Unabashedly strong female leaders: I’m looking to you, Generation Alpha

By JoAnne Young

Everly Sampson has given me hope for Generation Alpha. 

Yeah, it’s probably too early to be looking to our youngest generation of girls to someday help guide us out of our messes, given these little girls are still wading through addition and subtraction and figuring out the main idea of their storybooks. However, it isn’t too early to start thinking about how we can help them to become, and then stay, confident, decisive, courageous and strong leaders.  

 

Case in point: Everly, who is all of 4 feet and 55 pounds of feisty and funny, flippant and fierce.  Although she may cause her parents, and possibly her teachers, frustration at times, watching her as I can from a distance I can see her developing into someone who can stand in a courtroom, or a boardroom, a legislature, research lab or operating room and get things done. 

 

Already at 7, she can look you in the eye and tell it as she sees it. She is learning from history that America has been “just rude” to both its minority populations and its 51-percenters: women. She’s not going to let that continue on her watch. 

 

She casts a side eye at authority, and she won’t hesitate to tell her mom: “I’m sorry you’re frustrated, but I’m trying to make a point.” 

 

Actually, she has a great role model in her mom, Alynn High Sampson, a nonprofit administrator and woman tapped in 2020 by Inspire Lincoln with a leadership award. She’s got nature and nurture going for her. 

 

“We’re both just very independent, very strong, very opinionated,” her mom says. And blunt, throw that in there, too. 

 

Everly’s dad, Will, reminds her frequently how similar she is to her mom. She prefers to lean in to their differences.  

 

“I have patience. She doesn’t,” the 7-year-old says. “I’m more sassy. I wear better clothes … cute jeans and crop tops.”

 

Her mom wears, ugh, sweaters.

 

A couple of years ago, when Alynn was about to be featured in an article for her Inspiring Women award, photo and all, Everly responded: “Oh my god, Mom! You are not magazine ready.” 

 

She is unapologetically honest and direct. 

 

She’ll sell you Girl Scout cookies, and at the same time tell you she’s not a big fan because, well, they don’t offer chocolate chip. 

 

From the time she was born, she was a handful, much different from her big brother, Eli, her mom says. She was constantly restless.

 

“I think sometimes her feelings were just so big she just didn’t know how to communicate them or even handle them. And she would just blow up. … She would get fixated on things. If she wanted something she would die on that hill.” 

 

Those qualities can serve her as she grows and matures, perfects her tone and hones her leadership.

 

In her 7^th year, she says she’s learning to turn away if a friend makes her mad. She is one of the first to befriend other kids who have challenges in class or who need encouragement. 

 

Everly is just 11 years from going to college and figuring out what she wants to do with her life; 14 years away from full-fledged womanhood.

 

I, for one, am hoping that nothing gets in her way to discourage that honesty, sassiness and strong sense of right and wrong. 

 

Her mother knows she will encounter teachers and others who will want to tamp down her boldness, to encourage her to soften her approach. Her directness can be jolting to those who think children, especially girls, should be sweet and precious at this age, pleasing, if you will. 

 

I would say, please don’t let her grow up to think a woman’s job is to please others, at the risk of sacrificing self. We don’t have to be complicit in how this culture responds to strong, confident girls, even if their road to womanhood is a tad bumpy. 

 

I am counting on you, Generation Alpha, and those on the tail end of Gen Z. Everly, Aila, Ellington, Finnley, Everlyn, Scout and all the rest of you. And I’m counting on us to see them through.

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