Having Choices

One of the things that I regret the most about growing up as a Mormon girl is the number of possibilities for the rest of my life that were cut off and not allowed to me, even without me noticing that this was happening. I suppose that this happens to many girls in many ways because patriarchy is still pervasive, in and outside of religion, in America. But for me, it is astonishing now to realize how much I felt like I was “breaking the rules” by going to get a PhD in, of all things, German literature. I “waited” to have children until I was the ripe old age of 23. And then I did part-time work at a local (Mormon) university until I gave birth to my third child in three years, when I was no longer able to manage childcare and teaching.

No one told me that I could be a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or an astronaut. Or President of the United States. I have no idea if I would have wanted to be one of those things. I can’t know that because I can’t go back in time and restart my life and see what I would have wanted if I’d been allowed to want anything in the world.

I’m not embarrassed by any of the books I published. Is that the same as being proud of them? Well, some of them feel now to me like they were written by a different person, someone constrained by the rules of Mormonism in ways I would not wish on anyone else. I wrote books with “no swears,” with “no sex,” and with young adult characters who mostly did things within the bounds of what extremist religious groups would approve of. Sure, they were in fantasy novels and that allowed them to use “magic” that doesn’t exist in the real world. But they were also squarely male or female and stuck to those gendered roles. There were not transgender or queer characters in my books (or at least not unless you read between the lines). Patriarchy was not challenged in any meaningful way.

The books were well-written. They sold well enough, most of them. One sold very well, thanks to my publisher’s efforts and investment. Would I do that again? Give thirty or forty years of my life to the project of creating art that will most likely disappear into nothingness in a few years’ time? I genuinely don’t know. I still write. I will still publish. But it feels very different to me now. It is a hobby, not a career, and I don’t particularly wish for it to be anything other than that. Are there Mormon women who made writing books into a career? Yes, a few. Many of them also started writing in the young adult space. Because “children’s literature” is appropriate for Mormon women to write.

I am trying to make more choices available to myself now, at the age of 54. I wish to give to myself the gift that no one gave to little Mette, the gift of having all the choices in the world. I cannot go back in time. I cannot get my fifty-four years back. I have limited years left. But for those years, I no longer want to think so small and gendered about my role in the world. I don’t need to think that the only contributions made to the world are male, either (though this is almost impossible not to do). I am playing in a way I never did before, with myself, with my concept of what is possible. It is a good place to be in, a place I mostly have created on my own.