Meg Reads: Mother Daughter Book Club Edition

My 2020 goal to read more is going well. During Quarantine, I had a mom friend zoom with Tia G, Julie S, Jill M, and Katie G abd I asked what everyone is reading (they are all avid readers so I knew I’d get great suggestions from them! We decided to have a mother daughter book club! Jill, Ruby, and Shirley were our zoom “hosts” and chose The Confidence Code for Girls. 

This was so fun to read and to discuss together.  I liked the way the book described what confidence is NOT. Confidence is not putting others down to build yourself up. It is not focusing on what others think and feel about you. It is not being successful every time.  

This book dives into the necessity for failure and discomfort. Being willing to accept any possible outcome and just trying. And that even if all of the risk analysis, acceptance of calculations of what could go wrong, visualizations of success, practice, self coaching, baby steps, perseverance and support from loved ones and stick-with-it-woman of action-actions  fail us and we still lack confidence, we can just do hard things anyway. Some life experiences cannot here avoided and some of those are just difficult, potentially painful, even. Those are the things we can go into with the gumption to just accept our feelings about it as they are and do it anyway. And we can tell ourselves we are just going to “do it afraid.” This spoke to me. 

I hate going to court. I hate it hate it hate it.  It is a necessary part of my calling as a foster mother. But it is uncomfortable and challenging and I’ve left court completely devastated and broken enough times that I just hate the whole experience.   I’ve seen too many people hurt and let down-failed by the system-that I do not enjoy going to court. But I do, because I believe in my role as an advocate for the children in my care. And regardless of the outcome, I need to do the best I can to get them what they need and deserve. So I go. But I love the way the book offers confidence in the form of “doing it afraid.”  Confidence is not success or failure. It is the willingness to try. The action of just DO-ing.  Just keep going, stay on the path, and try, try, try. 

We also talked about perfectionism, gender inequalities: what does confidence look like (to the world) for a boy your age vs a girl? What does it REALLY look like?  We talked about sincere apologies, and apology avalanches, catastrophic thinking, friendship and loyalty, being direct in getting our needs met and in asking for something. 

We talked about the limitations of judging people without getting to know them. 

We circled back to the methods in the book for addressing failures to allow for future growth vs staying stuck. 

We also laughed a lot.  

I loved hearing the different thoughts and ideas each of the wonderful women in this group had. My daughters loved it, too. We are “confident” that we will do this again!