This ring!

Just last night I was chatting with an e-friend and I mentioned how my brain's development wasn't too much of a worry for my parents while I was growing up; more focus was placed on my appearance...which it is for many young girls, but more so for the girls of parents who were scared of doing their own thinking and had most of it done for them, straight out of the pulpit. But that is another post. As a sidenote, I also have a brother and he was never urged to anything brainy as far as I can recall--he was tall and athletically inclined, so naturally, they encouraged his sportsmanship. It didn't work out. Anyway.

So my brain is not usually far from pondering traditional gender roles and their impact on us ladies as we make it in this world, but I really hadn't given much thought to how my parents really fostered these outdated ideals. Granted, I don't think it was done intentionally and they meant to rob so much of my life of more meaningful development as a human and I'm not really bitter. However, I'm sick of ignorance being an excuse for everything from harmful gender stereotyping to racism. It's a reason, but I don't think it's an excuse and people don't get a free pass because of their ignorance as far as I'm concerned. But I digress.

Over the holiday season, I was forced to realize how much these stereotypical roles are expected of me still from my parents. I thought that my parents were both comfortable with the fact that C and I do not plan on having any children. They have three as it is (so get off my back!) with a couple of step-grandchildren thrown in for good measure. My mom refers to our dogs as her granddogs, so I assumed all was well.

I tend to keep my parents at arm's length, so we had not seen them since July and my 30th birthday passed during that time. So my mother had a birthday gift waiting for me. I opened it once we visited, and I was a little crestfallen to see that she had given me yet another porcelain trinket box with an inscription on it lauding our mother/daughter "friendship." I have a problem with this term, first of all. Do you really want to be friends with your daughter? I'm not saying the parent/offspring relationship should be strictly authoritative (or authoritarian), but friendship is something I'm not comfortable with assigning to this relationship. Alas, I did not break it to my mother that I don't consider her my friend because that would just make me a huge ass, wouldn't it? But I don't confide in her, I don't share things with her that I do with my friends, and I don't know that she would really want me to. If I did, I think she would be sorely disappointed in the person she raised and part of it is largely because of my rejection of the roles she wants me to take on (I'm getting there...).

Inside the trinket box is a jewelry box, and inside of that is the ring my father gave her when she found out she was pregnant with me. It took them 14 years to conceive successfully (there were a few miscarriages), and mom sometimes likes to refer to me as her "miracle baby." Sigh. No miracle there, just stubborn determination on their part. It's a pretty ring; the outer jewels, rubies, are arranged in a floral pattern around a small central diamond. I admired it when I was a child. But I had no feelings of envy or that I eventually wanted to wear it myself. It is also in their will that I should receive this, but no, I get it now so that I can "eventually give it to my daughter as a gift when she is long gone."

Good grief. Talk about guilt, and I always go along for the ride when she forces these trips on me. I will finish this post at a later date, because I'm late for a date right now!

Edit: What bothers me most is that my mother completely ignored anything I have said to her about my decision not to have kids. She, like some friends I have, is probably under the assumption that I just might change my mind, me being an indecisive, scatterbrained woman and all. FFS, I'm 30, and I don't consider myself to have it all figured out or even a good portion of it, but I've been fairly rooted in my decision since I was 26. First, I would feel irresponsible bringing yet another child into this world that would aid in our over-consumption. If I really feel the urge to care for another human, I will adopt. Second, there is no way I'm putting myself into the "mommy" culture. All those expectations and playdates and people who would try to get my kid to follow a religion--no, no, no. However, I don't blame my mother fully for ignoring my interests; I blame the patriarchy that has imbued my mother with its expectations of woman existing to please Man and procreate as the most fulfilling function of womanhood. I'm not shooting down anyone's choice to have children, it just ain't for me, and I wish people were more accepting--especially my own family!