Here is the transcript from a Super Bowl LI Commercial for Audi:
“What do I tell my daughter?
Do I tell her, her Grandpa’s worth more than her Grandma?
That her Dad is worth more than her Mom?
Do I tell her that despite her education, her drive, her skills, her intelligence, she’ll automatically be valued as less than every man she ever meets?
Or maybe, I’ll be able to tell her something different.”

I was a little angry after watching that commercial. Was I angry with Audi? I think I was angry at this fictional Father/Narrator’s thoughts on what to tell his daughter.
I guess I was possibly angry with the writer? No…the entire concept. That’s what had me feeling a little angry.
It was the blatant materialistic nature of the concept of self-worth. There was something about that message that made me feel like I am supposed to view my daughter in a different light—like she is destined to be victimized.
I see her in a perfectly opposite light. She has an amazing personality, a personality that humbles me. She is a powerful thing, a force of nature. And she will be the one to determine her destiny.

So what do I tell my daughter?
I will tell her absolutely nothing.
To me, simply making her aware is a bad seed planted.
My daughter has an awful lot to be inspired by.
There are ceiling breakers, literal cloud-touchers like Amelia Earhart. She knows who Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks were and she knows what they did and how courageous they were. When she was a toddler we visited a military base where a uniformed lady graciously accepted our gift of freshly baked cookies. She couldn’t stop talking about “that army girl” for the rest of the day. We watched the Olympics together and we watched incredible female athletes do incredible things. I’ve told her about CEOs like Judith Faulkner, Maxine Clark and Mary Barra. For months on end I braided her hair as she watched the morning news where she was given daily updates on Hillary Clinton running for President of the United States. If she changed the channel, she could watch shining examples of success like Barbara Corcoran and Lori Greiner on Shark Tank.
She sees female superheroes kicking ass, and female leads in movies. When we watch a DVD, we watch all the bonus features and she watches interviews with female directors, producers, and animators.
She has a Grandma who has started what is essentially her own business at a stage in life where most are thinking about retirement. She is watching her own Mom starting her own business. She has and has had incredible, inspiring female teachers.
She is encouraged to be Loving and generous, compassionate and helpful

She has a Stay-At-Home Dad who Loves her and hugs her and tells her to “Toughen up. Get back in there.”
Get back in there and prove them wrong. Shine so brightly that they cannot ignore you.

She has no ceiling, she has no limits; her aspirations have no boundaries. She is blissfully and joyfully unaware of the depressing world that commercial tried to portray. She wants to be an artist, a zookeeper, a scientist and an inventor. She wants to learn ballet. She wants to be a nautical navigator. She wants to take up archery. She wants to be a restaurateur. Last week she decided that she wants to race in the Iditarod. She is showing a talent for snowboarding and wishes to pursue it, hence I am looking into lesson packages. She wants to be a Police Officer. She wants to run an office just like Mommy. She also wants to be a mother and a wife like Mommy and she wants to do it from Home, like me.
None, I repeat, none of these dreams strike her as unrealistic and I am right on board with her. There is no reason whatsoever for her to not accomplish everything I listed. Never once has she ever considered her gender to be a detriment. Her lack of awareness concerning sexism is one of the things that gives her power. For her, it is a non-issue. I will deny her that little drip of self-doubt. I want her successes and her failures to belong to, and to be blamed on no one and nothing but herself and her person, and for her to never even consider gender as a reason for her successes and failures.
Her dreams, her imagination, her fire blinds me. It’s an incredible thing to experience. I will do nothing to diminish that flame. That flame won’t burn so brightly forever. Life is frustrating and challenging enough without me telling her about it before she’s even ready to address whatever issues might or might not be coming her way. I will not set her up for disappointment before she even has a chance to meet the wide world.
There’s no way around it. At some point Lyd will experience sexism. When that happens, I want the experience to be raw and painful and shocking. I want her to be appalled and hurt and outraged at the concept of personal diminishment due to simply being a female.
Then, no matter what age she may be, I want to take her into my arms, I want to coax her dirty tear-streaked face upward and I want to look her in the eyes…
“Toughen up, Daughter. Get back in there.”