The Illusion of Choice
Choices
When I taught preschool, I embraced the idea of giving children choices whenever I could, so they felt a sense of agency and control over their bodies and lives as much as practicality and safety would allow. The hard thing about being three is, what you do and where you go are largely at the whim of adults. You go to school when they say, you go to bed when you’re told, you put your shoes on and get in the car when you’re supposed to (but sometimes you do it veeery slowly, just because pushing boundaries is fun.)
Sometimes the choices I gave as a teacher or parent seemed real and significant. Getting to pick which shirt to wear or whether to have peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese for lunch feels like the sort of autonomy a three-year-old can handle and should have. Sometimes the choices were ridiculous and manufactured like, “I hear you don’t want to get in the car right now. Would you like to sit on the left side of the back seat or the right side?” It sounds stupid, but the illusion of choice could sometimes get them in the goddamned car.
The Illusion of Choice
When I was in college and deciding what to do with my adult life, technically I had choices. Practically speaking, they were limited. The questions were, “What full-time job could I acquire and also tolerate?” and “Who could I plausibly marry so I could have kids?” In effect, the twentysomething version of, “Where do you want to sit in the car?” with no option of, “I’m not getting in.”
“That’s Not What You Did Back Then.”
When I was a younger adult, I would question my parents about their past choices. I’d ask, “If that didn’t make you happy, why didn’t you choose something different?” They’d shrug and say, “That’s not what people did back then.” And now, I get it.
Technically, I could have decided to make a go at being a writer when I was 21 — start suffering and write that symphony*. That, however, would have been (in my head at least) a recipe for judgment and financial failure. And while people DID sometimes do that back then, I was raised to be independent and take care of myself, and I am, by nature, pretty risk-averse. The only choice I could see was the full-time go to work route. And, while I might have been just as happy working from home back then as I am now, that really wasn’t done in 1997.
Since Culture didn’t portray becoming a parent as something you intentionally did without a spouse, I didn’t see any other option for having babies than getting married. In my early 20s, I THOUGHT I was choosing, but those choices were heavily influenced. To be fair, it wasn’t a hard sell. It’s not like I didn’t want to get married. I liked boys a lot, and I liked weddings maybe even more than boys. But it’s interesting to contemplate…
Would I have perhaps decided something different if I perceived it was truly okay to make another choice?
So this is what I did.
I got my full-time job teaching preschool. I was fascinated by children’s minds and how they worked. I liked that job a lot. But I often thought I would like it so much more if I didn’t have to go there and do that 40 hours a week. Preschool really takes it out of you, even at the spritely age of 21. But this is what you did. I thought (probably somewhat correctly) that no adult likes working all the time; this is just what it is to be a responsible grown person.
I got married. I chose the person I was dating when I was ready to get married because I was 25 and on a timeline. He was a good guy; I wouldn’t have married a complete asshole. But in the end, it wasn’t a good match, which became readily apparent when I went through four miscarriages and then decided to take a break from TTC (trying to conceive). When babies weren’t occupying my brain 24/7, I got reflective and started to realize what was missing from my marriage, how small I had become inside of it.
What am I even doing here?
That began my years-long, up-and-down, meandering mental/emotional journey I’d affectionately call, “What the fuck am I doing with my life?” I had kids. That was good. That was what I’d wanted. But that wasn’t ALL I wanted. And as they got older, and I had more room to explore what else I wanted to do besides parent, I started to realize the “choices” I made at 21 or 22 didn’t feel so freely chosen.
I got angry about it.
I was angry at my parents. I was angry at society. I was angry at Jason, whom I held personally responsible for all the misogyny in the world ever. I had been tricked into choosing what other people wanted for me. That anger boiled inside of me and erupted. My fury was uncomfortable, but it was a necessary step. Once the anger was spent, when the volcano was dormant and cool again, my inner landscape was changed, and a new one emerged:
First of all, my parents did the best they could. They were also raised in society — one that gave them even narrower choices than I perceived I had. They are not in fact the all-wise and all-knowing gurus I made them out to be as a child. They are just people, and that’s comforting; it makes them more relatable.
Second of all, society is made up of people, and I am part of it, not outside of it. I am influenced, but I can be an influence as well.
Third of all, misogyny is a real and insidious thing worthy of ferreting out, worthy of scrutiny. And while Jason has had his eyes opened up to some aspects of it he hadn’t seen, it is wildly unfair of me to take all of my feminist anger at the world out on him. He listens. He’s on my side.
I have come to an understanding with the choices.
I DO actually have them. When you face the influence our culture and its invented morality have had on your past decisions head-on, when you realize avoidance of shame or feeling like a failure have dictated what you did, you can slowly shed those internalized expectations. It’s liberating.
Now, when faced with a choice, I try not to get bogged down in figuring out what the right answer is because usually there’s not one. You might think I’m talking about important life decisions like which job to take when I got two offers in one day. I am, but It’s also whether to make dinner or order pizza. I can agonize about pretty much any decision and make myself a bad person for ordering out for the third time this week.
We adults, like the 3-year-olds, just wanna make our choices when we can — about where to sit, where to live, and who to have dinner with. And as it is with toddlers, we are often not in control of what happens. Sometimes that seat’s taken, that neighborhood’s too expensive and that friend is unavailable this evening. But as I did with all the kids that have flowed in and out of my life, we need to truly allow ourselves the choices when they’re available to make. We need to not let some amorphous version of cultural morality limit us.
Okay, I was gonna stop there, but then it occurred to me, we need a caveat. Here at This Is Not What I Expected, we always need a caveat.** So…
This doesn’t mean I do whatever my lizard brain wants all the time.
Last weekend, Jason and I were out for a rare evening downtown with friends. Around 9pm, we got a message: Jack had an impromptu soccer scrimmage the next morning. At 8am. 45 minutes across town. We sighed and bitched to each other. Of course this happens the one night we’re out.
I considered getting someone else in our carpool to take him. Then, I sat and thought, What are my priorities? Is it to be free and clear to have one more drink, to stay up way late and sleep in? No. Completely apart from what culture tells me a good parent is, my priority is to be there for my kids. I sighed. I was irritated about it. I said, “I’ll do it.”
Looks the Same, But It’s Completely Different.
Five years ago, I would have taken him so as not to feel or look like a bad parent. Last Friday, I made the same decision but because I found the answer within. And though it looked the same from the outside, it felt much better. My irritation faded quickly into acceptance which morphed into, the next day, being glad I was at the game. Scrimmages have this nice, relaxed feeling. My kiddo played a lot and played well. He was happy. It was a gloriously cool and sunny morning — easy to enjoy. Better than all that, I didn’t feel like someone made me do it. I chose it because it was important to me. Oh and FYI, we stayed out late anyway, and I was tired as shit — didn’t even know who I was when my alarm went off at 6:30am — but it was worth it on both ends.
There’s some quote about leaving home, traveling the world and coming back and that even though you are right back where you started, you are different. I can’t find it, but I think about it all the time. The way I am now, the choices I make, LOOK similar to what I would’ve done twenty years ago. But inside, because I have at least metaphorically traveled, they FEEL worlds different, worlds healthier, worlds righter.
* Kudos if you get this reference to Singing in the Rain.
** Except when we don’t. There you have it — a caveat for a caveat.