When I Grow Up

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" adults would ask while wiping snot from our noses, dabbing mercurochrome on scraped knees, or washing the dust and sweat from our dirty, chubby little faces. Answers varied. Most boys wanted to be something exciting such as a cowboy or policeman. My cousin, Bobby Joe, who grew up in a devout Catholic home, told our grandmother that he wanted to be either a priest or a cowboy. She responded: "Good grief! I don't which is worse." Girls on the other hand stuck to traditional roles ascribed to them, their answers aligning with what was socially acceptable - teacher, secretary, nurse and these responses were usually coupled with "and a mommy." Why else were we given those baby dolls every Christmas to dress, diaper, and pretend feed with miniature plastic bottles, some of which actually contained a white, creamy liquid that bubbled when tipped toward the doll's mouth. I don't recall any of my girlfriends announcing their plans to be a movie star, postal delivery carrier, or doctor. I got the white nurse's kit while my brother carried his black plastic doctor's bag. I could be a cowgirl - never a cowboy. Feeling that Native Americans were beautiful and mystical people, I really always wanted to be the Indian but this role was only acceptable at Thanksgiving because the unspoken message was that no one would want to admit to aspirations of belonging to a group of people who had been nearly obliterated from the face of the earth. White folks, after all, were winners - not losers. So, little girls carried their dreams into adulthood as secrets.

Home from college on holiday break, I told my father I wanted to begin courses that would help me become an interior designer. He chuckled and shook his head: That's not a good career for a woman. You would have to work too many long hours, it's incredibly competitive, and the job would interfere with your home life and raising your children. Wait. What? Children? I hadn't gotten that far yet, but he certainly had. College apparently was a holding pen for nice, available college boys who would more likely be the better providers. Once I had my claws in one of those, my education was irrelevant. Become a teacher, Mom would say. They get their summers off! So the plan was for me to focus on finding a college boy who would be able to support me while I had babies and stayed home to take care of them, do laundry, cook, and clean. Who needs a career when there are all those exciting tasks to do? If I was lucky, I might find time to sew and do arts and crafts! Maybe even play Bridge with my girlfriends once a month and drink a cocktail mixed in a priceless chrome cocktail shaker. Whoopee! Bombarded with so many mixed messages and living at a time when our social structure was being shaken to the core, I found myself confused and aspired to join what my father called the "epidemic of hippies." My change of character from a prim and proper Midwestern girl who earned high marks in school and followed the all the rules to someone who claimed to believe in a liberal agenda, protested the Vietnam war, pledged to save the whales, and God forbid, espoused to free love, perplexed my parents and neither one quite knew what to do about it. Much to the delight and entertainment of my younger siblings, however, I began smoking cigarettes in a meerschaum cigarette holder, danced as if my limbs were not jointed to my torso, and spouted profound philosophies such as: Screw it, man!

On another holiday break from college, I stumbled through the front door in a pair of skin tight bell-bottoms, a ratty looking fur jacket I had purchased in a thrift store, and wore my hair long and straight held in place with a leather headband tied around my forehead. For me, dressing the part was my first priority. The other aspects of hippiedom: drugs, sex, rock 'n roll, politics, protests, and flat-out rebellion were weak contenders to my wardrobe.

Greeted in the entrance hall by my parents and visiting aunt and uncle, my mother laughed lamely, apologetically explaining: Oh, I guess Karen is a hippie right now. (Implying that I was not serious in my rebellion and would grow out of this phase quickly in the same way I would eventually cease using what she called "25-cent words" and speak more plainly. She felt my expanded vocabulary was not becoming to a young lady. Too many "big" words made me look like an arrogant intellectual which could intimidate prospective husbands. Little did she know, I reserved some of my new, more colorful, vocabulary for the dorms and college campus, but rather than risk my only source of income which was my dad's checkbook, I refrained from such language at home. While dad wisely ignored my newfound persona mom found every opportunity to "discuss" the delusions to which I had fallen prey, punctuating her oratory with warnings of doom: If you marry some long-haired, artistic hippie without ambition, you'll end up living in a hovel eating Spam! Find a nice law student or business major! Attend some parties at Washington University and find a nice Jewish medical student! (The only time, mind you, she might acclimate herself to a Jewish son-in-law would be if the title of "Dr." preceded his surname.)

My parents could not claim ownership of the idea that their daughter should find a suitable husband on a college campus; many parents of daughters encouraged the same agenda and few promoted a true academic pursuit that would catapult their girl into a profession which would permit her financial independence. Teacher, secretary, nurse: all careers that even today remain designated "good added income" for married couples and often require additional work schedules or second jobs for a single person. Regardless, at least half of the girls I knew in college were married and pregnant (not necessarily in that order) by the time they were juniors in college. The boys happily married their prego girlfriends earning a secure exemption from the draft and possibly being sent to Vietnam, a fate in which so many of the young men never returned home alive. Ninety-nine percent of the couples I knew during this outbreak of marriages divorced within ten years. That included me. I put all my love and devotion into motherhood and my children are the best part of who I am. Oh, and I did become a teacher, a darned good one too. I have no regrets; it's been a long and good life. But in 1964 when Bob Dylan recorded The Times They Are A-Changing, indeed they were.

Take a look at Dylan's lyrics: seems as though that song would be apropos again today.

And now I will share one of my great secrets: I always wanted to be Stevie Nicks. I still do.