Dynamo Girls

A few weeks ago, our younger daughter surprised us when she insisted that we do a “backyard birthday party.” We asked her what that meant, wondering whether she had in mind a throwback party from our own childhood birthday parties at home, before the age of parties at Sky High, Monkey Joes, and Sports Connection.

“Games,” she said. “Running around. But not with a counselor we don’t know. With you.”

Momentarily challenged, we quickly enlisted our older daughter and four of her friends to help us play games with eighteen second grade girls. It took some planning and some baking. There was basketball, corn hole, swinging on the swing set, cupcake wars, water balloon toss, and some epic rounds of freeze dance. Best of all turned out to be the simplest: donut on a string.

It was so much fun to watch these girls have fun. For 2.5 hours, it seemed that they never stopped moving or playing. They were loud. They were competitive. They laughed when they got out, got tagged, or missed a shot. They howled with glee when they threw water balloons at each other. They casually wiped away the powdered sugar that got all over their faces and the chocolate frosting that covered their hands, or left it there and didn’t care. It was beautiful and unruly all at the same time.

My friend Vanessa Bennett, founder of Dynamo Girl in New York, had a piece in the Huffington Post this week that really resonated for me. The first-person essay begins, “We are living in an age of girls’ empowerment. Every shampoo and tampon commercial tells us so — urging girls to be themselves, stand proud and redefine what it means to be a young woman. Around the country we espouse language that encourages girls’ efforts over results; risk-taking over complacency; speaking out over keeping quiet.” 

Vanessa is right about the soundtrack of youcandoanythingyouputyourmindorbodyto currently playing in girls’ lives. But what’s remarkable is seeing the origin of that soundtrack — it’s the girls themselves. They know these things intuitively and act accordingly.