Meredith’s Musings

Clap for Her | article by MEREDITH MCKINNIE

Often, I find enlightenment in the bathroom stalls at school. Yes, graffiti is tacky, but I can’t help smiling when I see the words students have chosen to immortalize on the tiled walls. Over the summer, many of the bathrooms in my hall were painted, and sure enough, within the first few weeks of school, new little messages started popping up. Some of the amusing ones were “Viva la resistance” or “You can’t stop my voice from being heard,” or “How you going to paint over us like that?” Another simply said, “I like turtles.” Gradually, the back of the door started to fill up, in various shades of black and blue and sometimes neon. I’ve noticed female students use the messages as a way to communicate with one another, often strangers randomly responding to each other’s thoughts, impulsive pen pals.

Though the range of ages among students is expanding, I imagine these writers being 18-22 years of age, fresh out of high school, searching for how they fit in this big place far from home. The recent message I like most went as follows: “Just because she’s winning doesn’t mean you’re losing… just clap for her.” Perhaps the writer saw it on Pinterest in bright white writing with hearts in the background. Perhaps she came up with it on her own. Perhaps she felt isolated from a friend due to a recent accomplishment. But something inspired those words. And I loved the message, as I too often feel pressure due to others’ successes. I have to remind myself to be happy for them.

I don’t know when the seed of competition between women is first planted, but it inevitably grows. I remember my younger sister getting a sports car after first getting her license. I had a Hyundai Elantra, a sensible car, and felt somehow cheated. I don’t know what I was so jealous of? They both got us where we needed to go. In college, a friend would get best paper in a class I wasn’t even in, and I felt agitated by her success. In motherhood, the pressure just intensifies. We feel judged by the accomplishments or lack thereof of our children, but why? Comparison breeds resentment, and I have to constantly tell myself this. If another family is going to Disney World, it doesn’t mean my kids are robbed of something. If another family is able to afford lavish gifts for their children, it doesn’t mean mine aren’t loved enough. It feels silly even typing the words, as if the sentiment is obvious, but yet, I still need to keep telling myself.

As someone who champions the cause of women in my professional life, who constantly shows up for my sisters when they succeed, my goal is for those actions to transform my thoughts. I want to cheer because I’m cheering inside, not just because it’s what I should do. I want to feel happy for them. I am trying to unlearn that gut reaction of comparison, that somehow their success lessens my self-worth. We can’t all shine at the same time, and some may shine more than others. Life is not fair in that way. But we can use other’s success as inspiration, or simply admire someone’s light from afar. Smile for them. Clap for them. And know that often their success has absolutely nothing to do with me, and my insistence on making it about me is nothing but my ego rearing its ugly head.

Raising two daughters, particularly so close in age, I want to foster an environment of inclusion, of rooting for each other, of genuine kinship. I’m trying to be careful of my language, not pitting them against one another, but cheering for both of their accomplishments, big or small. Show them that the love I have for them is infinite, that one sister can’t take love from the other. Show them that one girl’s victory is just another reason for celebration, regardless of who owns the moment. Starting now, perhaps I can shift that impulse to compete, that Wilder will know that Fable winning is a reason to cheer, and that regardless of who’s shining, we all will clap for her.