With Mother’s Day approaching, I am reminded of an event that I participated in this past February called Leaders & Daughters, put on in cities around the world by Egon Zehnder “to provide a forum for addressing both the gender divide and the opportunity gap faced by the next generation of women leaders.”

As part of the event, they asked attendees and speakers to write letters to their daughters, which were then posted on the Leaders & Daughters website. If you have a chance, you should definitely check out some of these beautiful letters!

I’ll be honest — I still have not written my letter.  

One reason for my delay is that every time I attempt to write a meaningful letter to my 14-year-old daughter, I start to cry. Yes, it’s true. Cry. Like a baby.

I think one reason for my emotional reaction is that I think about her growing up and that makes me happy and sad at the same time. I’m sure every mother reading this can relate, whether you have sons or daughters or both!

Also, I have SO MUCH I want and need to tell my daughter that I cannot possibly put it in a single letter, and I guess that’s overwhelming to me. There’s so little time before she’s grown and flown, and so much work left for me to do.

Finally, as mothers, we all know that the “real world” can be a pretty scary place. One of the reasons we started Après is to make at least the working world a slightly better place for our daughters (and our sons!). I am hopeful that we will make even greater progress this year.

So, on this Mother’s Day, my goal is to finish that letter to my daughter… tears and all.

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