I Can Say With Confidence

I wanted to become a midwife. I wanted to deliver babies and comfort grieving moms. But she told me that nursing was “low class.” I then said that I wanted to become a social worker. I wanted to help foster children. Again, she said no. She told me any idiot could become a social worker, like nursing, it didn’t require intelligence, and I was “better than that.”

She was my mother.

She was the one who had money.

I had no choice.

I still wish I could have followed either of those dreams. When I started flunking one of my subjects in university, my friend and I snuck to the local maternity hospital to ask the nurses where I could study. But I couldn’t do it on my own. I was a minor and I needed her.

My daughter wants to become a midwife. My sixteen year old has her heart set on it. This week as she accompanied me and my little girl to the hospital where the pediatrician is based, she commented as we left, “I’m so sure I want to be a nurse. I’m so comfortable here in this hospital setting. I might not even stick to being a midwife specifically, but I want to be a nurse.”

I can say with full confidence that this is where I know I’m better than my mother will ever be. I don’t know if my girl’s Physics marks will allow her to apply. But as God is my witness, I will never stop her not my son from doing any thing that is harmless. I am better because I will support her dream and do support it. Let poverty and suffering come (All the nurses we’ve met hate it because of the extremely low pay, awful hours and abuse from doctors and patients). I will support her. I support her so much that I’ve made sure that my cousin in law will help her should she go to Britain to work.

I am loving. I am a cheerleader. I am not filled with stupid pride. I am kind. I am not my mother.

Thank you God. I hope and pray I will be like You. Just. Uncompromising and loving.