I grew up with perfect parents in my eyes. My mother stayed home with us while my dad worked constantly. We went to Disney World every year. We went to Las Vegas. Mom got the cars she wanted. I had new (to me) clothes every year. We weren’t wealthy- everything was used/ handed down. I had three younger brothers. Everyone in my family had multiple kids, happy marriages, and we saw each other often. At a very young age, I was taught my purpose in life is to get married, stay with that man forever, and reproduce. I saw my mother stay home and was basically shown “this is the correct way to be.” The father provides, the mother tends the home and the children.
My mother was raised in the church although she strayed from it often. We literally lived around the corner from a church and she has us tag along with the older couple a few homes down and their grandchildren to the summer bible camps.
She pushed religion on me even harder when I was 12 and showing clear signs of mental illness. Instead of therapy, I was to get confirmed in the Lutheran church. When I asked why, her response was “you need the presence of christ in you.” I had to attend confirmation classes every week and bible school every Sunday. I didn’t even fit in in a church which made my mental struggles worse. I was the little emo kid in a class of blondes with bright blue eyes. The boys and girls were separated. Their moms drove new Mercedes SUVs and were always there to pick them up on time while I sat in the parking lot for an extra hour. The town the church was in (Bel Air) was uppity and the town I came from (Aberdeen) was viewed as “ghetto” to them.
After suffering through the confirmation, I was finally free! No. I began to feel guilt. At 14, I became obsessed. I felt so wrong for disregarding what I was being forced in to.
During the years I was in church, divorce ran rampant through all of my family. I was so confused because isn’t divorce….forbidden? A sin? The divorces were messy and full of hatred. I didn’t know my family was next in line.
At 14, my mom left my dad for another man and became an alcoholic. My life was shattered. I felt everything was a lie, I saw the damage in my siblings, my father, and myself. I decided then and there, I did not want children and the faith pushed on me was fraudulent. I didn’t even want marriage. I saw how hard it was for my father and decided I don’t ever want to risk becoming a single parent.
At 17, I was certain I didn’t want children. I wanted school and a career, I wanted it to be me and only me. My mother didn’t have a career, and education, a skill, or anything marketable. She struggled to find a job when she was on her own and not just because of her drinking. She struggled more because she never had her own income, never managed finances, and never paid a bill. I refused to be my mother.
At 19, I told my mother when she got clean that I was not going to make her a grandmother. She actually sobbed and told me my purpose was to have children as a woman on this earth, to make her a grandmother, and I will change my mind.
Screw that- I joined the Army.
At 24, I began dating a woman.
At 25, my decision still stands and I’ve gone as far as scheduling a tubule salpingectomy.
Our purpose as women on the earth is not to produce children and tend a home and serve a spouse. Our sole purpose is to be happy with what WE want- not what others project on to us. Gender roles give me the ick now and I’m still working to eliminate the guilt of leaving an idea that was drilled in to me my entire life until I left home.
Unruly Bodies 