“That's just something young women say before they meet the right man and realize what they're missing.” Her voice has that patient tone she uses when she thinks I'm being silly. “Trust me, once you settle down with Brandon and start thinking about the future, your maternal instincts will kick in.”
The assumption that I'll automatically want different things once I'm with the “right man” makes me want to scream. Like my current feelings and desires are just placeholders until a man comes along to show me what I really want.
“What if they don't, though? What if I'm one of those women who's genuinely happy without kids?”
My mother sets down her cucumber water and really looks at me for the first time since we sat down. “Stella Suzanne, where is this coming from? You've always been so good with children. You babysat for the neighbors. You volunteered at the church nursery.”
“Being good with children and wanting to spend my life raising them are two different things.”
She's quiet for a moment, and I can see her processing this information like it's a foreign language she's trying to translate.
“When I was your age,” she says finally, her voice softer than usual, “I wanted to be a teacher.”
The admission catches me completely off guard. In twenty-five years, I've never heard my mother express interest in any career beyond being a wife and mother.
“You did?”
“Elementary school. I had this whole plan worked out. I was going to teach second grade, help children learn to read, maybe work my way up to being a principal someday.” There's something wistful in her voice that I've never heard before. “I even got accepted to the education program at the University of Georgia.”
“What happened?”
“I met your father.” She smiles, but there's something complicated in it. “He was so charming, so sure about what he wanted. And what he wanted was a wife who could support his career, host dinner parties, raise his children. He made it sound like such an adventure, building a life together.”
“Do you regret giving up teaching?”
She considers this for a long moment. “I wouldn't change having you, of course. You're the best thing I ever did. But sometimes, I wonder what kind of teacher I would have been. Whether I could have made a difference in children's lives.”
The vulnerability in her admission makes my chest tight. This is the most real conversation we've had in years, maybe ever.
“You could still teach, you know. It's never too late to go back and get your teaching certificate.”
“Oh, honey, that ship sailed long ago. I'm fifty-two years old, and your father needs me to handle the social aspects of his business. It's a full-time job keeping up with all the entertaining and charity work.”
The way she dismisses her dreams so casually breaks my heart a little.
“But that's exactly why I'm telling you this,” she continues, her voice taking on that familiar urgency. “Life is hard for women, sweetheart. We have to make difficult choices that men never have to think about. That's why it's so important to findsomeone who can take care of you, who can give you security so you don't have to sacrifice everything.”
And just like that, we're back to where we started. The brief glimpse of the woman my mother might have been disappears behind the same old advice about finding security through a man.
“But what if I want to take care of myself? What if I want to build my own security?”
“You can't build security the way men can, Stella. The world simply doesn't work that way for us.” She reaches for my hand again, and there's something sharper in her voice now, less sugar-sweet and more matter-of-fact. “I've watched too many women pour everything into their careers, thinking independence means doing it all alone. They end up exhausted, passed over for promotions, struggling to keep up with men who don't have to worry about biological clocks or being seen as too aggressive.
“The system isn't fair, sweetheart. A man can focus entirely on his career because that's what he's supposed to do. But a woman? She's fighting an uphill battle. I'm not saying you can't have interests or ambitions. I'm saying, why struggle and sacrifice when you could find a good man who wants to take care of you? Let him handle the pressure of being the provider. You could still work if you wanted to, but you wouldn't have to. You'd have choices, security, and a life that isn't consumed by climbing a ladder that was never meant for women in the first place.”
The therapist calls our name for our couples massage, saving me from having to respond. As we're led to the treatment room, I can't shake the image of my twenty-two-year-old mother, excited about teaching second-graders, giving up her dreams because she thought she had to choose.
But what bothers me more is the realization that she might be trying to live vicariously through my choices, still hoping I'llaccept the traditional path she chose and validate that she made the right decision all those years ago. The problem is, I'm not sure I want the kind of security that requires giving up pieces of myself to get it.
As the massage therapists work out the tension in our shoulders, I find myself thinking about Brandon. About how he supports my career without trying to minimize it. About how he listens when I talk about work like it actually matters. About how he's never once suggested that my goals should be secondary to his.
Maybe my mother's right that Brandon is a good man. But maybe she's wrong about why that matters.
Maybe the point isn't finding someone to take care of me. Maybe it's finding someone who believes I'm capable of taking care of myself.
eighteen
. . .
