Mothers, Daughters, Fathers, and Blunders

In the house hold growing up is when normal people begin to learn about gender. What's approprate and what's unexceptable. Mom's and dad's are the roll models for young minds to understand gender rolls within the family. Again...for a normal people. I called my older sister Ramey and asked her, "Do you remember Mom or Dad pushing gender rolls on us? Or a time they really communicated our gender to us through something?" She thought and thought and finally said, "No, not really." So we began to reminisce about the "good ol' days". Ramey's favorite toys were her Barbie and Hot Wheels. I had baby dolls and a skateboard. If we wanted to wear pants we wore pants, if we wanted our hair in pig tails so we could go roll in the mud Mom was happy to do so. At one point our Mom taught us how to belch on command and Dad taught me the words to a song from Dirty Dancing. Dad called me Princess (and sometimes still does), but Mom never let that go to my head. I can safely say Ramey and I grew up in an unbiased environment when it came to gender. We played football with our uncles, we braided each others hair, and jumped on the trampoline skinning our knees every chance we could get. Mom did make us wear dresses once, but it was on Easter. "Never again" she said after the fight I gave her. God Bless my mom and dad for putting up with us and allowing us to go through our tomboy phases without argument, for buying us the toys we wanted and not contemplating the effect of boy toys of the mind of their girls, and for letting us explore life and make discoveries on our own.

As I grew up and discovered what it meant to be a female. Make-up, purses, bras...oh the wonder! But the expectations were harder to keep up with than the fashion. My father-in-law is a constant reminder of the womanly expectations I'm supposed to be upholding being his son's wife. He constantly says things like, "Well you wouldn't be hungry if that wife of yours would feed you" and "You just need a new wife. One that does what she's supposed to do." The day before our wedding Steve sent my husband Jeff a "joke":

A little boy walked into the kitchen and asked his mom, "Mommy why do bride's wear white?" His mom replied, "That show's her soon to be husband that she loves him and that she is pure." The little boy nodded and went to the living room and found his dad in front of the TV, "Dad," he said, "Why do brides wear white?" His dad laughed and said, "Oh son, all house hold appliances come in white."

Thank you Steve. I know he loves me, my mother-in-law has told me how he talks about me when I'm not around, but there are some days I feel like he thinks I'm not good enough for his son. I love Steve so much, but sometimes I wonder: If I cleaned as much and he thinks I should, weighed as much as society says, and cooked like the perfect wife I "should" he'd approve of me. I'm just one blunder after another, but Jeff loves me no matter how clean our house is or isn't, if dinner is cooked, charcoal, or late night Chinese. Jeff doesn't expect me to be a "cookie cutter" wife and I think that's what he loves about me the most...I'm Dory and I can't be anything more, or better than that.

Fear of Drowning

Swimming. It's any easy thing to do. It's like ridding a bike, one never forgets how, but entering unfamiliar waters may cause one to panic. A new semester is like entering said waters. I can't help but have this horrible fear of drowning! My head goes under, the currents grabs my feet and pulls me down deeper and deeper until I feel the only way out is to give up! I can't give up! I wont give up! My arms rip at the water, my legs kick with furry and I soon break through the surface gasping for air. I will make it! I just have to learn how to swim again.