Nine Things My Daughters Need to Learn About Life

As the mother of two girls, I don’t speak boy at all. Never have. Not a word. Aside from being with my husband for the last thirty-plus years, I’ve got no idea what the hell goes on in a boy’s head. But, because I’m obviously girl, and I happen to have two of them as kids, I speak fluent Sheila.

And thanks to a lifetime’s worth of exposure to the girl mind—over forty-five years as one myself and almost twenty as a girl mom—I get how we’re all wired. Especially the emotional challenges most of...