When I Didn’t See

When I Didn't See | A Practical Wedding (2)

Maybe it was better when I just didn’t see.

 

Preschool

Me: “Mom, being a boy is better than being a girl.” Mom: “If I was God and could change it, would you want to be a boy?”
Me: “No. I just want to do all the boy things.”
Mom: “You can. Here is a woman who is an astronaut. A doctor. A teacher. A dog sled musher. It wasn’t always true, but now you can do anything you want to.”

I believed her. I could be everything.
Maybe it was better when I just didn’t see.

Junior High

Ms. G: “Has anyone figured out the pattern in who I’m calling on?”
Me: “No”
Ms. G: “One girl, and then one boy.”
Me: “Why?”
Ms. G: “Because studies show that girls don’t get called on in school as often as boys do, and that makes them think they’re not as smart as boys.”
Me: “That’s dumb- no one actually thinks girls are bad at chemistry anymore. I’m going to be a scientist just like you.”

I believed in myself. I could be anything.
Maybe it was better that I just didn’t see.

Undergrad

Prof W: “No one will listen to you on a job site unless you’re wearing heels and a bikini. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
Me: “Pssh, I’m not going to work in construction. I’d have to listen to guys like you talk about football and pornography. I’m studying structural design, which is more interesting than construction anyways.”
The only female professor in my engineering department was denied tenure at a different school. Maybe it was because she is a woman, but maybe it was because her research wasn’t getting enough grant money. Soil research isn’t very exciting, you know, and I can do better.

I can be better. I will do something worthwhile.
Maybe it was better that I just didn’t see.

Graduate School

Why do the men in my grad program give so many more talks about their research than me? Why are they on a first name basis with the dean and I’m not? Maybe their work is better. Maybe they deserve it. Maybe I need to be more self-confident. Maybe it’s because I don’t play racquetball with the guys.

I didn’t want to learn that being a girl matters, but maybe it does.
I can be better. I can try harder.
Maybe it was better when I just didn’t see.

A Wedding

Why do I have to do all the work? Why won’t vendors call and ask for him? Why do I have to worry about changing my name & he doesn’t? I have exams to pass. Why is planning a wedding my job and not ours?

I can be better. I can try harder.
Maybe trying harder isn’t working.
Maybe it was better when I just didn’t see.

Pregnancy

Why am I hoping I’ve managed to look fat and not pregnant at a job interview? Why am I told to be scared of losing my looks, and he’s reassured that the extra responsibility will look good for promotions at work? Why am I mad at my spouse because I’m scared his career will get better treatment than mine?

Maybe I just need to be better, and I’ll be respected too. Maybe he’s really smarter than me, and that’s why it happens. Maybe if I’m back at work two weeks after giving birth, they’ll believe I deserve to the new job.

Maybe it was better when I just didn’t see.

Its hormones.
Women are so emotional.
Just be more comfortable asserting yourself.
It’s true, there aren’t many women faculty here, but we just haven’t been able to find qualified applicants.

Because now that I see, I’m angry.
And being angry doesn’t help.
Maybe it was better when I just didn’t see.

Photo: Lisa Wiseman

Rachel: Halloween Treats

Happy holidays, you guys! I know most people use that phrase in December, but in my family, Halloween is the holidays.

Growing up, I always had pretty great homemade costumes. After all, we were theater people. The costumes were designed to be really cute, and to hide layers of clothes in case it was freezing on Halloween. (No daughter of my mother was going to go out with a coat covering up her costume!)

homemade costumes

After my brother Preston was born in 2005, my mom took her costuming to a new level. And so did I. While I enjoyed Halloween as a kid, it was actually as a young adult that I began to bond with my mom over it. It became a new family tradition and a way for me to feel close to her and my new baby brother. When you have two children who are nineteen years apart in age, the relationship is often not very sibling-like. And since I missed out on the opportunity to have those naked sibling bath time photos that everyone else has from their childhood, I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to share Halloween with my little brother.

When I was in college, my mom would dress Preston up in one of his amazing costumes and bring him to Safe Halloween, a block-party-like Halloween event that the Greek community at MSU put on each year. Over the years, Preston went to Safe Halloween dressed as a Navy seal, a deviled egg, and a ghost train. (He wanted to be a train. My mom was like, “Just a train? Yeah, I don’t think so.”)

homemade costumes

At the same time she was making punny little costumes for her son, she was making slutty little costumes for her daughter. When I was a senior in college, she made me my favorite costume of all time: the sexy iPod. The Apple logo I requested she add on the lower back of the dress was the perfect sorority girl touch, and a sign that I had inherited my mom’s attention to detail with regard to costumes.

sexy ipod costume

(The sad thing is that while I could probably actually fit into that costume now, the technology that inspired it is completely obsolete.)

When she wasn’t helping me excel at Slutoween, my mom was winning national contests with costumes like the couch potato and the Wild Things costumes she made for my brother and cousins to wear (which, I’m told, are pretty big on Pinterest).

homemade costumes

She also still found time to make inanimate objects sexy for her firstborn.

wild thing & sushi costume

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