“The largest piece of advice I would give young ladies is to treat yourself like you want to be treated. Reach for the stars. Focus and have something in life. Try to reach some real high goals. . . .If no one in your family has graduated from school, you be the first one. Set yourself to the next level. The smallest piece of advice I would give would be to never let anyone put you down. You got to look at yourself in the mirror.” Anwan Glover

“Respect looks and feels like a person really caring about you and your feelings. They honor their word, and they are not putting on a different face for that person. It makes you feel real good inside because you know you have this individual on your side….You can respect somebody and not love them, but you definitely need to respect them if you are going to truly love the individual. I can only love you if I respect you.” Deon Grant

“My mother and father have been together for some 40 odd years and I mean this is all I know. You sort of model yourself after what you see. In my situation, I got to see a set of parents who stuck it out through thick and thin and through hell and high water together. So that’s the image of what I saw a family being. Mother stays with father and father stays with mother, and I’ve kind of got the same thing.” Gary Sturgis

“I am looking for someone who’s trying to develop themselves. I want her to be a very balanced person, because I appreciate a woman who is a woman of the new millennium. I like a woman who is very accomplished and is about getting her act together and accomplishing her goals, and being someone who is assertive enough to redefine what a woman is. . . .I really do appreciate a woman that can balance between the ability to be the domestic woman and the ability and vision to be whatever the new age millennium woman is. I love a woman who is educated, has traveled and has visions and goals. I know some extremely dynamic women.” Lamman Rucker

“I feel like my generation tends to not be focused. They are misled by a lot of things that don’t really matter. It’s all material things. Not to take anything away from the women of my generation. I just feel like the women that I looked up to (such as my mother and Coretta Scott King) were sounder with who they were and where they were going. They displayed a great sense of beauty by carrying themselves as real women. You know what I mean. They were still beautiful, they were still dainty and they were elegant, but at the same time, they didn’t have to display it in a way that was over the top. You still got the sense that they were real women and that they could do anything and everything that any other woman could do, but they just did it in a real classy way.” Sean Garrett

“I am an interactive parent. You strengthen your relationships through communication. I have a seven-year- old daughter. When you are looking at her, she is an angel, but when you turn your head, she’s just BAD. I let my daughter know that girls are special and boys know that. As parents, we should monitor our daughter’s interaction with her male relationships and I believe I will, but, if you squeeze soap too tight, it will slip out of your hand. I will monitor my sons more closely.” T.I. C. Harris

“I have watched that film over and over, and those scenes still affect me when it relates to my daughter and our relationship,” one mom said.

It was a powerful start to the panel discussions for “Savings Our Daughters From A Man’s Point of View” and led to candid and honest conversations about relationships between mothers, daughters, fathers, boyfriends and their impact on our communities. The forum mirrors the real-life scenarios and reflections in a series of memoirs entitled “Saving Our Daughters ~ From A Man’s Point of View.”

The book candidly focuses on the real life experiences of six famous men and their personal views about surrounding themselves with positive relationships, and how their mothers have inspired them as fathers and men to respect women.

The first volume is scheduled for release this upcoming holiday season and features leading celebrity men from the entertainment and professional sports industries. The Who’s Who list includes multi-talented recording artists Sean Garrett and T.I.; NFL All-Star safety Deon Grant; Gary Sturgis & Lamman Rucker, actors from the Tyler Perry films; and Anwan Glover from the HBO series “The Wire.” Screenwriter and author, Antwone Fisher is contributing the foreword for the novel.

Rueben Cannon, producer with Tyler Perry Films, provides positive quotes for supporting single parent mothers and daughters.

A portion of the proceeds will go towards battered women shelters of single parent mothers and daughters of abuse.

Authors: Curtis Benjamin of It’s Cool To Be Smart; Karen Watts, M.Ed.

For information about an advanced copy, visit www.amanspointofview.org.