I will never forget the first time I was asked about what I wanted from a marriage. I was, 9according to the temp teacher who was there while my teacher was having her baby, ) at an old enough age to worry about these things. It was a woman’s place to search for a husband, learn a “trade”, and start a home and a “family” by the time she was 25, which only left me with 13 years to prepare. Coming from a single parent home, I never really thought about marriage much. My parents dissolved before my eyes. My grandparents marriage, and my great grandparents marriages had all been doomed as well. So, as it seemed, divorce runs in my blood. So why was I to worry about having a family before I’d entered middle school?


In small town Iowa culture, it seems that although we move forward technologically at the same rate as the rest of the country (we might be a few months behind), as a community, we are stuck in a perpetual rut of 1950s married and happy family culture. Sadly, for the rest of the world, that’s not the case. As families, people, and media are changing, the picture of America I had been taught by teachers to see was no longer valid. White people weren’t the majority, civil rights ISN’T completely figured out, and not every family that is happy is a two parent home.


Coming to this decision was not an easy task, being a young female who has an attractive single mother, we were outcasts from the moment we set foot in this tiny town. Women fear my mother will “steal their husbands” and that as an intellectual child, I would accompany “unsavory ideas” into their town and “corrupt their children”. What is a girl to do when her own teacher dislikes her completely? Luckily, my mother is always there to help me figure things out. She has been divorced for almost eight years now, and has gone on a few dates, but is happy single. Husbandless and happy? Unthinkable!


I learned early on to stick to my guns and become my own person. While many people in this shabby little two horse town disagree, I have every right to be happy. Despite your situation, true self confidence lies in being your own person and being happy. I will, as things are going, probably not find a husband, because its not a priority. I will be successful in whatever I do, partnered off or not, and the limitations of a tiny town can’t hold me back for long