Tough Is Not Strong

The challenge is to write “an open letter to the toughest woman you know.” I would love to follow the challenge exactly. But I can’t. I have two problems with it that won’t let me stay between the lines here.

The first it the “tough” part. What are we talking about when we say something is “tough?”

To me, toughness is a surface quality. Look online and you can find ads for “the toughest backpacks for hikers.” They’re the ones that even the sharpest knife cannot cut through. They’re impenetrable.

If the roast you made for dinner is tough, you might not even be able to cut into it, let alone chew it. Your dinner will be ruined and everyone will go away hungry.

In other words, toughness does not serve anyone well. Toughness repels.

Beef jerky is tough. Hardened criminals are tough.

Tough is not good. (Although jerky can be.)

I’ve known plenty of tough women in my life.

A college roommate, determined to shake off her meek high school self and adopt a “tough” image, smoked and swore and slept around, drank and did drugs, and sneered at any girl who did not follow her lead. What she got out of it all I will never know, but it certainly wasn’t happiness. I’m not even sure she graduated.

A music teacher who taught piano and directed the church children’s choir was notorious for her toughness. At rehearsals she insisted the choir- we’re talking about ten-year-olds- stand for the entire hour and a half of practice. If anyone begged to be allowed to sit down, she would reply, “When I sit down, you can sit down.” She simply refused to entertain the idea that anyone, even children, could possibly be less determined or less disciplined than herself. That’s how tough, in the sense of thick and impenetrable, she was. Her piano lessons could reduce children to tears (my daughter was one of them). And when kids dropped out of the choir, or quit piano lessons, she was invariably shocked.

Toughness repels.

Now let’s talk about “strong.”

When you think of the image of “a strong woman,” what do you see? Do you see a person standing proud, shoulders back, chin up, looking bravely into the future? Do you see someone unshakeable, someone who has achieved all her dreams and has her life completely together? Do you see a person to whom fear is a stranger, and doubt a foreign concept?

I don’t know anyone like that.

What I do know is dozens of ordinary women who don’t have it all together. But they do not let that stop them.

A woman whose husband has deadly cancer, but who hides her terror and keeps smiling for her kids’ sake. Another with an unemployed spouse who throws herself into multilevel marketing to support her family. A 50-something friend whose family business went under, forcing her to take 12-hour shifts at the hospital to re-qualify as a nurse so her kids could stay in school.

They haven’t achieved everything they want in life, and have suffered serious setbacks. They have had much taken from them. But they never gave up. They have lost much, but they never lost themselves. They raised their kids and fed their families and kept on going.

You will never read about these women in the newspapers. You will never see a movie made about their lives. They will never walk the red carpet or be honored at the White House.

But those are the women who are my heroes. And no one else will ever come close.