When I was around eight years old, my parents chose to divorce. Custody-wise, this left my older brother and me with our father 90% of the time. This meant that our new everyday household would just be the three of us.
Over the years, we became a trio; it was honestly the three of us against the world. However, growing up as the only female in the household taught me a multitude of lessons. This allowed me to understand gender roles and even to gain my own sense of independence. For Women’s History Month, I believe talking about my journey could be beneficial for other women who may have grown up in a similar situation to mine.
One experience I had was a lack of gender role separation. And I solely believe this is how I turned out the way I did. My father did not assign different household tasks to my brother and me. We were both given very similar jobs, for example, helping with laundry, or weeding around the yard.
There was no different set of expectations, though our genders differed. This made me grow up feeling like gender was not a limit to my success in the world. That I had a fair shot at what I wanted to achieve the same way any man did. This built a drive in me to never settle for less than I knew I wanted in my life.
In terms of my independence, this allowed me to learn an immense amount of self-awareness. As well as an emphasis on prioritizing my needs. For example, I learned how to keep myself emotionally and mentally in check. And if I felt either of those aspects slipping, I knew I had to reevaluate my situation. This has allowed me as an adult to be extremely emotionally mature.
As well as my independence, something else I have gained is a voice. In my younger years, I was not very confident. I was more on the shy side and never liked to say my opinion for others to hear. This changed as I got older.
I started to stand behind my values and beliefs more. I was able to be vocal with others when my needs were not being met or when I had to ask for help. This may seem like an embarrassing story, but I remember getting my first period at 13 years old. Unfortunately, I was at my dad’s house for it.
However, in the end, this was the perfect experience for me to acknowledge and vocalize to others a need that I had. Although it was a difficult experience for me to talk to my dad about a feminine issue like that. It made talking to him in the future about issues like birth control easier for me.
In terms of Women’s History Month, I find through different stories that women tend to struggle with gender roles in places like the workplace or even throughout schooling. Feeling undermined due to sometimes being part of a minority is never easy.
However, in my case, it was a worthwhile experience to grow up in a household like this. Not only did this allow for me, my father, and brother to be a tight family unit, but it also helped me grow as a person more than I likely would have if I were not the only female in the household.