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Defined by Choices
J.R. Carpenter
CanadaGALLERYCONVERSATION
My generation of women is defined by choices. On the one hand we have been shaped by the choices our mothers made and on the other hand we are presented with a wide array of choices of our own.

Our mothers spent their early childhoods in the conservative comfort and security of the fifties. When they broke many of the molds they had been used to in the sixties, they did so with the firm foundation of a traditional family structure beneath their feet. My mother’s generation rebelled against a rigid social structure that limited their choices. As a result, their actions were sometimes impetuous, reactionary, and rebellious. My own mother dropped out of university, hitch-hiked around Europe for a while, moved to Mexico, then to Vermont, then started university again and, two months before graduation, ran off to Canada with the man most unlike her father she could find.

In the seventies, a new generation of children saw the results of those choices. When I was in grade school it seemed like every kid in my class had parents who were divorced. My parent’s marriage certainly did not survive. I have resented my mother’s choices at times as they resulted in an unstable upbringing for me. I was left to figure a lot of stuff out for myself: birth control, a driver’s license, university applications. When I left home at seventeen, I felt burdened by all the choices I had to make on my own.

Twelve years later, I revel in my freedom to think, create, do, wear and say things that even women of my mother’s generation would not have dared to say. Sometimes I still crave the stability my mother rejected, but I know that if she had clung to the world in which she was raised, my life today would have offered fewer choices. I am surrounded by possibilities. To choose among them is to move forward. Every choice leads to experience. All those choices I made at a young age have built a foundation of my own making.

A major goal has been ensuring that women have the right to choose. The most fundamental choice that I see facing women of my generation is the choice to continue. It is not always easy to continuously build new foundations, to push forward, to create opportunity, to endure unending change. I take it as my responsibility to still my fear in the face of overwhelming possibilities. What choice do I have but to make the best choices I can?
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