The importance of role models: How Destiny’s Child contributed to my success

I can honestly say I don’t think I’d be where I am today without Destiny’s Child. They will never know the influence their music, specifically their lyrics, had on me, and the impact it had on my life.

It was the year 2000, I was leaving home to go to university and Destiny’s Child released ‘Independent Women’.

"The shoes on my feet (I bought 'em)

The clothes I'm wearing (I bought 'em)

The rock I'm rocking (I bought it)

'Cause I depend on me if I want it.

The watch I'm wearing (I bought it)

The house I live in (I bought it)

The car I'm driving (I bought it)

I depend on me, I depend on me"

It seemed a long way from my reality. My mother married 19, had my brother at 21, and I came along 5 years later. She spent nearly 20 years as a housewife. To todays overstretched working mum’s, it may sound an almost luxurious and enviable position that my mother was able to occupy. However, it had its dark side. My father made it very clear that because he earned the money, he had the power to choose how it was spent. (For clarity, I had a good childhood and did not want for food or shelter.)

I think it fair to say he was cruel with the power he wielded, as sole ‘breadwinner.’ This is also evidenced by the fact my mother did eventually leave him. So aged 18, listening to Destiny’s Child sing ‘Independent Women’ quite frankly blew my mind. Here was a group of beautiful confident women, proudly telling the world:

“Try to control me, boy, you get dismissed

Pay my own car note and I pay my own bills

Always fifty-fifty in relationships”

This attitude was new to me but I liked it! As a child of the 80s, I’d been raised on Disney movie’s which had taught me to behave like a fairy tale princess, and that my life’s focus should be on finding (and of course marrying) my prince charming. This would be the route to success, because I would live happily ever after, the films all said so. So when Destiny’s Child explained:

“I do what I want, live how I wanna live

I've worked hard and sacrificed to get what I get

Ladies, it ain't easy being independent”

This had a significant impact because it made me believe that I had both the responsibility and the freedom to be financially independent. It may not be easy, but it could be done. Therefore, being in a relationship with a man would be a matter of choice and not a necessity.

Without Destiny’s Child being a role model and showing me that as a women I could, and should, be assertive, confident and above all, independent, I don’t that I would be where I am today, running my own business.

So thank you Destiny’s Child, for being my role model.