Imagine scrolling through your news app, elbow-deep in garden soil, when a headline catches your eye: “How rural America steals girls’ futures.” It’s a powerful statement that makes your heart skip a beat.
Being personally attacked by such a sentiment, I needed time to reflect on its accuracy and the article itself. The author and I share similar backgrounds, growing up in small, Christian communities with comparable income levels. We both “escaped” to college and pursued careers in journalism. However, our experiences diverge from there.
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The article, an excerpt from the author’s upcoming book, explores her small town through the story of a friend who didn’t “escape.” It delves into the factors that limited her friend’s potential, highlighting recreational drug use, truancy, and lack of discipline. Surprisingly, the author points to the church’s enforcement of a male-dominated worldview as the main culprit.
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Personally, I didn’t love the town I grew up in. I often felt undervalued and unnoticed by my peers, which led me to distance myself from them. As an adult, I no longer resent those experiences, but I wouldn’t want my children to face similar challenges in forming open and honest friendships. With that said, I must emphasize the social aspects of small-town living—the church crowd, the boy’s club, the who’s who.
However, let me assure you that none of these social barriers hindered me from pursuing educational opportunities, taking on leadership roles, or achieving career growth and success. More importantly, I never allowed these experiences to sour my outlook on the joys of rural living and contributing to my community.
I’ve shared various aspects of my life with you—recording people’s life stories, working in vet clinics, exploring rabbit genetics, and even playing the French horn semi-professionally. None of these opportunities came with a financial cost or were denied to me because of my gender. All I had to do was show up.
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Even if I had chosen to stay in my hometown, get married, and raise a family, it wouldn’t have meant that I failed to fulfill my potential. This rhetoric that success can only be found in a big city corner office is detrimental to rural communities. You can make a meaningful impact here. You can change lives. You can build a future.
I’ve never been truly transformed by someone in a suit behind a computer screen. However, the memories of my Mammaw’s flour-covered hands making biscuits and gravy for the early-morning milk shift on her dairy, or of visiting my Granny at Walmart as she connected with her friends and neighbors—these memories hold the essence of love and community.
These women meant everything to me. I never saw them as inferior to their husbands or lacking potential while fulfilling their traditional roles. They believed I could be anything I wanted to be, and their lives exemplified the endless possibilities. When we tell kids they can be anything they want, we unintentionally add a subtext that suggests only “big” roles like doctors or astronauts are acceptable, while “smaller” roles like factory workers, welders, plumbers, or teachers are seen as failures. But they are not failures. They are just as important, valuable, and necessary as any job in the city.
You and I know this. And it’s time for the rest of the world to know it too. Rural America empowers girls, breaks stereotypes, and builds futures. Let’s celebrate the unique opportunities and potential that exist beyond the city lights.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: Blog
