You influence your children in ways you don't realize. For example, my mother never really took care of herself - she never did nice things for herself. Overall I would say she has treated herself pretty poorly. It has taken me until now, 30 years old, to learn to do nice things for myself and take care of myself, and feel okay about it. Little things like getting a pedicure of a massage - I never used to do those things or think that I deserved to feel good in general.
Anyway, my brother wrote this interesting post about how he got where he is and why. It made me think about how I got to where I'm at and I always think it's interesting to compare the ways that our childhoods affected us, sometimes differently, even though we grew up in the same dysfunctional house. My mother is an alcoholic who has never been sober and my dad is emotionally unavailable for the most part and dysfunctional in other ways. I could write post after post about the chaos we grew up in, but I'll leave that for later. For now I will just say that there was an incredible amount of tension and pressure around school and success. I'm not really sure where this came from because neither of my parents are educated. I think it stemmed mostly from a desire that we would have more than they did.
I think by and large most of the pressure fell on my brother who is two years older than me. My parents always treated us as if my brother was the smart one. My brother was good at math and science. My brother was the one that they expected to be successful, to excel, to stand out. I guess I don't really know what my parents thought I would become - I just knew that whatever it was, it would pale in comparison to my brother's achievements. My brother bore the brunt of my mother's pressure while I think I lingered in the background suffering in other ways as a result of her alcoholism.
On top of not being the smart one, there were no real role models in my family. My dad's family, who we were closer to than my mother's, are not supportive when it comes to education. In their family, you are not supposed to go to college, particularly if you are a woman. You are supposed to marry young and have babies and not work outside of the home if possible. You aren't supposed to travel outside of the state of Michigan, and if you do leave the state you have to drive, because flying is unsafe. God forbid you live in a city and make too much money. I always say that my dad's family's motto is, "why have more when you can settle for less?" I am like the black sheep of the family - educated, a lawyer, living in a city, making a lot of money, unmarried, no children. (Now granted I want to get married and have children, but I don't want to give up my career).
Anyway, basically I had no support from anyone. In my entire life, my mother has only ever told me that I am good at two things, even to this day - cleaning and arguing. I think she used to say I was good at cleaning just to get me to clean so she didn't have to. And she always used to say, "you would be a good lawyer, you like to argue." Almost from the time I can remember, I knew that I would be a lawyer. What were my options? Cleaning person or lawyer. Now if I had gone the cleaning route, I would probably own my own cleaning empire already! She told me I wasn't good at math and science, so I couldn't be an engineer, a doctor or a scientist. Besides, those were my brother's goals and I would always be overshadowed. I needed to do something different so I could stand out. The truth is, I don't know how good I am at math or science because I only ever tried half-heartedly, expecting that I would fail. I had no role models so I think I truthfully didn't know just how many options I might have had. I was also motivated by money because it was always a huge stress growing up - there was never enough and there was constant fighting over it. I just knew that whatever I did, I wanted financial security.
All my life, since I was 7, I wanted to be an architect. I really really wanted to be an architect. I think this would have been my passion in life. But my mother told me I wasn't good enough at math so I abandoned the idea in favor of the one thing she told me I might succeed at - that seemed like a sure bet. I know now that being a lawyer isn't a sure bet or necessarily your ticket to financial freedom - though for me it has been, this isn't always the case. I have been lucky in my career and am very fortunate to have gone to a top law school and to work at one of the top firms in the world. This isn't every one's experience and I am grateful for everything that I have worked for and earned. Even though I never pursued what I really wanted to do, I have always continued to think about it.
Even my father had no faith in me. When I got my first job out of law school, my dad congratulated me by saying, "I just didn't think you had what it would take to compete at a top law school." Thanks dad. My life, my education, my career, has been a series of steps to try to prove myself. To prove that I am smart enough, capable enough, as good as my brother, as successful as my brother. I've been trying all my life to prove to my parents that they were wrong about me, and even now, despite my success, my accomplishments still, and probably always will, pale in comparison to my brother's. My mother parades my brother around like he is an accomplishment of hers, while I continue to linger in the background. The thing is, I can't be any more successful. I have as great of a job as I ever could get with amazing opportunities in front of me. I have nothing left to prove. I just need to convince myself - this has been as much about proving it to myself as it was about proving it to my parents.
Being a lawyer may not be my passion, it's hard to say, because I've never been an architect - but I love my job and I am very happy where I'm at. Do I wish I had made a different choice? No. If I could do it over, would I make a different choice? No. So in the end, I guess I ended up where I would have wanted to be - it just wasn't because it was what I always thought I wanted - it was all I ever really thought I could succeed at.
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