My dad, the ultimate sports fan, never blinked when life gave him not one, but two, little girls. Girls? So what. There we were, on his lap at basketball games, sitting beside him at football games, trash talking boys who dared to trash talk our teams. Even now, we have regular daddy-daughter dates at Carolina Hurricanes games (while my Canadian husband stays home with his two daughters ... go figure). We were perfectly at home everywhere we went.

So when Randy and I found out that Little L would be our second girl, I welcomed the challenge of raising two strong daughters. I was excited to show them all the things they could be in life, all the worlds that were open to them because of their gender, not in spite of it. They could work in sports, as I had, or they could be scientists who solve medical mysteries. They could be world leaders. They could also be fashion designers or world-class chefs, ballet dancers or seamstresses. What can't a girl be these days? The thought of it made me giddy.

When MJ was 16 months old, I read a book that outlined the path to raising confident girls, from toddlerhood to teenhood. I loved it. I told myself: That's it. That's what I'm going to do. Everything this book says. I'm there. No Barbies? Check. No princesses? Check. No dollhouses? Check. Trucks and cars that go beep-beep, not dollies that go wah-wah. Kitchen sets? No way. Chemistry sets? Yes.

I wanted to be certain that my girl(s) told society that any preexisting ideas it had in mind for them about how they should act, what they should like and where they ended up in life could be shoved into a box and marked "wrong address."

Boy, was I ever wrong.

As I look around my family room, I see the following items: a Disney princess car; a dollhouse that I couldn't wait for her to open on Christmas morning (because I wanted to play with it, too); all the plastic tools necessary to make the perfect plastic cake; a baby doll that cuddles and a baby doll that coos and, yes, a Barbie with the hair and the hips and the whole thing. All things she loves; all things she wanted.

I also see: A periscope; a stethoscope; a makeshift bug catcher; a plastic football; the coolest building blocks you will ever find ... and a little girl as inventive as she is loving. I see a scientist. I see a doctor. I see a president, a fashion designer, a chef, a dancer, a seamstress. In the way she cares for her baby sister, I see the most important job of all: Mother. I see everything, and everything more clearly.

When I thought those things, when I thought playing house was less important than playing science, I hadn't yet fully realized how much on-the-job training I had received from my own stay-at-home mother.

We take classes on how to have a baby; there is no class on how to raise one. That course begins organically, years from the time when a little girl (or boy) might have her (or his) own child. It happens in MJ's mind as she pretends to wash her baby sister's bottles; in her mind as she "bakes" plastic cookies for me; in her mind when she helps me fold laundry ... just before she runs off to dance freely in circles or go in search of pretend dinosaurs.

She is practicing love. Chemistry. Leadership. Life. She is learning to be the CEO of what makes society tick. In her mind, and in her heart, when she sees me comfort Little L, she is learning to be a human being. Who am I to tell her that dollhouses, or kitchen sets, or baby dolls, are not as important as a magnifying glass?

Well, I'm her mother. And that's exactly why I won't.

Beth appears every Tuesday on TriangleMom2Mom. You can read more about her at MotherBunker.