The Grass is Always Greener...

At the risk of continued loss of readers, I am going to keep up my quoting of this book. I just use the quote to start a talking point. I think that is what a good book is all about, it makes you think. I will say this for Sara's sake, I got to the awful part of the book. It's in part 3. I almost cried, but really got more angry than anything else. I also saw it coming which makes me really, really mad. Seriously people... read A Thousand Splendid Suns, it's fabulous. If you are waiting for me to finish it to borrow from Sara it might take a while. I'm holding on to the good for a few more posts until I get the guts to go back to the horror.

So here's the next quote that makes me think about all the different types of people in the world and how we determine who will do what, or pass judgment on how we think someone will act or turn out in life, or just who we think someone is... (Liala, Hasina, and Giti are all girl friends that have grown up together. They are about 14/15 now and Giti is engaged to be married.)

"By the time we're twenty, Hasina used to say, Giti and I, we'll have pushed out four, five kids each. But you, Laila, you'll make us two dummies proud. You're going to be somebody. I know one day I'll pick up a newspaper and find your picture on the front page."

First of all, what makes us typecast people and think they will do something for sure? Just because that is the way of their culture doesn't necessarily make it so. I think of Mormon culture that says (or used to say?) returned missionaries come home, find a wife, and then multiply and replenish the earth within a year and I want to vomit. Especially because that doesn't happen for everyone and therefore ends up hurting someone. Basically, I hate typecasting in the real world.

Second, who says one is better than the other. Who says that getting married and having children at a young age isn't the smart thing to do? How does getting your picture on the front page make you any better/smarter than the girl that is a mother? It doesn't, provided you're doing the best you can in either role. The first woman Supreme Court Justice was first and foremost a mother, then she was a judge.

Third, being a mom isn't the only thing for a woman to do. It's not the only thing that makes you a proud woman. I just had to include that because it sounded like I was bashing anything other than having kids. Absolutely not true, at all.

And, of course, here's the personal experience that made all of these thoughts come out when I read that statement in the book. At one point of my life I didn't want to get married because I thought you did it to have kids and I didn't want any kids. At another point in my life, kids and family were the only things I wanted. I looked in awe at my sister-in-law who was in her early twenties and had 2 beautiful boys, one on the way, and what I thought was a pretty amazing life. One day she turned to me and said, "Hche, you have the smarts to do anything you want. You could be anything at all." I have no idea where that came from, but all I could think was, "no, I want what you have and I need a husband for that. Clearly smarts can't get me a husband."

Isn't it odd that the grass is always greener on the other side? I don't how green my grass is right now, but I'm pretty darn happy with it. I also don't think I like anyone else's yard more than mine, so that's a good thing. Is this where we get the thought that people are "green with envy"... from the whole grass scenario?