A few weeks before my daughter’s fourth birthday, she asked me for a vacuum cleaner. She wanted a pink and white toy vacuum cleaner for her birthday present. Now most moms I know would say that was a great day for me, at least one of my children actually wanted to help clean the house, even if it was only pretend! It seemed innocent enough, a fun toy that makes whirring sounds as the little pink and white beads popped around inside. But the visceral response that I had at the notions of my little girl pushing around a vacuum cleaner told me that this was more than just a toy for me.

The truth is that it was more than just the vacuum. It was the tea parties and cooking, the pink skirts, and total disgust for bugs and frogs and dirt. My daughter was, and still is, a girlie-girl; and deep down I was appalled. After all, I am the product of a feminist mother. A woman who worked (and still does) in higher education and quietly propagated a mantra of women as scientists and mathematicians, not housewives and cleaning ladies. Don’t misunderstand; her grandmother, who raised her, was a cook at a resort in Jamaica; a fact that my mother proudly shared with me. Granny Daisy was a fabulous cook and in part, the source of our independent spirit and feminist ambition.

I was never led to believe that there was shame in domestic work but there was an underlying belief that it was my duty to show the world that those are not the only roles for women. Women can do anything and everything. Doctors, lawyers, professors, construction workers- these were the roles I wanted my daughter to understand were available for her and all little girls. I was consumed by raising a daughter who would not be allowed to be relegated to the kitchen or the laundromat but would instead pursue dreams of activism or athletics.

When my precious little girl was born I had visions of blue and green outfits and trucks and sports just like her brother. She would know that girls can do anything boys can do. As if the universe was laughing at me already, she came out pink, literally. Now black women don’t usually have pink babies, but somehow this brown-skinned woman gave birth to the pinkest and prettiest baby in the whole maternity ward. She looked up at me with silvery grey eyes that seemed to say, “Buy me a pink dress, Mommy.”

And so I did. I bought lots of cute pink dresses but I held on to my idea of what a good feminist mother should do. She had denim overalls and lots of sneakers. I would expose her to race cars and farm animals. And at every turn she would choose baby dolls and picnics over basketballs and bike riding. She’d take the cars and Legos I bought her and cook them in a pretend soup in her pretend kitchen. We’d go to the park and rather than play with her brother in the sandbox or go down the slide, she would find a bench and host a tea party for imaginary princesses. I was ok with all of that. She enjoyed different things and I certainly didn’t want her to feel that she had to fit into a mold or be just like her brother. But then came the request for a vacuum. I put my foot down. I would not buy a vacuum cleaner for my daughter. After all, what message would that send to her about women’s roles in life? Although I stayed home, I worked hard to show her all the other things I did as a graduate school student. Yet, all she wanted in life was a kitchen to play in and a vacuum cleaner to push. Somewhere I was falling short; she wasn’t getting the message. She could be anything, not just a mommy or a maid.

My husband was baffled. After all, wasn’t I the one who demanded that we buy our son a ‘girl’ toy if he ever wanted one (he never did) and let him take ballet when he showed an interest in dance (it faded quickly in the shadow of football); so why then would I refuse my baby girl such a simple request? Wouldn’t I have bought it for her brother had he asked?

I wasn’t sure right away but I knew that somehow it felt wrong. In spite of her relentless protests I stood firm, no vacuum. It felt like a throwback to decades I had only heard about where girls were told they needed to learn to cook and clean so they could “get a man” and that sports and science were “not ladylike.” But that was not the reality I wanted to raise my children in. In our house then, and now, everyone can do anything. They’ve watched me pursue a master’s degree and heard me pontificate on the joys of opening your mind to an endless array of academic and professional pursuits.

Although it took time, I finally realized that my daughter had gotten the message. She may scream at a spider but she had never backed down from anything in her three years of life. She was a leader in every sense of the word. She challenged her brother and anyone else that dared to ignore her voice. And even as she enters the tenuous world of pre-teen girlhood, she continues to stand strong. She is not a meek or timid girl that would allow herself to be limited by some arbitrary set of rules. She knows all the way down to her cute little pink polished toes that she can do anything she wants in this world. And she knew it then too.

Unfortunately, I had become the voice that, up until that moment, I had been fighting to keep out of my daughter’s ear. The voice that said you can be anything except___. I always believed that it would be some patriarchal imperative that would invade my circle of protection and try to chip away at her self-confidence. I thought it would be the lack of women’s faces in sports or science or the words of other little girls encouraging her to be less than so that a boy can feel like more that would attempt to erode her commitment to being herself. It turned out that it was me that would be the first to introduce uncertainty about the validity of her interests. My own reservoir of cultural norms and patriarchal rules simply twisted to fit a so-called feminist perspective was standing between my daughter and her dream vacuum.

I realize now that my resistance to that vacuum was based on the idea that there is something inferior or misguided in a woman who takes joy in cleaning her house or cooking a meal. It was shocking to think that within me there was a set of values that said who I am and who my daughter wanted to be was not “right” for modern women. Within me there lay a cultural bias that contradicted my beliefs about feminism and women. At my core I believe that feminism is about empowering women and all people to be exactly who they want to be. No system or arbitrary rule should place limits on the potential of young women, no matter what her goals are, even if they are to live in a “traditional” role. My mother lived by the idea that she could be everything and in doing so she taught me the value of being anything without trying to be everything. She taught me to know myself and choose my path rather than be forced into some idealized view of what women should be. That is what I want for my children but at that moment I was trying to force my little girl into my own idealized view of what she should be. That birthday vacuum cleaner smuddenly opened my eyes and I realized that my idea of what strong women looked like was standing in the way of honoring who my daughter really was.

Despite the years that I spent as a stay-at-home mother caring for my babies, cleaning my house, cooking for their father, I still held a deep-seated idea that smart, strong women do more than vacuum. And they do; but being intelligent and independent does not preclude doing laundry or cooking dinner for your family. Some of the most dynamic and powerful women I know “just stay home.” They are raising children who will change the lives of others and support husbands who are doing positive things in the world. And they do by being nurturers and caregivers; with home-cooked meals and clean carpets. So with a new found perspective on what it really meant to be a feminist mother, I bought the best, cutest little vacuum cleaner you’ve ever seen. She was only four but the love for that vacuum cleaner lasted till she was just big enough to use the real one. Many interests have come and gone in the years since that birthday, some fit the traditional “women’s role” and some don’t. Thankfully I have learned to welcome each one as another step in her journey to uncover all her talents and create a life that she can live on her own terms. After all, isn’t that really what feminism is about?

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ESTHER BOYKIN is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the co-owner of Group Therapy Associates, a psychotherapy practice in Haymarket. She specializes in working with couples and adolescents around relationship issues and trauma. She welcomes reader’s comments and questions and can reached at www.grouptherapyassociates.org or by calling 703-644-8041.