Being a mature adult is about mastering yourself and your domain. It's not simple or easy but young women can manage as they grow up from being children to adults. We can take on more, become successful and then even encourage others to do the same. A woman is an asset to herself, family, friends, and community.
Learn to be self reliant and competent, have common sense and understanding. No one person can be everything, omnipotent. Don't put too many expectations on yourself or make more promises than you are able to keep.
Say no when you need to, or at times just because you really want to. Don't be pressured into taking on more than you can handle or giving more than you want taken. People in need will sometimes ask for too much - it's not for you as an individual to solve or fix everything.
Mind your manners, be punctual and be away of your posture and body language. You can look confident and poised even if you feel like a wreck inside.
Do grown up things: get a job, pay your own bills, open a bank account, get a passport and all the other paperwork which a young adult can do for themselves now that you are no longer a child.
As you work towards being mature don't lose one of the best things from your younger days, your creativity. Whether you work at arts and crafts with children of your own, or take up photography, or something trendy and creative - keep dabbling into the creative side of your brain. Don't let this valuable part of you fall into disuse. It's part of what makes us feel alive.
Is Advice Worth Giving?
- Do young women listen to advice from other women?
- Yes, other women have experience and insight which can be a good thing.
- Yes, but it's still up to each young woman to make her own decisions.
- No, free advice is worth every penny.
- No, I don't want to feel instructed and told what to do.
How you Look Reflects Who you Are
Be clean, tidy, well groomed and dress well appropriately. Yes you have curves and you look young and pretty. This is the time in your life when you will want to look your age, because your age is young and considered to be the most desirable for a woman.
However, have respect for yourself and don't go overboard. High heels, cosmetics, jewellery and short skirts don't make you a woman. What are you trying to prove (and who are you trying to prove it to) when your clothing reveals too much? It shows a lack of confidence when young women dress like someone craving attention. Much better to keep some mystery than to flaunt everything you've got and have nothing in reserve for later.
Too often young women are out in public wearing far less than the men they are with. It looks very mismatched. Young women should be aware, the person wearing more clothing with less of themselves revealed is the person with more power. The person with less clothing appears subservient needing to please. Is that really the impression a young woman wants to make?
The More you Can do for Yourself the More Power you Have
Get and keep a set of basic tools for home repairs. Learn how to use them. You should at least know how to fix simple things around your home.
Find a guide to home repairs and learn how to handle the tools. Then look around your home and see what could be fixed or repaired. Screw in a doorknob which has come loose. Tighten up a woobly wooden chair. Hang pictures up straight and at the right height for viewing them. Paint your walls a different colour. Add a hand railing to the shower. The more you learn and are able to do the better.
At some point you might get into creating something like furniture or restoring furniture if you find you enjoy working with the tools and seeing how much you can do. This is the kind of work that tends to stay done.
Learn how to keep your vehicle maintained too, if you have one. Rather than letting people at the garage tell you what you need done, know enough to at least understand how the parts run and work. As a young woman you have a better chance of not being taken advantage of if you aren't clueless when you walk in the door.
Don't Ignore the Traditional Women's Skills
Learn basic skills which women are still expected to know and do. But not for those reasons. Home sewing and mending, cooking and cleaning may be traditionally thought of as women's work but they are still valid in modern times. If you can sew on your own buttons, hem your pants, cook up a good dinner, maybe even can your own peaches and then clean it all up afterwards, you are ahead of so many others who find these skills beyond them (or beneath them).
Sewing skills are simple. It's not something you should need to pay someone else to do. Also, if you can't find the time to sew on a button, you really need to rethink your schedule. A little sewing is nice while you watch TV or have time to yourself in the evening. Just because these are old fashioned skills does not make them less important.
Cooking can also be enjoyable and give you a feeling of accomplishment with something practical. Baking is an extra element, a facet of cooking which requires more careful measuring and knowledge. With most cooking you have some leeway - however most baking will not turn out well if you add a little of this and forget to have the oven ready before you put in the cake batter. Baking is especially good for proving we need to follow the directions at times.
Cleaning is women's work which is never done, literally. I think this is why cleaning is still not popular with men. They like to sit back and see a job well done and have it stay that way. Cleaning up never stays done. Laundry must be washed, then put away and then worn to be washed and put away again. Dishes are brought out to be used and must then be washed, and put away until they are used again. Floors are forever having bits of stuff fallen on them. If you doubt the work of cleaning to be eternal, just look around you. There's a door handle to clean. There's a window with fingerprints. There's the curtains which need to be washed. There's the... It's endless and bottomless and it all needs to be done. For yourself, if no one else.