If you have a daughter and she is reaching the age of 18 and you are nearing that time when you are about to send her out into the real world, take heed. This message is especially important for the single mothers, who have raised their little girls from birth single hand idly. Before you send her off to college, armed forces or simply into the adult working world alone, please make sure that she has a grasp of these various by equally important strategies for the beginning stages of womanhood.

How to properly put a condom on a man

Might as well start with the juicy stuff. This may sound stupid, but did you know that there are adult women who have no idea as to how to properly strap up a guy? By adult I am referring to women over the age of 25 at the youngest. Even in the time of HIV, unwanted pregnancies, and a host of other diseases, there are still women who completely place their life into the hands of man without questions or concerns. Figuring that he must know what he is doing so we will be okay. Mothers, teach your daughters how to protect themselves. Even if that means breaking out the condom and the banana at the kitchen table. Instruct her on how a condom should properly be placed on a penis. She should not solely depend on the man she is dealing with to be able to handle this for them just because the condom is placed on an extension of himself. She should at least have an idea of how it is done as well and be able to tell if the condom is too snug or too big for his erotic zone.

Budgeting

This tool is essential because it is one that she will probably have to use for the rest of her life or risk being in debt for the rest of her life. Teach your daughters how to properly handle their funds. Teach them that although it is okay to sometimes treat yourself to a new outfit, piece of jewelry or pair of shoes, the rent comes first. This is something that my Grandfather mentions to me to this day in our regular conversations. He will often say, “baby, it does not matter if you don’t always have the name brand clothing, or if you get your hair done every week. There is nothing cute about being homeless. You may not have that pair of Nikes but at least you have a roof over your head and a warm bed to sleep in when it is cold, raining, snowing”. This also directly relates to credit card debt. We all know that as soon as the clock strikes midnight credit card companies are hunting down fresh 18 year olds and offering them unlimited credit for the price of their souls. Well maybe not their souls but it certainly feels like it when years later you are serious about credit and possibly trying to make your first adult purchase like a car and the man at the dealership tells you that your credit is no bueno. Momma can’t fix that for you. She needs to know this and think before she swipes.

Time Management

Ahhh! My mother is the queen of time management. I salute her. She along with my Grandfather have installed in me a keen sense of being not only on time, but being early. In fact, I was taught that if you are on time for an appointment then you are late. Ha! This was drilled in my mind so intensely that my girlfriends would often joke with me that I show up early to a night club. I did! If the flyer read free before 11 p.m. you better believe that LJ was there by 10:30. It wasn’t that I was so excited to be at night club that I had to be the first one there. Truthfully speaking it did not matter to me that much that I would get in free before a certain time. I was programmed. I was programmed to the extent that even my “fun time” required that I arrived on time. At least in my mind. I am not insinuating that you take it to this level but what your daughter must understand is that the world does not revolve around her time. You might miss that one appointment that causes you to miss out on a life changing opportunity.

Multitasking is your friend

Women are inherent multi-taskers. Meaning that this is something that usually comes natural to us and that we can do better than men. I am not sure if it stems from having to care for baby, husband, home and now having to go to work all in one day, but most women learn from an early age that if they do not master to the skill of multi-tasking then they will become quickly frustrated and overwhelmed with their hectic lives and schedules and the act of balancing it all out successfully. Teach your daughter this skill. It will be useful to her for a lifetime.

Duties before play

It is in a teenagers nature to want to play and put off their responsibilities until later. However, when you are on your own and you don’t have mommy hoovering over you to assure that things get done. it is easy to fall into a pattern of irresponsibility. Unfortunately this becomes a habit that can be hard to break. They must know that there is a time to hang, chill, play, party, but that there is also a time to get to business and often these two do not intertwine. It is either one of the other. If you do too much playing when the time does not call for it, it could cause yourself a lot of unwanted grief and issues. Both of which are avoidable if she is mature enough to know how to differentiate between the two.