From Traditional Daughter to Feminist Mother (and What That Means)

Last updated on: September 15, 2016 at 5:00 am by Libby Anne

From Traditional Daughter to Feminist Mother (and What That Means) 2016-09-09T17:39:39-04:00 Libby Anne

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I was recently explaining to my daughter that Hillary has to work twice as hard as Trump does and be twice as organized and as competent as Trump is, because she’s a woman. My daughter, Sally, was nonplussed. She didn’t think that sounded fair. We talked a bit more about women’s rights and the history of gender relations—all things we’ve touched on before—and my mind was drawn to the many studies and books I’ve seen and read on these issues, from Lean In to studies on how often women ask for (and get) raises or promotions. As I was musing about these double standards to a friend, she made this comment:

Were you not told as a kid that you’d have to work twice as hard as the guys to get the same things?

No. No I was not. Ever. Not once. Instead, I was told not to try to acheive guy things, because that wasn’t my place. There are times I can almost convince myself that my upbringing really was pretty normal. We played outside in the dirt, we created imaginary worlds with friends, we played with legos and read books, we were just kids, growing up like any other kid. And then there are moments like this. Apparently every other little girl in the 1990s was being told they’d have to work twice as hard as guys to accomplish the same things, while I was being told to settle down and learn to bake and prepare to keep house.

It’s not that I didn’t achieve anything outside of the domestic sphere. I did. I studied several languages, I nailed a couple AP tests, I got into college on scholarship. But I was also always extremely aware of the sphere to which I had been born—the women’s sphere.

Of course, the women’s sphere, as understood in our evangelical homeschool community, isn’t as narrow as it at first might sound. A woman is permitted to be involved in the church’s children’s ministry, and is expected to direct her children’s education. Indeed, a woman might form a homeschool co-op, lead a writing class, or found a homeschool debate club. A woman might have hobbies, such as scrapbooking or quilting, and might make things to sell on Etsy (or its predecessors), running a small in-home business. There was a lot that a woman might done, but it must needs stay within the home, and within her role as nurturer and carer for children.

Growing up, the only career I ever thought of was missionary nurse. In some sense, it is only as a missionary nurse that a woman could lead a single life without being accused of stepping outside of her given sphere. After all, a missionary nurse might not have a family but was still serving Christ, and not herself, and she was still acting within her role as nurturer. She was caring for the sick—that was a very feminine thing to do. I ultimately gave up my thought of being a missionary nurse when I realized that I didn’t want to leave the country and that I was not attracted to medicine. I chose the only other option available to me—I would be a wife, homemaker, and homeschooling mother.

I was excited about my lot in life. I would be the best wife, homemaker, and homeschooling mother. I would decorate my house and live with complete frugality. I would sew all of my children’s clothes and can our food. I would make my children’s toys and design their homeschool curriculum. I would write and develop new curriculum, and publish it for the homeschool market. I would hold classes in this subject or that for homeschooled children in the community, to bring in a little extra cash. And I would garden up a storm. I think it was my passion for this future that so confuses my mother at my current path.

The truth is that I am a very passionate person. I am a very driven person. I am a very self-motivated person. I don’t do anything halfway. And so, given that being a wife, homemaker, and homeschooling mother was (I believed) the only option open to me, I planned to do it with gusto—I would be the best wife, homemaker, and homeschooling mother for miles around. I probably could have been all of that. But when I realized, during my early twenties, that I could have a career—that that was okay—my options suddenly expanded. It wasn’t that being a wife, homemaker, and homeschooling mother was suddenly repulsive to me. It was just that it wasn’t the only option, and I ended up deciding on a different one.

It’s not that I didn’t have ambition, as a girl. I did. It’s just that my ambition took place within artificial limits placed on it by my community and family. And now, today, I’m raising my daughter without those limits. It’s been over a decade since I left my parents’ home, and raising my daughter without those limits no longer feels at all strange to me. I tell both of my children, my daughter and my son, that they can be anything they want to be, if they put their minds to it and are willing to work hard. A neurosurgeon? A railway engineer? A botanist? An elementary school teacher? The world is theirs for the taking.

And yes, my children could also chose to be homemakers or homeschool parents. There are many ways to measure value, and I encourage my children to approach careers as passions and as things they believe in, and not as status symbols, or as mandates. If they want to be homemakers or caregivers—and they’ve had school friends with stay-at-home dads as well as stay-at-home moms—my only concern would be to make sure that they have a career they can fall back on. I don’t want my children to end up stuck, like the moms I’ve met who want to get out of the house and work but can’t because the only jobs they qualify for wouldn’t cover childcare. I’m not trying to lock my children into any one path. I want them to know that they have options, and that what they chose is in their hands.

On some level, I don’t feel like what I’m doing is all that different from what my parents did. I’m encouraging my children to work hard and do their best, to put their all into their work and their interests. But then a friend will ask me a question like the one above—“Were you not told as a kid that you’d have to work twice as hard as the guys to get the same things?”—and I’ll realize how radically different the messages I’m giving my daughter are from the messages I received as a girl. Because unlike my parents, I’m raising my daughter without limits. While she may sometimes have to work twice as hard to achieve things as her male peers, at least she knows she can.

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