This month’s neighborhood book club chose Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings, a fine narrative
set in the early 1800s Charleston and Philadelphia. The two Southern plantation
daughters, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, become abolitionists and women’s rights
leaders--who were actual pioneers in our American history. I deeply sympathized
with the rebellious slaves, mom Charlotte and daughter Hetty, and how they plot
to gain their independence. Kidd weaves their challenging, moving stories,
illustrating how these women create paths to freedom, inventing their own wings
so they could soar and be at peace.
It may sound melodramatic to identify with lack of choices
and feeling trapped…especially being educated, white, and it being 2015. But I
do.
Over coffee this week friends and I discussed staying home to
raise our children. I connected with comments about feeling restricted and not
financially free. How we support our spouses to flourish in their careers while
managing the home and kid responsibilities, the whole “default parent” bit. We
know how much we contribute, yet still feel guilt about spending money. That we
miss utilizing our degrees. That it can be lonely. But we honestly don’t seek
full-time jobs, knowing the stress potentially added to home life. We admitted
to not being able to have it all—which is fine, but sometimes uncertain feelings
still sap our energy. By all means, we know how good we have it, but that
doesn’t dismiss that veil of female longing, questioning, and wondering…themes
whirling in Kidd’s novel, 200 years later.
Do you ever feel trapped? That you have lost your
independence? Your will to follow your path?
A few months ago one
of my girlfriends scoffed at me, saying I was clipping my 10 year-old
daughter’s ambitions for having career conversations. I had told her about my forthright
mom-daughter chats describing the many hats a woman wears—and if she chooses to
get married and have a family, that there are some professions with more
flexibility than others. My friend wondered why I’d limit my daughter, why I
would curtail her dreams. Being an impassioned dreamer I heartily asserted that
was not my plan. Instead, I intend to help my daughter see the realities of
being a grown-up, professional, working woman with a family. Isn’t that what
being a feminist is? To help advance women to make their own choices? In my heart
I want to give my daughter wings by showing possibilities, not by limiting
them.
In the movie Maleficent
Angelina Jolie-Pitt’s titled character becomes bitter and resigned after the king
brutally removes her wings. None of us
should be in that dark place. For any person—man or woman—it takes individual
drive to follow their own flight to figure out their future path. For some, it
may take more energy and ingenuity than others…but I do believe that we all
have the power to fly. We may just have to invent those wings ourselves.
“One can
never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.”
- Helen Keller
- Helen Keller
For The New York Times
review of The Invention of Wings: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/books/review/the-invention-of-wings-by-sue-monk-kidd.html?_r=0
The “default parent” piece:
