A Girl Raised on Star Wars
I grew up with a dad that loved Star Wars.
Our house was (and still is) filled with Star Wars collectibles, books, posters, and action figures — oh, the action figures. I have very boring memories of waiting in the car outside of Toys R Us-es while my dad hunted down that elusive action figure. I understood from a very young age that these were to be looked at, not played with, not touched, and certainly never opened.
I have no idea how old I was when I first saw Star Wars, but if I had to guess, I’d say around six or seven. My mom and dad have been to every midnight premiere since Empire Strikes Back, and my sister and I joined that tradition when Phantom Menace came out.
My father would (and still does) spew movie quotes at us like he wrote the lines himself. Although it was ok when we didn’t understand some of his other references (which happened often), he was always flabbergasted if we missed a Star Wars one. These were references we needed to know.
I have lived and breathed Star Wars all my life.
And I’m sure many of these scenarios sound familiar to those of you with a similarly Star Wars obsessed parent. I’ve gone through various phases when it comes to the fandom — I loved the toys and getting excited about something my dad loved when I was a kid; I rolled my eyes at my dad’s nerd obsessions when I was an angsty teenager. It has taken being “on a break” and away from the Star Wars universe for awhile for it to recently reel me back in.
That long and rambling intro has lead me to my buried lede, which is this: my father never once hesitated to share his love of Star Wars with his children — regardless of whether he had two daughters, or two sons.
Rey as the hero of The Force Awakens has set a beautiful precedent for a new generation of young people. It makes my heart surge and fill with warmth whenever I see young girls dressed as Rey or with Rey shirts or with any kind of Star Wars thing to be honest. When I was their age, I was the only one of my girl friends that had even seen Star Wars, let alone loved it and could tell you that AT-AT stands for All Terrain Armored Transport.
I appreciate my dad so much for instilling a deep love of Star Wars in my sister and me. It’s my guess that it never even crossed his mind not to share the fandom with us simply because we were girls. After all, he did play catch with us and take us to baseball games, which are also traditionally “father-son” activities. I wore dresses exclusively until I was about ten, so he’s lucky he got got me to fall for such a “boy thing” like Star Wars.
I wish that every daughter and every son had a father who passed down his passions to them regardless of gender. I wish all fathers and mothers would share their personal loves with their children, whether that be Star Wars, sports, cooking, gardening, golf, cross-stitching, and anything in-between. I’m not a parent so I can’t speak from personal experience, but if I do have kids, I never want to be the mom that buys a doll for my daughter and a football for my son simply because she’s a girl and he’s a boy.
If my daughter wants a doll and my son wants a football, then hell, I’m also not going to be the mom that doesn’t buy a doll for my daughter and doesn’t buy a football for my son because of their genders. I’m not saying that I’m going to squeeze the gender stereotypes out of them.
What I’m saying is that I have seen too many people my age who weren’t introduced to things or weren’t taught things because they were somebody’s daughter instead of somebody’s son. Many of my childhood girl friends have parents whose moms or dads love Star Wars like my dad does (it’s not like it’s a secret fan club). In fact, some of them even had brothers who were brought up on Star Wars, but they, as daughters, were not.
I know what you’re thinking. I am jumping to conclusions. I am assuming that they weren’t brought up with a love of Star Wars just because they were daughters and not sons. What if they were introduced to Star Wars and didn’t fancy it? What if it just wasn’t their jam? I have no right or reason to assume that their moms or dads never tried getting them to love Star Wars.
And you’d be right. I’m basing all of this on observation; consider it a very specific facet of anthropology. But it doesn’t take an actual anthropologist to see that, frequently, moms impress their interests and loves on their daughters, and dads do likewise on their sons. If I were an actual anthropologist, this could be the beginning of a really interesting research study.
But this isn’t a research study. I don’t have numbers or physical evidence and to be honest, I’m not even trying to prove a hypothesis here.
All I’m trying to say is that I love, love when girls are encouraged to love Star Wars, or any other typically “boy thing” that they’re not “supposed” to love. I would say the same thing to girls about pursuing STEM careers or learning to fix cars or becoming the president.
Star Wars is for everyone. And I want to thank my dad for never letting me think otherwise.
