We often blame our parents and societal expectations for why girls grow up and fall into a cycle of gender norms. As I reflect back on my elementary experiences, I’ve noticed the detrimental role my early childhood teachers played. The underlying influence teachers project onto students oftentimes goes unnoticed, primarily mistaken for guidance and wisdom. Truthfully, I now feel deceived by the “guidance and wisdom” I was provided with during my preteen years. I look back wishing I could tell myself to slow down and be present in my childhood. As a young vulnerable girl, I trusted and obeyed my teachers’ orders, but it was my teachers’ orders that were looping me into the cycle of stereotypical gender roles.  

When I was 10 years old, we were assigned younger buddies for the first time at my school. This tradition entails an older student being paired with a younger student, as I attend a K-12 school. In most cases, you would watch this little kid grow up until you graduated high school. For the first time, I remember feeling empowered by the leadership role I was granted.  I felt as if I was being looked up to. Hearing the names being called out before we had even met them left me feeling anxious and excited at the same time. I wondered how these pairings were made, but I had just assumed they were random as my new teachers had only gotten to know me for a few weeks. 

As we walked from middle school over to the lower school, my humanities teacher approached me and said, “Thank you for your flexibility, you’re the perfect fit for handling him.” I was partnered up with the stereotypical hyper-masculine toddler, who talked back to his teachers and had a hard time getting along with his peers. I couldn’t tell if they thought that I could “deal with him” was a compliment or a punishment. I was jealous of my peers and friends who were bonding with their younger buddies, while I was being told to babysit mine. I kept trying to reassure myself that this was only a coincidence and I wasn’t being punished or taken advantage of for my good behavior. I couldn’t put the pieces together. But this was only the beginning, as this first step enabled the treatment I faced for years following. After this moment, I eventually grew into the role of a peacemaker, the helping hand, and I let people walk all over me. 

That was the first time I was told that it was my job to handle those who needed to be handled. I, a young girl in sixth grade, was given the responsibility to play the “motherly figure” to a boy I did not know. I felt my teacher’s eyes glued to me, observing how I acted with my buddy who hardly even let me introduce myself and gave me no time of day.  In this moment I learned how to be accommodating and patient, whilst staying quiet. I wondered how a boy who was only four years old had power over me. 

 In the collection, Teeth In The Back Of My Neck  by poet Monika Radojevic, she writes, “To be a woman is to grow up quickly; perfection is a concrete slab that encases at our feet, heavy enough to make us stand very still, as double standards walk in and out of the room.” As a woman, I can attest to growing up quickly, it’s expected from us.  It’s moments like this that happened at only 10 years old when I was first assigned the role of playing the “responsible young lady.” I often wonder when or if I will ever be able to stop playing this role. Ever since then, the idea of putting others’ needs before my own has been reinforced in my way of life. I find myself at a moral crossroads when asked to send homework, to lead a group because no one else wants to, taking on one responsibility after the next; and I can never say no. 

I regularly get told that I am “the mother of the friend group,” the “student who is wise beyond her years, the “friend that gives good advice,” and “the daughter that acts like the oldest child of four,” even though I’m practically the youngest. You may think that I would be proud or pleased with what the closest people in my life refer to me as, but honestly, I’m exhausted. I feel like I have fallen into the trap of becoming what’s expected of a woman, just because of the way I was raised.  Due to the fact that at such a young age I was taught what my responsibilities are in the classroom, I have carried this with me throughout my years in middle school all the way through high school, and this has shaped me into the person I am today. 

No matter how hard I work, how organized I become, and how much effort I put into what’s asked of me, my reward typically seems like a punishment, taking advantage of my success to uplift or guide others. My parents rely on me for providing dinner for my siblings when they aren’t home. My teachers rely on me to keep students focused and on track by assigning me to the rowdy boys table. My peers rely on me for doing the work in a group project when they don’t feel like it. Yet, I still get spoken over, I still feel like my answers in math class are wrong, I still don’t feel comfortable reading that article out loud to my class as I’m afraid to mess up, and I still say “I might be wrong” after being called on by a teacher to share my answer. 

It is often assumed that women are ”weak” or “emotional,” but I can’t remember the last time where I felt like I was allowed to be vulnerable or act immature like the boys in my class. While being held at my stance as a ”motherly figure” for others, I find myself constantly pouring out advice to friends, and always trying to say the right thing. I believed that my duty was always to put others’ needs before my own and utilize my own wisdom and capabilities to solve others’ problems and dilemmas. When will I stop only putting people’s burdens onto myself just to relieve them of their pain, when in reality it just causes me pain? 

An article in Educational Psychology states that, “gender roles are the patterns of behavior, attitudes, and expectations associated with a particular sex.” How do we change these gender norms if they are assigned before we are aware of it? Teachers fall into this cycle, but I don’t think they realize the influence this has on their young students. I also don’t believe that we can blame our teachers as this is such a systemic issue. You may experience this at home, at school, or in extracurricular activities, but I believe we need to look beneath the surface and find the roots from which it stems. How can we advocate for young girls to preserve their adolescence from the start?

At 18, I finally feel like I’ve come to terms with what I want to prioritize, what my work ethic looks like, what motivates me, and what my passions may be. Throughout the process of learning all of this about myself, I have noticed a trend where my habits often help others more than myself.  I’ve gotten used to allowing others to taking advantage of me for my care and love without receiving it back. 

Only until now, my 12th-grade Interesecitional Feminism class taught by Ileana Jiménez did I realize that all of these patterns in my life are a part of such a bigger issue. As a class, we spent time reading Black feminist Audre Lorde’s book Sister Outsider who wrote about the uses of the erotic. Lorde states, “the erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.” She believed that the erotic is a source of power within ourselves that has the ability to create change. Embracing the erotic is so important, and that everyone should feel the emotions they go through. Accepting your feelings and believing that what you feel is valid allows you to experience your life and humanity to the full extent.

I have spent so much time in my life denying how I truly feel in many situations. I’ve spent so much believing that the way I was treated was just the way that it had to be while feeling small and invisible. Lorde has allowed me to understand that my role as a woman is more than just what societal norms expect from us. 

Lorde also writes, “We have been warned against it all our lives by the male world, which values this depth of feeling enough to keep women around in order to exercise it in the service of men.” At 10 years old, I was advised to shape myself into the woman that the men and boys around us “need.” We should no longer have to be living in the “male world” while being in the service of men. I’ve become a source of stability for the people around me as a result of the way I was raised. In order to break this cycle, we need to make educators aware of their role in enforcing gender norms and how it may create a long-lasting impact on young girls’ identities later on in life.