What if?

When I was a teenager growing up my mom used to tell me to write things down. When I felt overwhelmed with things to do she'd say, "Write it down." When I expressed things that were important to me, "Write it down," she'd say. Around the time I was going to college my mom told me to envision the end of my life. She told me to think of the person I wanted to be when I was 80 and write that down. Then she told me to do the same in five year increments backward until I reached my current age. In that way, my mother taught me how to plan my future and become the person I wanted to be.

Yesterday I read an article by two researchers who created a project to train women to create narratives that would be read by policy makers. The researchers' goal was to capture the women's stories and at the same time train them to write their stories in a rich, multi-rhetorical style that would minimize characterization or stereotyping by people outside of their cultural group. The writers of the narratives were women who were current or past recipients of Temporary Aid to Needy Families. In a summarizing section called “Taking Action,” one of the participants asked,

“What if…? Older women/ teachers/ mentors in Jule’s [one of the participant’s] life had counseled her earlier about relationships? Then she might have felt more secure and savvy when dealing with her boyfriends. What if all young women were counseled in this way?”

In her story, Jule explains that she was in her early twenties when she had sex for the first time with a man she had known for four and a half years and conceived a child. She felt close to the father and didn't believe in abortion. Years later she had a male friend that she only saw once a month. She had stopped taking birth control pills because they messed up her menstrual cycle. She conceived a second child.

Jule proudly supports herself and her children on her own now, without the help of either father. In her story, she noted the steps it took to become self-supporting. She also noted the behaviors and ideologies, which she employed as a younger woman, that didn't serve her well.

Her story is a reminder to me that God rains on the just and the unjust. For whatever reason God allowed me to make mistakes without conceiving. After several months of mistakes and by God's grace I committed to abstinence and maintained my position until I married four years later. My husband was a virgin when we married. Today my life is far different from the account above. My two sons were born to a mother and father who had committed in marriage to honor and support each other.

When I wrote down in five-year increments who I wanted to be at each stage of my life, I wrote down married, but never wrote abstinent. I don't know why I overlooked something so important, but I hope that my children will learn from my mistake.

Reference
Higgins, Lorraine, D. and Lisa D. Brush. “Personal Experience Narrative and Public Debate: Writing the Wrongs of Welfare.” College Composition and Communication 2006, June; 57(4): 694-729.