I have found over the years that changing our preconceptions is a necessary part of growing up. This seems even more important as we age, and the world around us becomes less and less like the world we grew up in. We are all born into families and societies that form our thoughts about the world. Some of these thoughts are worthwhile and others need to change. This change can come about in many ways. In looking back over my life I have come up with a few memories of times, small and large, that shook my preconceived notions.
My first brief glimpse of this was at four when I went out with my grandmother to spend an afternoon with her friend and her friend’s deaf granddaughter. The deafness was explained to me, but at four I really could not understand that someone could not hear at all. I was always told that I was not listening to the adults in my life, and I was convinced that this girl was a fellow sufferer from the same affliction. When in the course of the afternoon it became apparent to me what deafness really meant, I was stunned into silence. It was my first glimpse of lives lived other than I lived mine.
Another new perspective came at a later date when I was in Japan, at of all things a Canadian school. Our freshman history book came from Canada, and had a chapter entitled ‘The American Rebellion.’ I was shocked and angry by the title. This was the glorious revolution I had learned about for years in my American schools. Apparently our neighbors to the north looked at it differently than we did. Another small crack in my façade of preconceived notions.
During that same period I met a lovely sari-wearing lady from India who was traveling the world giving talks on something I no longer remember. Somehow we got on the subject of arranged marriages. At fifteen I was, of course, with Seventeen magazine by my side, in the throes of the concept of ‘romantic love.’ I found that my acquaintance was aghast at the haphazard way our Western society went about finding mates for its children. She considered the marriage that her loving family arranged for her, with her best interests at heart, a much better system than our way of letting people loose on society to find their own partner. It certainly made me think, and many years later I can still feel that subtle shift in perceptions.
Another moment occurred in Beirut, Lebanon where our family lived for two years in the seventies. In fact, our youngest daughter was born there. For the two years we were there I had a maid who came in every weekday. That sounds as if I had two years of lying by the pool and eating bonbons. But in reality, by having help, I was just keeping my head above water in what needed to be done around the house.
For instance, every ounce of food that went into the baby had to be ground, crushed or pureed by hand, and with no other equipment than a blender and a potato masher. One became very emotional when the baby spit out peas that had been worked on for hours. I had a washing machine, but no dryer, so the wet clothes and cloth diapers had to be hung out on the line on the balcony to dry. We lived on the seventh floor of an apartment building, and one of my funniest moments (although I did not laugh at the time) was watching one of my fitted sheets be ripped from my grasp by a sudden gust of wind, and be carried off to a never-to-be-found location somewhere in the far reaches of the city.
My maid (and I hate to call her that, as she was more a fellow toiler in the vineyard than an employee) was taken with the few American appliances I had brought with me, especially the washing machine. But the blender and portable salon-style hair dryer also had a place in her heart. (You have to be a certain age to even know what that last thing is.) But as we hung out diapers, washed everything we ate, and squashed various fruits and vegetables into submission, we talked about our very different lives. I remember the day she figured out that back home I lived in a house all by myself. “But where are your mother and your aunts and your sisters?’ she asked. When she found out they were not only in different houses, but different cities she was stunned into silence. Then, after a pause, she quietly announced, ‘I would rather have my family than the machines.’ Another sudden shifting of views.
I will end this essay with the time I stood silent, my preconceptions correct but without the courage to stand up for them. I was a young married woman, married to an equally young Marine lieutenant. We were at a formal military function, and gathered in a group with some senior officers and their wives. The most senior officer began talking about his last post where he was an Officer Selection Officer. In other words, he recruited young men to enter the officer program. He announced with great pride that his greatest accomplishment in the two years he had held the job, was that he had not accepted even one black man for the program. It happened so fast I could not believe what I was hearing. I was held silent by the fact that those around me were older and more senior so said nothing. But as I turned the horrible occasion around in my mind that night as I lay sleepless in bed, I had to admit that what had kept my mouth shut was fear. I promised myself over and over again that I would never, under any circumstance, let that happen again. I can only hope I have lived up to that promise. But I did learn my greatest lesson about preconceptions. I learned that in addition to having a right idea, one has to have the courage to stand up for it.
