I’m not looking forward to the conversations I’m going to have to have with Momo about the burdens of the body she was born to, starting with street harassment and workplace inequality and… well, it goes from there, doesn’t it.

Every woman I know carries some secret calamity, a collection of stories that goes far beyond the ‘one in four women’ statistic. When you listen to women, you hear them. And then I look at Momo and she doesn’t have those wounds yet, but I know one day she won’t be so lucky. As much as I wish that day will never come, as much as I can ignore it when I look at my two-year-old playing, as much as I wish things will be different in a decade: something will change her. Something will make her realize that her body has turned into a liability, and she’s going to have to negotiate that.

I can only protect her for so long, so that’s the prayer I offer now to whatever is listening: please, please let the world be kind to my daughter. And give her the strength to carry that burden, even when the world is going to try to use her up.