At a very early age, I wanted to go to college and have some kind of career. I spent most of third grade writing extra credit papers about all of the planets to hone my writing and research skills.
When I found out about a nearby college-prep middle school, I begged my parents to send me even though that meant years of carpooling.
As soon as I could drive, I started taking community college classes and learning about scholarships.
I never aspired to be married or to have a family. Maybe it's because I was so hyper-intense about school, but my parents never encouraged me to do that or even made mention of it.
I don't ever remember pretending that my dolls or toys were "babies." For a very, very, very long time, I actually did not even like babies, and I have always been thankful that I do not have younger siblings. Other than myself, there was no one else who I wanted to be like growing up.
If you want to know how to raise an independent-thinking woman who marches to the beat of her own drum, to a rhythm that is typically too harsh for others to follow, then look no further than Ben Lewis. Every day, I am so grateful that my dad never tried to sign me up for something that I didn't ask for or commemorate milestones that I didn't want to be part of.
Looking back on my overly precocious self, I can tell you that I had a lot of growing up to do still because I was also as unkind as I was smart. I cut people down when they gave the wrong answers in class. I ignored people who wanted my help on their homework. I especially ignored other little girls who did not seem as committed to school as I was, and I am ashamed to say that I thought less of them.
I really had to learn how to be a nicer person. Yes, I had to learn how to do it. This isn't to say that I had poor social skills or that I wasn't well-liked growing up, quite the contrary, but whenever I had a choice, I preferred being alone because I knew that I was the only person I could tolerate for long periods of time.
I was a lovely child, really.
I knew that I needed to be a nicer person because of the guilt I would feel whenever I wasn't nice. I didn't want to be nice because little girls, as a whole, were supposed to be nicer, quieter, and kinder than little boys.
I honestly had no idea that that was the societal norm until I was in 7th grade and I was being disciplined for talking out of turn even though all of the boys in my class were encouraged to speak their minds whenever the moment struck them, hand raised or not.
When I realized that my gender was going to make my life-long ambition to have a successful career even more difficult, I was incensed. I was willing to be more considerate of others, and I was willing to have more patience in general, but I was not going to give an inch when my success was on the line.
My quest to be a nicer person was not going to be hinged upon the fact that I happened to be a girl.
This is a sore subject in the struggle between gender equality anyway, and to someone who has spent nearly all of her life on the other side of that stereotype, it really irritates me when people view my education, my career, and my life as atypical for a woman.
However, I have not helped this fight because I have refused to look at the whole picture for so long. Instead, I have been judging young women who choose not to go to college or enter the work force. I have been looking at such choices as a total waste!
What potential - squandered!
And for what? Some kids?
Some daughters who also won't want to go to college because they've been told that they have to be quieter, nicer, gentler souls than their brothers?
How are we breaking through that glass ceiling if so many of us are willing to live under it? What are we doing here?
I've been worried about myself and my own definition of success for so long that I have not been able to see that many women have found success and fulfillment in choices that are not my own.
These women who have celebrated and respected, in turns, my degree and my own marriage and my choices, I have denigrated. That is not fair to them. That isn't even fair to me and my unborn children.
For reasons that I cannot yet relate to, I have learned to respect that some women genuinely want and choose to be mothers, perhaps in addition to some kind of long-standing career or perhaps not. Sometimes their definition of success might not even match my own.
Some women truly do not want to go to college and choose not to go.
Some women want to be artists, perhaps of the sandwich variety.
Some women express their feminity by choosing to shave their legs or to not shave their legs.
As long as our choices originate from a combination of desire and life's own brand of serendipity, then we should be able to get behind and appreciate this kind of diversity, especially since so many women in this world are unable to make any choices for themselves.
You want to be a CFO for a major, multi-national company? Go you!
You want to go into the Army and become the first female Ranger? Go you!
You want to work part-time and raise your own kids? Go you!
You want to work full-time and figure out a feasible daycare plan for your family? Go you too!
I love that I grew up wanting to go to school. I love that I knew who I was about before anyone told me otherwise. I love that I am a fiery person who had to temper her own flame with a good dose of humble pie.
To be perfectly honest, this long-standing career that I thought I had wanted so badly is not all that it's cracked up to be and I've realized that my definition of success has changed significantly from when I was in the third grade. Yes, believe it or not, but my priorities are shifting and changing as I learn to respect other women's choices and go forward in my quest to not only be successful but to also be a nicer person.
If I have children, I want them to grow up loving themselves and loving their choices too. I want them to be good, kind people who care about others and can respect those different life choices that won't be their own. I want them to also embark upon life-long quests to be nicer people, and not because of their genders.
If I have daughters, I want them to go to school and try their best. I truly and sincerely hope that they love school, but if they don't, I know that I have the capacity to respect and even celebrate their choices. I hope they want to work, in whatever capacity, and that their success is not a "surprise" because they happen to be women.
If they have children of their own, I hope it's because they really want them and they made the choice to have them on their own terms, and not because someone told them they should be parents.
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