Last Thursday, my social media feed was flooded with special posts from parents celebrating their daughters. Happy National Daughters Day, the posts read, along with personal messages and photographs of happy times.

Daughters Day had almost come and gone before I realized it.

You see, on Thursday, I had left the house at 6:30 a.m. for a professional development meeting an hour and a half away from home. Youngest Daughter went to school, checked out for an appointment, and drove herself to the chiropractor, her second solo drive to the big city.

I only checked Life360 three times, maybe. The second child is easier. Oldest Daughter, with her many interstate travels to her university, along with late-night lab and study outings, has broken me of the need to track both my daughters’ activities with FBI-level vigilance. I’ve learned that prayer is a better balm to the soul than stalking my daughters with the help of a location services app.

On Thursday, after the meeting, I didn’t stop by Fashion Exchange, the best consignment store around. I had to get back to the school in time for Youngest Daughter’s volleyball trimatch. Her team won both games, but they were hard-fought victories. Each team scored over 20 points in most sets.

It was at the volleyball games that I decided to take a look at the Book of Faces, and I saw all those lovely photographs of girls, young women, and older women: all daughters, and all celebrating Daughters Day.

So what’s the point? Daughters Day was not a thing when I was growing up.

I figured I might need to learn about the origin of Daughters Day, if I’m to properly celebrate it. Turns out it was started by a greeting card company in India in 2007. 

It’s hard to be a girl in India, where it was only in 2009 that girls got the right to go to school. That’s the same year Youngest Daughter was born.

In India, daughters may face the prospect of early marriage. They are sometimes forced to stay home and help their families. In rural areas, they often don’t want to go to school because they feel unsafe. There is a lack of female teachers, and there might be no female-only restrooms. Girls on their periods face a lack of sanitary supplies and taboos surrounding the onset of menstruation. 

Traditionally, there is a preference for sons, as daughters are viewed as a drain on family resources. The horror of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide resulted in India ranking highest in the world for having more males than females. Although a 2022 report indicated there are now more women than men, for the first time since records have been kept, “the difference is explained by women’s longer life expectancy, with more boys still being born than girls–1000 males for every 929 females.” 

So while I don’t know the exact reason why that greeting card company decided to start a day dedicated to daughters, I’ve got a pretty good idea that it wasn’t so everyone could get their dopamine fix from social media posts.

My daughters and I celebrated Daughters Day, and we didn’t even know it at the time.

For I enjoyed the training last Thursday, as I continue my 28-year career in public education. Eleven of those years were spent as a high school principal, with the last year of the principalship coming in 2020-21, the same year that a U.S. Department of Education survey showed that only 35.5% of high school principals were women.

I had the option to drive myself to my workshop. Youngest Daughter and Oldest Daughter also did their fair share of driving on Thursday, because getting yourself from Point A to Point B without depending on someone else to do it for you is something we take for granted. There are countries in this world where women have not been allowed to drive a car, nor are they allowed to make decisions without the support of a male chaperone.

I enjoyed watching Youngest Daughter play a sport she loves, along with her teammates and the young ladies from the opposing schools. They all have the privilege of going to school. They all have the opportunity to participate in sports. They all have the benefit of laws and protections to ensure that they can continue to do so.

That evening, when I checked Life360, I had an assurance that Oldest Daughter was safe and sound and settled, after her day of classes and work.

My daughters don’t have to get married unless they want to. They have career choices. They have options.

I hope it continues to be that way, for there are those in this country who, even now, would take away a woman’s right to vote. Whether in the name of religion or with the supposed intent of providing another safeguard ensuring that only citizens could vote, there may be battles to come that our daughters, and all those who truly love, honor, and respect them, will have to fight.

So for my daughters, for your daughters, and for all daughters:

Let every day be Daughters Day, and let’s remember the real reason for it.

Here’s mine.