When I was a kid, my father was a member of Mensa, as well as some other similar groups. I was brought up believing I was exceptionally smart, as well as kind, creative, and other positive attributes. The beliefs and expectations about who I was shaped who I am.

Recently, I stumbled across, “Picture yourself as a stereotypical male”. I mentioned this article when I first found it saying that I hoped to explore it in more detail later.

This morning is a good morning to explore this a little. I have three daughters who grew up as Hyneses, believing they are exceptionally smart, kind, creative, and so on. In their early school days, they sang with their classmates, “I believe I can fly.” The past few days were a reminder that they can fly. The oldest two are flying.

On Thursday evening, my youngest daughter and I went to the opening for “Big Art: Tiny House” in Concord, MA. Miranda is building a tiny house as a public art project to help reconnect art to daily. Miranda did fantastic explaining her ideas and afterwards many artists made comments to me about how proud I must be to be Miranda’s father. I am. Her talk deserves a blog post (or more) of its own and I hope to get to that later.

On Friday morning, I received a Facebook message from my eldest daughter in Japan. She has been accepted into a graduate program in modern Japanese women's history in the Global Studies Department at Doshisha University in Kyoto. She is receiving a full scholarship. Years ago she spoke about going to graduate school in Japan. She’s a Hynes. She can do it. Her studies also deserves a blog post (or more) on its own as well.

Next week, we will celebrate Fiona’s birthday. She is still young, so we don’t know what her great successes will be but we are already seeing signs.

Yet this also gets issues of privilege and internalized racism. My daughters have a great privilege of growing up believing they are going to do great things. They have a great privilege of being surrounded by people believing the same thing. All children should grow up this way. Unfortunately, too many kids grow up believing they are trouble, that they are not loved. Too many kids grow up having those around them believing that they are trouble.

As I think of this, two quotes come to mind. One is from Virginia Woolf, to the effect that the only thing wrong with privilege is that not everyone has it. The other is about Lake Wobegon, where every kid is above average.

So, I will celebrate successes of my daughters and seek to help others also be successful.