Andrea Lawful-Sanders is a wife, mother, writer for the Philadelphia Sunday Sun and founder of A Lawful Truth Enterprises. She loves helping to develop children and adults into the best versions of themselves.
According to Whyy, she wrote an essay about women who have inspired her journey.
Growing up on the tiny island of Jamaica in the late 1960s, the message I received from observing the adults was this: men have all the power and women are their accessories.
I knew my place as a young girl, which meant speaking only when spoken to. But I was naturally inquisitive, so I didn’t always adhere to that rule. As such, I got in trouble often.
But the trouble was worth it.
I was exerting my independence at a time when every girl my age was afraid to talk back.
My bravado frightened and confused my mother, who believed nothing good could result from me being so fearless.
At the tender age of six, I made a vow to always be myself, no matter the consequences. I then began to identify role models who could inspire my journey. Luckily, I didn’t have to look far.
My no-nonsense mother was my first hero.
She and my father ran the household like a well-oiled machine while also raising four daughters.
I was the daughter who often tested my mother’s patience.
Nonetheless, she remained steadfast in loving me. And she taught me how to embody all the social graces of womanhood.
At age 9, after learning many of the family recipes, my mother guided me in preparing my first full-course meal.
I cook all the time now.
Undoubtedly, my love for cooking is linked to the time spent in the kitchen with my mother.
On my kitchen wall, today hangs pictures of two more of my heroes: Nanny of the Maroons and Harriet Tubman.
Nanny of the Maroons — the spiritual, cultural and military leader of the Windward Maroons whom I learned about in Caribbean History classes — is the only female national hero in Jamaica.
She was a fierce woman who led a group of formerly enslaved Africans through a multi-year war against British colonizers.
Legend has it that Queen Nanny caught bulletswith her bare hands!
The photographs of Queen Nanny and Harriet Tubman, the radical American abolitionist who freed dozens of slaves, serve as a daily reminder of what I am capable of as a woman when I act with bravery.
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