having it all

I'm supposed to be cleaning and taking photos of the Christmas wonderland that is our apartment.  Obviously, that is not happening.  I found this blog post by Penelope Trunk this morning and my mind has been focused on it ever since.  Though I'm not a mother, it really spoke to me, as well as the article it is based on.

I am the offspring of the feminist mentality.  My mom joined the LDS church later in life.  The Mormon culture dictates that young women focus early on marriage, homemaking, and child rearing.  While my mom knew the virtues of all of these things, she instilled in me the idea, taught to her by her mother, to focus on my education, career path, and to really make a name for myself if I could.  Because of this, I  never wanted to go to BYU.  Ever.  BYU, a private LDS university is where girls went to get a husband, drop out of school, and have lots of babies.  That was most definitely not in the cards for me.  I was going to attain multiple degrees and lose myself in the world of academia.   Despite all of my protestation, my Father in Heaven had another plan for me and to BYU I went.  (This is a fun story, ask me about the admissions process sometime..)  

At university I struggled immensely.  The culture there was the Mormon culture my mom had taught me to fight against.  While all of my friends started getting married, having children, and finishing their education, I kept plotting for a life, if I can really admit it, of taking over the world of academia as a wandering individual.  There weren't initially thoughts of matrimony.  Romance, sure, but not marriage.  Weddings were for girls who dropped out of life.  I wanted to live.

Against the odds, I graduated from BYU single.  No small feat, I assure you.  In a culture where your freshman year you hear jokes of, "A ring by spring or your money back," surviving five years without so much as a steady boyfriend had to be some kind of accomplishment.  So it was that  I got a job, a new apartment, and continued to plot for my glorious future.

Fast forward four years.  I still have the one degree, a BA that I treasure.  I didn't make it into graduate school, I'm married, considering motherhood, and a stay at home wife.  My life is the total opposite of everything I thought I had been taught and fought so ardently against.  This realization made my first year of marriage extremely difficult for me.  I went from being the single girl working three jobs with the cool internship at the gallery to a trailing spouse.  Men and women alike looked at me differently because I didn't work.  To them my value was depleted and for the longest time, I believed them.  Without twelve degrees or a promising career to push me out of the house every day, how could I possibly have any merit to society?

This has been a slow lesson to learn for me, but I'm realizing every day that I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to.  I still want to go back to school and even work someday, when it is both legal (thanks, Cyprus!) and feasible for me to attain with children.  Right now it's just Mr. F and myself, but the work we are doing together is so much more valuable than any amount of money I could be bringing in. I'm also learning that I'm preparing for the career I've always dreamed of.  There are skills I'm developing, experiences progressing, all leading me to a future as a high-minded career woman.  I still want that, in some regard.  Just not now.  And that's okay.

 And you know who has been teaching me this more than anyone?  My mom.  Apparently she just wanted me to be happy and well educated, not cut off.  My bad!