Where is the ambition?

Where is the ambition?

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Last week I was involuntarily brought into a conversation about a particular young lady’s career goals and I was actually left without words throughout that discussion.  The young woman has spent most of her early twenties as a stripper and an urban magazine model (think subzero).  She attempted to enter the work force and held down an office job for a few months while continuing to strip at night.  Currently this woman is in her late twenties and she was asked, what are you doing with your life?  Her answer left me speechless because it was both honest yet disappointing.  Her reply was, I’m still stripping and doing magazine shoots because there is no job out there for me. 

I had absolutely nothing to say in this conversation because I did not know where to start.  I knew for sure that the money she was making doing partially nude magazine shoots and from stripping was way more than what she would earn as an entry level account executive in most industries. So the question that plagued me was how did she get to this point, and is she really in a bad place, because honestly who am I to judge her income resources- as long as she harms no one. 

I also wondered what where her ambitions, have they changed over time or does she even have any ambitions other than to attempt to acquire wealth through the fast means of hyper sex.  I have no concrete opinion or feeling regarding her situation because for me it feels like judgment, but what I do have a concrete view on is how we shape and mold our little girls to ensure their paths can hopefully be absent of them having to sexually exploit themselves to survive in capitalist America.  

It is the job of the village of older women to actively teach the little girls, adolescents and young women around them their value.  Push your girls into the arts, math and sciences.  Force them to use their brains in ways that you would have never thought of at their age.  Make your girls read EVERYTHING.  Keep them informed on the world’s current events.  Take the little ladies to tea rooms, opera’s, science museums and children’s hospital to show the complexities of life. Encourage your girls to find mentors (shadow everything), join sports teams and enter academic competitions.  And never ever, ever compete with your daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters or cousins.  Competition and/or envy from a mother to a daughter and woman to woman is almost a sure shot to send that relationship to hell and add some issues to the pile that life will dump on her anyway. 

This is not a perfect formula to guarantee your girls won’t end up in XXL magazine or twerking at Magic City, but it will increase the odds of you raising a more well-rounded woman that has some culture with exposure in life including formal and informal academic pedigree.  And with this there will be a greater level of ambition for her adult endeavors.

What do you think?

ASHE’

Selah Rey