9/25 Daughter's Day

There’s something kind of beautiful about Daughter’s Day falling on 9/25 this year.

Because 9 to 5 means it’s also Dolly Day.

And in this house, that makes it extra special because my girls LOVE Dolly. So celebrating daughters and Dolly Parton on the same day feels pretty damn fitting. 😂💕

Daughters are such an interesting thread through a family.

Before we are mothers, grandmothers, wives, aunts, sisters, caretakers, business owners, teachers, farmers, nurses, dreamers, or whatever else life eventually calls us, many of us are first somebody’s daughter.

And somehow, we never really stop being one.

A daughter can be five years old with grass-stained knees and tangled hair, or fifty-five years old still calling her mom to ask how long to cook the roast.

She can be loud or quiet. Tough or tender. Wildly independent or happiest surrounded by her people. She can be creative, stubborn, compassionate, misunderstood, fearless, sensitive, messy, polished, or somehow all of those things before breakfast.

Mine are sometimes feral.

Sometimes bougie.

And sometimes they look like they should be lined up with the Little Giants, covered in dirt, yelling at each other, missing a shoe, and fully convinced whatever questionable plan they’ve come up with is absolutely going to work.

Honestly, I love every version.

Because daughters are not one thing.

They carry pieces of the women who came before them, even while becoming completely their own.

A grandmother’s recipe.

A mother’s laugh.

An aunt’s stubborn streak.

A great-grandmother’s eyes.

A strength nobody even realizes has been traveling through generations until suddenly you see it show up again in a little girl standing in front of you.

That might be one of my favorite parts of raising daughters.

I get a front-row seat to three completely different girls becoming themselves.

My oldest is at that age where she is really starting to find her own skin. Her own style. Her own opinions. Her own boundaries. Her own voice.

There is something incredibly beautiful about watching a girl begin to realize she does not have to become a copy of anybody else.

Meanwhile, her two younger sisters watch her like she personally invented being cool.

They want to do what she does, wear what she wears, know what she knows, and be included in everything she touches.

Of course, this deep admiration also occasionally presents itself as jealousy, tattling, slammed doors, dramatic injustice, and accusations that somebody got approximately three more sprinkles than somebody else.

Sibling territory.

But underneath all of that is something much bigger.

They are watching each other grow.

Learning from one another. Challenging one another. Loving one another.

And adding another chapter to a long line of daughters who came before them.

And then there are the daughters who aren’t technically ours.

The barn kids. The rodeo kids. The girls who somehow find their way into your life and quietly claim a piece of your heart.

The ones you cheer for, worry about, fuss at, encourage, feed, haul around, teach, hug when they need it, and celebrate like crazy when they finally do the thing they didn’t think they could do.

They may not call me Momma, and I may not be the one raising them under my roof, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love them fiercely.

Those girls hold a very special place in my heart too.

Because sometimes you get lucky enough to love daughters you gave birth to.

And sometimes life hands you a few extras.

That’s the thing about daughters.

They are not just the little girls we raise.

They become the women who carry stories forward.

The ones who remember recipes, repeat sayings, break cycles, start new traditions, call home, build homes, leave home, come back home, and eventually become part of somebody else’s story too.

I am ridiculously lucky that three of those daughters call me Momma.

And incredibly lucky that a few others have let me love them in my own way along the way.

So today I’m celebrating all of them.

The little daughters. The grown daughters. The daughters still figuring themselves out. The daughters missing their mothers. The mothers who are still very much somebody’s little girl.

The biological daughters.

The bonus daughters.

The barn daughters.

The rodeo daughters.

The girls we raise, the girls we mentor, the girls we cheer for, and the girls who somehow become family without anybody ever needing to officially say it.

The generations before us, and the girls coming up behind us.

Happy Daughter’s Day.

And Happy Dolly Day to the woman my girls already know proves you can be kind, funny, feminine, tough as hell, and completely yourself all at the same time.

Not a bad thing for a whole bunch of daughters to grow up loving. 💕✨