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1 " Never play the princess when you canbe the queen:rule the kingdom, swing a scepter,wear a crown of gold.Don’t dance in glass slippers,crystal carving up your toes --be a barefoot Amazon instead,for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet.Never wear only pinkwhen you can strut in crimson red,sweat in heather grey, andshimmer in sky blue,claim the golden sun upon your hair.Colors are for everyone,boys and girls, men and women --be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles,not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside.Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies,fierce and fiery toothy monsters,not merely lazy butterflies,sweet and slow on summer days.For you can tame the most brutish beastswith your wily wits and charm,and lizard scales feel just as smoothas gossamer insect wings.Tramp muddy through the house ina purple tutu and cowboy boots.Have a tea party in your overalls.Build a fort of birch branches,a zoo of Legos, a rocketship ofQueen Anne chairs and coverlets,first stop on the moon.Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls,bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle,not Barbie on the runway orDisney damsels in distress --you are much too strong to playthe simpering waif.Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy,paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood.Learn to speak with both your mind and heart.For the ground beneath will hold you, dear --know that you are free.And never grow a wishbone, daughter,where your backbone ought to be. "
― Clementine Paddleford
