matching "The Future is Female" shirts, no less—a cheeky little girl-to-girl wink we giggled about all day.

And nothing was more hopeful than inviting your girlfriends and their mamas over for an election night party—an evening of women celebrating girls and the country you were about to inherit. We can listen to as much Beyonce as humanly possible—and you and I sure do test the limits—but to truly know who runs the world, well, you can't just dance to it. You have to see it.

So we stayed up way past bedtime, eating pizza and cookies, waiting for the moment where I would scoop you into my arms and tell you, in no uncertain terms, it had happened. That we gave you a world with no ceiling—leaving a limitless expanse for your rise. That your tomorrows and the tomorrows of your daughter, born on the dreams of Susan and Hillary, Gloria and Betty, had taken shape.

I had hoped to write you a very different letter tonight, little one. But it's with hope that I write this one.

Because the truth is, things don't always go the way you want them to. And while you can cry and stomp a bit—I did, I felt better after—you can't quit caring. You don't threaten to pack up and leave and you don't blame other people. It's at these moment that you commit to staying, to participating, and to finding something to work towards rather than clinging to something to complain about. As you so wisely say to me: "You get what you get and you don't get upset." It's sort of oddly perfect.

I know we don't have a woman president. But that doesn't make you any less capable. Or valuable. It doesn't make me any less optimistic. Sure, for your third birthday, I thought we would gift you with the first female POTUS, a solid statement that you, truly, could achieve anything you wanted in your life. You still can.

A wise woman said: "America is great, because America is good". And that won't change.

Just remember, America isn't just yours, it's yours to make better. So stand for justice and equality and for others who don't have as much as you do. Be compassionate, even when you don't agree with someone. And when there's disappointment, because darling, there always will be, let yourself feel the low and then set your sights on the next high. That's the American spirit.

And, my love, the future is still female. The future is you.

Love,

Mama