Today, I decided not to participate in the Women's March in Seattle. My son had a soccer game in Tacoma in the early morning and a rocket club launch in Kirkland in the late morning. I decided to go to both the game and the rocket launch. My daughter attended the march, so I figured we had one member representing our family there.
I didn't go to the rocket launch to support my son. This fall, there was an uptick in the number of girls who joined my son's middle school rocket club. In years past, there were two or three girls and twenty boys. This year, about one-third of the team is girls. Were they inspired to take on new challenges because a woman was running for president? Who knows, but I think there might be a correlation.
After watching Hidden Figures two weeks ago, I decided to go to the launch and cheer on the young women rocketeers. These girls weren't going to the march. They were working on their science extra-curricular activity and testing their rocket for the Team America Rocketry Competition (TARC). Go them!
This is important. We need to make sure our collective daughters have skills. Lots of skills. Skills that help them compete in male-dominated fields or whatever field they want. Skills that give them a voice. Skills that help them learn from failure, get back up and try again.
One girl was in my son's fourth-grade class. Last year, she was on the rocket team Inferno. Their rocket became notorious when it burst into flames in mid-air, thereby earning its name. This morning, the same girl's rocket earned 14 points. On its first launch. In rocketry, closer the score is to zero, the better. Most rockets on the first launch are so far off the target altitudes and flight lengths, it isn't worth counting the points. This girl was giddy, and rightfully so. The other kids--boys and girls--graciously congratulated her, sincerely happy for her success, especially after Inferno became an inferno last year.
I was googling TARC and I found the winner of the essay, "Why I do TARC" by Ava Badii, a senior at an all-girls school. I was tearing up as I read it. Here is a team of girls with skills.
While some of us were marching for protecting your rights, others were cheering you on as you learned some skills. Brava, Rocket Girls! Brava!
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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