They mean it nicely—I know they do. It’s only polite to ask it of up-and-coming students. There’s really no way they can avoid it without putting themselves in an awkward position.
But whenever this topic comes up, nausea slowly takes me. Jitters begin in my pinky toe. I pick at my black blazer, blink rapidly, grin stupidly, all defenses on alert: “So what do you want to do after high school?”
I guess the problem is twofold: I’m too honest and I’m not honest enough. I’m too honest, in that I can’t lie straightfaced and say with a proud smile, “I’m taking an internship at an engineering school to become the first woman to design a rocket ship compatible with amphibian life.” Shocking—acceptable—but unfortunately, untrue. Of course I could tell the truth, but that would be shocking, unacceptable and very unfortunately true: “Actually, I want to get married and be a mother one day.”
Invariably This Question pops up after I’ve done something of substantial achievement. For instance, last year I went on a world tour (in exhaustion, not extent) for two speech competitions. That meant multiple luncheons and award ceremonies of dry chicken, blouses, nervous small talk and the ubiquitous question.
After the handshakes, the pictures, the spoils of war tucked under my arm, someone comes up and wants to know what this fine young lady is doing with her life. I’d smile wryly and say something impressive about me studying Christian philosophy through an online college and not really getting a career but rather doing ministry right where I’m at, and trying to be totally honest about how I won’t be moving into an apartment at eighteen without wholly giving away the point.
A little lights flips off in their eyes as they catch themselves after the stumble. “Oh, that’s nice,” and we’d bumble through the awkwardness of them assuming I’m off my rocker.
There’s a ghastliness to it, like a fog in spring—and the thing is, that’s not the extent of my unconventionality. I hate to imagine what glazed eyes, what confusion, what tight-lipped disappointment would occur were I to say, “Um, actually, I really want to be a homemaker.”
“They just want to know what you’re doing with all your talent,” my mother soothed after another speaking engagement/life interrogation segment.
True, which is why I keep silent. Bright young ladies staying home is socially suicidal. It’s comparable to a genius happily, delusionally sighing, “My highest goal, my dream job, my heart’s desire is to be a garbage collector!”
Not that I think that. Not that anyone says it (out loud). But it’s perception, you know. This poor girl, so smart, so brainwashed by 1950’s propaganda. How many re-runs of Leave It to Beaver has she watched?
In sum, I’m terrified to face up to one of my biggest dreams. It’s just too hard to explain, especially when culture and glazed eyes are against you. “Please don’t think I’m stupid—I’m really planning on changing the world—I really will use all my talents in the home—I’m not throwing myself away for changing diapers.”
Yeah, right. Check the white pages for mental institutions.
But ignoring the problem—THE QUESTION—doesn’t help matters. Indeed, I really think a collective effort on home-loving girls’ part would go a long way. The love of home and family is so deeply a part of most women that, truly, we could reset the status quo if we were just honest enough to speak out.
Even the girl working the cash register at Walmart or the education major at the Bible school or the forty-six-year-old professional at the law firm—the desire’s there for home and family life. Our circumstances may not immediately betray our dark secret, but somehow, someday, it leaks out.
Sometimes all it takes is for a dream to be verbalized—for a bright young girl with lots of promise to talk big about how she wants to marry her man and raise up babes for the glory of God. Just saying it, no matter how immediately awkward, can justify it in those who unconsciously hold the same dream in their heart. It may cause slight discomfort for ideologies which have no room for differences or eternal perspective—but then again, you may run into one of those closet home girls, the kind who can’t stop hoping that someday they can come home.
If we talk about it—girls who aren’t chained to a specific pattern of life, denomination or homemaking regime—if just normal girls like you and me with our different lives and interests, if we start being honest and confident about our dreams, we can change how people think.
Old Professer Kirk in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe mentioned that there are three possibilities when a girl starts saying crazy things: Either she’s lying, she’s mad or she’s telling the truth. If she doesn’t tell lies and it’s obvious she’s not mad, we have to assume she’s telling the truth.
Our homemaking dreams can be a total joke, the proclamations of mad women or, maybe, maybe, the inklings of something true. People may not take you seriously. Well, then, not everyone will do that even in respectable paradigms. People may bemoan your loss. But some people aren’t as magnanimously-minded as they hope to be. And the good thing is, some people will admire you for your courage to follow a path few women dare to take.
Even if they don’t, conscience and conviction ought to be enough to keep us on the right direction. One thing’s certain: If we’re not proud of where we’re going, that sentiment will certainly catch on.
