Who I Am

Today is Mother’s Day for many countries around the world. This morning I posted a couple pictures of my mom on social media, texted her to let me know when she was going to be up so we could Facetime, and then got to work on a side hustle job I have. As I was working away, the song Who I Am by Jessica Andrews came on; a beloved 2000’s country hit about a young woman reflecting on who she is and the women who came before her. A fitting song for Mother’s Day, actually. I looked over at the pictures I have in my bedroom of my siblings and I with our two sets of grandparents and found myself becoming a little emotional. My paternal Grandma has been gone for over a decade now and it’s been five years since my maternal Grandma passed away. As I sat with the emotions that came up while I listened to the song, inspiration hit.

This is Who I Am.

I’m Bernice’s granddaughter.

I’m named after my grandma, Susan.

I’m the eldest daughter of Merri.

These women, and the women who came before them, lived lives as daughters, wives, and mothers. Some of them worked, some of them were stay-at-home mom’s. My mom was the only one who went to college for a time, but none of them ever received a college degree. They were raised Christian in a small, rural community going back quite a few generations. The life I’m living now is very different from the lives they lived, and honestly I’m sure would be quite shocking to many of them. But I wouldn’t be the woman I am or doing the work I am without their experiences and lives informing me.

When I initially tell people what my PhD project is about, I give the very academic and education-focused answer… “I’m examining why teachers in Ireland aren’t confident or comfortable to teach Relationships and Sexuality Education and what needs to change in teacher education programs to address this issue.” But at the core of my research and professional pursuits is a deeply personal one. I want to dive deeper into the topic of sex education policy because it was one avenue for me to dig into why we, in so much of Western society, are failing to love and live deeply with one another. Why is there so much shame, pain, and judgement being passed down from generation to generation around sex, sexuality, love, relationships, and community? Thanks to the work of many researchers and sex educators, we know there’s a variety of reasons why, but as Dr. Emily Morse writes in her book Smart Sex, “Most of us feel uncomfortable talking about sex because we have no idea that it’s a normal thing to talk about. We don’t see many healthy models of people talking about sex in our culture, so we assume that it’s unnecessary.” I have been curious about this as I have aged, because I can see it in myself and my own family so clearly.

My maternal grandma was forced to drop out of high school at the age of 16 years old when she became pregnant. In 1960 in the USA, this was still a damnable offense in rural communities. My grandpa was able to graduate high school, but my grandma never received her high school diploma or her GED. She married my grandpa and had three daughters by the age of 20 years old. I never got the chance to have really deep conversations with my grandma about this time of her life, but I know from conversations with my mom that life was not always easy for her. My grandma was an extremely loving and caring person. She made every single person in her life feel the love and care she had for us every time we saw her. I am trying to continue her legacy of making people feel loved and cared for.

If I’m being honest, which I think you can tell that I am, I wasn’t as close with my paternal grandma. I have very fond memories of visiting her during my shift of milking cows at the family dairy farm when I was in high school and our family Christmas Eve parties. My grandpa and her would take my sisters and I shopping and out for dinner for our birthdays every year because they were snowbirds, so they would be in Arizona during our birthdays. I always felt love from her, but there was a distance maintained even then that I can remember. When I heard that my dad never saw my grandparents kiss or show much affection growing up, it didn’t surprise me. They were good people who cared about their family, but they showed it very differently than my maternal grandparents. She did always have cookies for us grandkids when we visited and that’s a legacy I would also like to continue with my niblings and children in my life.

These women and the stories I know, and probably even more importantly the stories I don’t know, made up who they were and how they raised my parents. My mother was raised by very young parents who, whether it was talked about or not, had the shame of how their family was started lingering over their heads. While I do know my grandma loved her children and grandchildren, I can’t imagine that there weren’t doubts and regrets she lived with that were rarely, if ever, spoken about.

I grew up in a Reformed Protestant home and was taught that sex before marriage was a sin. Sex was an act only meant for husband and wives to show how much they love each other and for procreation. I think when I was old enough to learn about my maternal grandparents story is when I first experienced cognitive dissonance; how could sex before marriage be a sin if that’s how my Aunt was conceived?

Why was my family so judgmental of teenage mothers when my grandma was one of them?

Why did we gossip about others for their sexual transgressions when I’m sure grandma had to listen to and deal with gossip, shame, and rude comments when she was younger?

What messages did my mom and her sisters grow up hearing about sex and relationships from their very young mother that they passed on to their children?

What kind of shame was I inheriting and how could I break free from that narrative? What kind of narrative did I want to write and live instead? How could I begin to heal from the religious, familial and cultural shame I grew up with? Who did I need to turn to in order to heal myself and the women who came before me?

“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” -bell hooks in All About Love

These revelations for me have came over time through heartbreaks, hard lessons and conversations, therapy sessions, and more. I’m still trying to answer them, honestly. That’s where this blog comes in. I hope to spend some time writing and reflecting on what I have learned from others along my healing journey. They’ll be some blogs about relationships, some about sex and sexuality, maybe some about traveling and life in general. I am waiting for the inspiration and courage to strike me again to see what I end up sharing.

But as I sit here on Mother’s Day, thinking about who I am and the women who came before me, I think about the work of Brené Brown. She wrote in her 2010 book The Gifts of Imperfection, “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” I have to own my story, which are also the stories of the women who came before me. I know that without the bravery, resilience, and love they showed throughout their lives I wouldn’t be here, working to hopefully create a world where there’s less shame and pain stopping us from being in community and relationships with each other more deeply and meaningfully.

To Bernice, Susan, Merri, and all the other women who share my DNA: thank you.
To all the people who are mothers, who want to be mothers, and/or are in mothering roles: thank you.