My First Role Model Changed My Life
I Was 21 Years Old When Our Paths Crossed
Once upon a time, I met a role model.
I was 21 years old, married, and already a young mother. I didn’t have many role models back in the day. I met my first role model in 1972. I’d never had a role model prior to that.
Oh, don’t get me wrong.
I had plenty of wanna be role models, but they were mostly cut from the same cloth of varying shades of color and design. You know. Wives, mothers, grandmas and such.
The landscape of choices that spread out before me was pretty monotone.
The women in my life were complainers, however. They complained about their lot in life and their husbands’ oppressive ways. I took one look at their frustrated faces and shuddered.
I don’t think I fully realized how limited their choices had been when they were my age.
The men in my family weren’t terribly nice blokes but at least they had hobbies and interests. Their lives were freer. They had jobs, their own money, dabbled in recreation, all while keeping a family on the side.
They seemed to have it all.
Back in the day, women appeared to age faster than men. At least, that’s the way it looked to me as a young teen observing the adult world and hoping to make my own grand entrance.
I vowed that my life would be different.
I was beginning to formulate ideas for my life. I had a big imagination and a creative spirit. I wanted to explore, experiment, move about — like a man. It was a very dim outline of a future, but it was beginning to percolate. I had no idea how to go about it.
After all, I had no role models.
My mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother couldn’t offer any suggestions. Furthermore, I grew up in a religious cult, a very patriarchal closed society, where women were expected to be subservient to males. There were no collective dreams in the religious community for girls.
I left home as soon as I was 18.
Deliberately turning my back on religion, I set out to find my fortune. Yet, I really wasn’t ready. The only women that I knew had husbands. They were totally dependent. They had babies, too. Their lives revolved around keeping house and cooking.
Independence wasn’t possible because they had no money of their own.
I slowly began to realize that those who had the money had the power in America. If I wanted to be independent, capable of surviving on my own, then I best get a job. I didn’t just want a job, however. I wanted a career.
So, I started going to college, night classes.
Back in my day, going to college was a viable option for boys who wanted to rise above the socio-economic bracket of their parents. Girls were just starting to break into careers.
Some of those girls went to college to find a husband.
I might have made a great psychiatrist, a wonderful writer living a bohemian lifestyle in Greenwich Village, or a famous actress. I had dreamed about them all. Instead, I chose to be an educator because there was a teacher’s program available to me. I drove roughly 30 miles to a neighboring midwestern town to take most of my courses. Lack of opportunity was still a problem for poor girls like myself, but I took advantage of the options that I had.
Doors were about to open for me.
None of the women in my family were particularly interested in what I was doing. In fact, most of my life I don’t know if they even remembered what grade I taught. It took many years of work and continued education to finally get their attention. I eventually ran a large elementary school in Maine.
I think maybe by that time, they recognized what I’d achieved.
I started to notice right away that women don’t necessarily champion the success of other women. Surprisingly, even at this late date, 2022, a lot of women are still primarily focused on finding a boyfriend. With the divorce rates as high as they are, however, it’s pretty obvious that men aren’t necessarily the answer to a woman’s happiness any more than they were the answer to the happiness of my mother, grandmother, or mother-in-law.
It took me a while to understand that my personal growth was my responsibility.
I’d grown up in a strict religion that curtailed almost all personal growth and pleasurable activities from movies to fiction books, shopping for pretty clothes, wearing makeup, cutting my hair, going to college, or earning my own money. And yet, when I left home the only thing that I was determined to find was a boyfriend. Don’t ask me how I thought a boyfriend and my dimly emerging dreams for my own life would benefit each other.
Just remember, I’d never had a role model.
Somewhere in the murky recesses of my adolescent brain lurked a bohemian writer living in Greenwich Village, or a highly trained psychiatrist with her own office, or even a teacher with a classroom of wiggling squirming 5th graders. I even dreamed of being an actress. Yet, I didn’t have a clue how to go about establishing a life for myself. So, I got married. Yep! Just like my mom, my grandma, and my mother-in-law.
And then, I met my first role model.
She gave me a peek at my options. OPTIONS! I soon learned that if I have options, I have hope. My first role model was a lovely older woman who taught my music appreciation course. She was flamboyant with a swoop of silver hair across one eye and colorful clothes. She took me under her wing for that brief time I was enrolled in her class.
I don’t think she guessed what an influential part she played in my life. I’d never known anyone like her before.
She was fluent in French, was a music professor, played the viola, had lived in Paris, and operated her own radio program on the campus station. She was enthusiastic about Beethoven and interested in different lifestyles. Her open-mindedness stood in glaring contrast to the tight mindsets of the elders in my family.
Suddenly, a missing piece of the puzzle was provided.
We were kindred spirits. What she represented was the beauty of experiencing life. What a revelation. I suddenly understood that when an open mind and curiosity are permitted, even encouragred, we suddenly have options. Doors open. Alternative paths reveal themselves. Life becomes an adventure and growth takes place. Creativity flourishes. And the number of options we have in life seem to double even triple in number.
Options!!!
For the first time in my life, I realized that I had many options.
I spent the next years finishing my degree, starting a career, and trying new things. Unlike my mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother I have always had my own money.
That was central to my personal power.
When I learned about the 1920s in America, I immediately identified with the writers, artists, and composers that left the United States for Paris. They were rejecting the values of post-World War I America by choosing to relocate and pursue a bohemian lifestyle. Paris became the center for fertile minds, creativity, and free thought. Lots of American women, not just men, participated in this social experiment. The presence of so many artists was intoxicating for those like myself who wanted to change the monotone landscape they saw when they looked out their windows. I suspect that I would’ve flourished in Paris in the 1920s.
Sadly, societal limitations are as common as creativity, however.
Those with far greater gifts than me are often forced to escape the traditions and narrow world views of society in order to fulfill their destinies. It hasn’t been easy to carve out my own pathway in life either. Lots of people would have preferred that I conform, give up my dreams, and just tend to the home fires. But as society slowly moved forward, I eventually found more and more women who were wired like me. We do less complaining. We focus on claiming our own power, building our dreams, and developing our hobbies and interests.
Some of us had a family as well, just like men had always done, but we didn’t give up on ourselves.
Of course, I found a few more role models after my initial one. Now that I’m an older woman of a certain age, I’m happy to say that I regularly stumble across women of all ages who insist on choosing their own path.
When our paths cross, we recognize sisterhood.
There are still plenty of women who define themselves almost entirely by having a boyfriend, husband, or children. However, I think there are many more role models today than there used to be back in my day. The view from the window is far more colorful because of these women.
That’s encouraging.
Teresa is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
