Tell girls: "Always have your own money!"

I keep hearing the same story again and again from professionally successful women. Variations on:

My grandma told me: "Always have your own money."

It could be a mother, aunt, neighbor, Girl Scout leader, teacher, cousin, mentor or favorite coach.

An older, respected woman looked her straight in the eye, and in her own but direct way said:

• "Do not ever depend on a man financially."
• "Money is power, and never, ever give up that power."
• "You are powerful. Never chose to give up that power."
• "You are responsible for your own life."
• "You are not a victim."
• "I believe in you."

Many of the women who tell me these stories are in their 40s, 50s and older, and their champions were women of a generation or two more senior than that. This is important because it is clear that women found ways to be financially independent — whether through work, or even squirreling away cash in their own name or shoebox in the back of a closet — even if they had but a fraction of the economic and career opportunity you and I enjoy.

They got it. And they made sure that the women who came after them got it, too.

Somehow, we have not collectively gotten it. By 'it,' I mean the giant, enormous pressure for women to be stay-at-home moms and abandon their financial power, and therefore, their autonomy as adults.