Bursting My Social Bubble Was Worth the Risk
I am a middle-class, Midwestern, suburban, stay-at-home, middle-aged mom. Of course, my identity is more complicated than these identifiers suggest. However, my overarching identity as a suburban mom limits the everyday circles I travel in. I live in a middle-class suburban neighborhood with other middle-class suburban families. Most of my friends are middle-class, suburban, middle-aged moms.
It wasn’t always this way, but it is now.
While I bristle at the idea my segregation from other types of people is self-imposed, I also know I’m not a pawn of some great, invisible hand that dropped me into my frustratingly homogeneous community. Enticed by the promise of safe streets and good schools, we bought a house in suburbia after my daughter was born. We, and I, chose a suburban life.
Sometimes I forget this is only my life in its current iteration. There once was Shanna 11.0: The culturally confused preteen celebrating her menarche on the tiny Indo-oceanic island of Mauritius with a ritual bath in saffron water in front of dozens of first, second, and third aunties, and Shanna 18.0: the first-generation college student fleeing the fetters of her insular hometown for the hope of success and adventure. There was also Shanna 23.0: The intrepid Peace Corps volunteer braving the deserts of Morocco to teach English, and…
