For Cathy

Women will always be defined
by the people they surround themselves with.

It's always been this way.

From the first cave chick who scrambled
vulture eggs

to the next Prime Minister of Country So-And-So
to wear heels.

The only difference between then and now
is that we have a choice.

Imagine three paths:

Path One: You don't get married, you don't have kids,
you surround yourself with intellectual coworkers
and young urban friends. You drink every Friday and Saturday
night, and you read. And because you read so many interesting
articles and blogs and books, you know everything. Including
how to parent.
(You are a career woman.)

Path Two: You have a husband for a while. Maybe he dies. Maybe you
don't like his sorry ass, and you leave him. Maybe you realize you're
a sista. You travel. A lot. You know where the best restaurants are and
the bookstores with the biggest self-help sections.
(You are a spinster.)

Path Three: You go to college and major in something incredibly impressive,
like biology or computer science or engineering. You get married. You have a kid.
You are stripped of your dignity the first time your kid pounds on the door
and screams while you try to go the bathroom alone. You do not keep long hours
at work, which clearly exhibits a lack of commitment to the older folks. It amuses you to pick fights with your husband, just to keep life interesting.
(You are a mother.)

(If a salesman came up to you
and told you that he had a
once in a lifetime
experience
to sell you, and that this experience
would provide a concrete moral compass
for your life
so that deep in your bones
you would know
what is right
and what is wrong
what matters
and what is fluff...
and that this experience
would provide periodic waves of euphoria
and unbelievable feelings of gratitude,
but that in exchange,
you would question your very identity,
your energy would drain from your body
as if a vampire was sucking your blood
constantly
and that you may not ever again have
time to pluck your eyebrows -

would you buy it?)

So what's it gonna be?

Path One, Path Two, Path Three?

We chose Path Three. We bought motherhood, and maybe because our kids are small and helpless and need us for every basic human function, we have no other identity.

We'll raise our daughters. And one day our daughters will choose.

So what's it gonna be?

Path One, Path Two, Path Three?