I grew up in a bit of a feminist fantasy with a single mom. I was

Hear the words of Patty Jenkins, a creator of heroic visions, who speaks of her own beginnings: “I grew up in a bit of a feminist fantasy with a single mom. I was totally shielded, in a way, from an idea that I couldn’t do something.” This utterance is not mere nostalgia; it is a testimony to the shaping power of belief, and the unbreakable strength of women who raise children not by limiting them, but by guarding them from the chains of doubt.

The heart of this saying lies in the shielding from impossibility. Many children grow up in worlds where the voices around them whisper “You cannot,” “This is not for you,” or “Stay within your boundaries.” Yet Jenkins declares that her mother, though alone, crafted a world where those whispers could not enter. To grow in such an environment is to grow in freedom. She was not given wings by fortune; she was given permission by her mother to believe she already had them.

The ancients themselves honored such shaping. Sparta, famed for warriors, also raised its women in strength, teaching them that they too must run, wrestle, and train, for they carried within them the future of the city. A Spartan mother once gave her son a shield and commanded, “Return with it, or on it.” So too did Patty Jenkins’s single mom give her daughter a shield—not of bronze, but of conviction—that no voice could strip from her the right to pursue greatness.

Her words also reveal the paradox of struggle. A single mother often carries twice the burden: to provide bread and also hope, to labor in the world and also in the home. Yet within this struggle lies unique power. Without a second voice to press restraint, her mother’s vision became the sole vision that shaped her. And that vision was one of possibility, of feminist fantasy—not fantasy as illusion, but as a dream of what could be, defended until it became reality.

Consider the story of Elizabeth I of England, daughter of a mother executed and a childhood riddled with peril. She rose to the throne not because the world was kind to women, but because she refused to accept that she could not rule. Shielded by the fierce examples of women before her, she forged herself into a monarch whose reign would be remembered as a golden age. Like Jenkins, she lived proof that the idea of limitation can be resisted, and in resisting, greatness is born.

The lesson for us is clear: the greatest chains are often invisible, forged not of iron but of words. To tell a child “you cannot” is to bind them long before they attempt. But to shield them from such doubt, to raise them in an environment where possibility is assumed, is to grant them the courage to attempt anything. Jenkins’s story reveals that belief is as powerful as training, and that the fiercest inheritance a parent can give is confidence in one’s own strength.

Practical wisdom calls to us: if you raise children, speak not of their limits, but of their potential. Guard their ears from the lies of impossibility until their roots are strong enough to resist. If you are grown, and you were not so shielded, then take up the shield yourself: cast aside the words that once bound you, and remind yourself daily that your path is open, not closed. And in your own life, shield others—friends, family, or even strangers—from discouragement by speaking courage into them.

Thus, the words of Patty Jenkins endure not as memory alone, but as a call to all generations: build homes of possibility, where daughters and sons alike grow without chains. For when the mind is free from the poison of “you cannot,” it will rise to do what once seemed impossible. And in that rising, it will honor the mothers, fathers, and guardians who first placed the shield of belief in their hands.