TheBanyanTree: Feminist Reject

[Monique Colver]

I was brought up to believe I could do nothing. I wasn't pretty enough to
land a husband, and I wasn't smart enough to earn a living. Once I grew up I
realized this most likely wasn't true (neither the sentiments nor the
conclusions drawn from them) but at the time it indicated to me that I had
few options. I wanted to go to college. "Ha ha!" My parents laughed. No one
in my immediate family went to college. Certainly my younger brother would,
he was smart enough, and hopefully my youngest brother would, some day, but
not me. My older siblings had no interest in college. So I assumed, since I
was neither pretty nor smart, that I would die by the time I had to do
something with my life.

This was not a sad thing. It wouldn't be as if I'd have to kill myself or
anything like that. No, I would be struck down in the prime of my life,
unexpectedly, and I'd suddenly be gone, just like that. Would it be a
disease? A car wreck? A murder? I didn't really know, though I rather
suspected murder wasn't in the cards for me. I just wasn't that interesting.
Probably a sudden death. I looked for signs of my impending demise. Did I
have leukemia? I was certain of it. Brain cancer? Definitely. Bone cancer?
Probably. I waited and waited for whatever it was to come along and strike
me dead, and managed to get through high school. I didn't work exceptionally
hard at it because 1) it's not as if I could go to college, so why bother,
and 2) the dead aren't required to be well educated. I was in Honors classes
because, get this, I WAS smart, but I still knew I wasn't smart in the way
that mattered, i.e., the way that would enable me to earn a living and
provide for myself.

I looked longingly at the brochures for eastern colleges, and even tried to
talk a friend of mine into applying with me. She had no interest, and what
was I thinking? I had no money. I made my exit from my family while still
alive and healthy, retreating into my world of the soon-to-be-dead, just
hanging on for life until whatever was to come for me came. In the meantime
I was useful around the house for watching the baby and cleaning up.

Imagine my shock when I graduated from high school just as healthy as
always. I was perplexed. Stunned. I hadn't planned on this eventuality. I
was always hearing about kids who died far too young, and why was I still
alive? This was not part of the plan. My stepmother looked at me with a look
bordering on contempt, and I could tell what she was thinking: "When are you
going to get out of the house?"

It would have been nice if sometime during my first 18 years someone had
spent ten minutes with me going over the options. I looked to my mother and
stepmother for clues. My mother had kids she couldn't take care of, so she
left them with their fathers while she went off to forge new relationships.
As goes the mother, so goes the daughter, right? Okay, so I obviously would
make a piss poor mother, if I were one, so that was out of the question.
(Even then I was competitive. I'd either be a good mother or forget it.)
What did my mother do for a living? She worked, depending on who she was
living with/married to at the time, at whatever job would have her. Or she
stayed home with the kids-of-the-week, who were never me, but some other
kids.

My stepmother? Well, since she'd already told me I could never hope to be in
her league, which I took to mean I could never browbeat a man into marrying
me and then making his life, and his childrens' lives, hell, following in
her footsteps was out of the question. She'd been a waitress, once, and then
worked in an office as an office manager. Waitress was obviously out of the
question. No way could I deal with the public and remember who ordered what,
and working in an office? I had no skills. I'd had typing in school, but
even so, that was before I learned how to type really really fast.

I considered becoming a "dancer" in LA. This meant seedy low-class places
that would cause my parents total humiliation when word got out, which was
why it was such an interesting idea. I had the body, since I'd had yet to
put on those extra pounds that came later, and the face wasn't all that
important, or so I'd heard. Alas, I had no idea how to get started in
something so sleazy, so I didn't get far. That, or I chickened out.

I eventually figured it out, and left home for good shortly thereafter, and
here I am, still an embarrassment to my family but due to my political
leanings, not my occupation. Still, I have to take what I can get. I started
and finished college on my own, all while my parents were asking, "What's
the point of that?" (Dad still doesn't understand what I do for a living.
It's not like it's an arcane occupation.) And I still have dreams. I can do
whatever I want. Choices. It's having choices. Finding out there ARE choices
is the most liberating feeling of all. Took me awhile to find that out
though.

Monique
www.moniquecolver.com


On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Laura <wolfljsh at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> BUT... my Grandfather instilled in his girls the idea that girls could do
> anything they wanted
> to do.  Anything.  While the girls did help their mother in the kitchen and
> with housework,
> they also helped their Dad on the farm.  They went to school and were
> encouraged to
> progress beyond elementary school.  My Mom actually graduated from high
> school when
> she was 15, and finished college at 18!
>
>