They called me “the daughter every family wishes they had”: good grades, a respectable job, and impeccable manners. They said I would make “a good wife”: gentle, understanding, and suited to running a home.
It wasn't until I entered marriage that I realized all that praise had been weaving a golden cage around me.
At the wedding, my mother-in-law smiled and said, “From now on, the household is in your hands.” The guests praised my good fortune. On our honeymoon, my husband's phone kept ringing: “Does she cook what you like?” “When are you having a baby?”
In the delivery room, I heard the doctor ask whether to save the mother or the baby, and heard my mother-in-law make her choice without hesitation. Everyone smiled when my daughter was born. Only I knew that something had died forever.
Why was I cherished as a daughter, yet judged in every possible way as a daughter-in-law? Why had my body, my time, and my dreams all become family property overnight?
Then my best friend said, “We're all in cages. Some people just pretend they can't see the bars.”
I began counting all the golden threads wrapped around me, the ones called “for your own good” and “that's just what women do.” This time, I wanted to do something that would “disappoint” everyone:
Learn to be a person in my own right again, instead of someone else's “good wife.”
