An open letter to my daughter

Letter to my young teenage daughter,

Dear (fill in the blank),
You keep asking me to drop you off at the mall. You want to meet your friends there, enjoy the fun and be able to have a little freedom without a mom (me) breathing down your neck. You have some money in your wallet, the perfect outfit for your mall trip, and all you need is your mom (me) to drop you off.

You promise to keep the cell phone (we bought for the occasion when you were not right beside me) in your pocket, make no eye contact with strangers, and be right at the door when I come pick you up from your few hours of freedom.

I really want to be able to tell you yes. I KNOW you love styles, jewelry and all the glitter and glitz of the mall stores. I KNOW I hate to shop at the mall, and have been over that phase for a long time. I KNOW you believe you are capable of time without your parents, and I actually agree.

The problem with the plan comes down to values. Not yours, but mine!
I value YOU.
I value your innocence, your soul, your purity.
I value your charm and your beauty.
I value your future goals and dreams.
And I dont want any of those compromised on my watch.

You will be grown and gone so soon.
You will have to face the ugly in the world, and the ones who are out there that don't value you like I do.

So, let me ask you this...would I take my purse to the center of the mall, with my credit cards, drivers license and personal information to the common area and leave it?

Would I walk away from the things that matter enough to me that I carry it whereever I go? Would I trust my purse to strangers who would walk past it, look at it, or maybe even IN it? Would I trust that someone would see something they like about my purse, and that they wouldn't just take it with them? Would they handle it, but eventually take what they wanted from my purse, and leave it, discarded, stripped of what they wanted, and put it in the trash on their way out the door to the rest of their life?

No way! I would never do that with my purse!! I would never want to see my things violated, lost for good, pilfered for whatever someone else found useful. I image someone would even look at my purse, make fun of it (it's no COACH, ya' know) or not see the value of it like I do. After all, it's MY purse. I happen to like it, and want to keep it safe.

And that's just my purse. It's not nearly as valuable as you!

You don't feel it now, but time will fly by so fast. Soon you will be out there, hopefully loving your freedoms and be prepared to face whatever life throws at you.

But right now, I am not ready to set you down in the center of anything that feels like you could face danger.
Please trust my judgement when I say, I value YOU.

You are the reason I think twice before I say NO.
So when you hear NO, realize it's not forever, and it's not that I don't want to let you go.
I just VALUE you.

Alot more than that old purse.
Love, Mom