This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be?
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose– Switchfoot

When I think of the house with the white picket fence, I think of white suburbia. You know the one, the family with the mom and dad. They have a couple of kids. The man goes to work. The woman stays at home and tends to the house and children. Her typical days look like waking up, tidying up, kneading bread, and getting her kids ready for school or preferably homeschooling them. She packs her husband’s lunch, makes his life easier in whatever way she can and sends him off to work. Her day is successful when the kids are clean, her house clean, and at home meals are ready when her husband comes home.

This has been the dream for many I know who grew up in my hometown. I grew up in Ghana in a house with extended family. When I moved to America at the age of 11, this was the goal and continues to be the goal for many immigrants. As it was for my parents. But not exactly in the way I described above. But we had our own version of that in a small Midwestern city located in Ohio. My parents gave us the house and the white picket fence, we got to live in the suburbs. After all, that was what stability looked like, that was how you knew you were doing something right. Our parents made all these sacrifices to live in these spaces, where their children didn’t quite fit in. Where their children were the type of POC who grew up to be called different and “talked white.” They enrolled us in the sports, in the bands, and placed us in schools where academics actually mattered. Where you could count the number of POC students on one hand, including the teachers. You know, those schools where it didn’t matter what your hair looked like as a black girl because all our hair looked the same. Thinly relaxed hair or box braids that we kept in for months and months and somewhat still received compliments. I grew up in a place where my dark skinned brothers and father would get stopped by the community police and asked if they actually lived where we lived. I grew up in a place where I could go for walks at any time of the day, walk to my school, and had access to the best libraries. This was our version of the house with the white picket fence. A two parent household, some children, no dog though, in suburban America. 

I grew up thinking I couldn’t possibly live this life. This suburban life was not for me and my story will be different. I will do things differently. My parents provided us with the life that they deemed stable and successful, but I am of a new generation and I will not partake in this dream.

So imagine my surprise when one day, I was going for a walk, I looked to my left and my right, and I was surrounded by all the things that weren’t part of my dream. A dog crosses my path, I see some kids on their bicycles and scooters, and I have to quickly move to the side to avoid hitting them with my stroller. Imagine my surprise when it hits me that I was living in my own version of the house with the white picket fence. I don’t live with my parents in the Midwest, but I am in the south and that is pretty much the same thing. I live in a place where my children would struggle to meet people that look like them, they could possibly be questioned if they truly lived there, and where kids could walk around freely. My version may not have the big house and I do work and I am not making bread from scratch, but I live a similar life to the woman who does. 

As I come to this realization, I start questioning myself about the life I wanted. I thought about how I dreamt of New York City, coffee in hand, getting on some form of public transport, living in the city and working in the city. I dreamt of a life where I traveled without thinking about taking car seats and strollers. I kept wondering how I got here. How was I living THIS life? Although not a bad life, just how did I get here.

There was so much I appreciated about my upbringing and there were things that I would have wished were different. I realized I was more of a suburb girl than a city girl. But I also realized that I need a world just slightly bigger than the one the suburbs offer me. I don’t only want a life of just cooking, doing laundry, cleaning, etc…I want that, and a life of exposure. The beauty of cooking meals for my family but the ability to leave my small city occasionally. One thing about the suburbs is that they’ve always had this home feeling to it, which I appreciate. As I create this life I never knew I wanted or was going to have, I think about my children one day writing their own story about where they grew up and how they grew up. Would they want something totally different from how they grew up, only to end up living just like how they grew up? I wonder what direction they would choose. would they travel the world, or live my long ago dream of making my home in a big city with all the fast walkers. Would they grow to appreciate the slow living of the suburbs? As I’ve come to appreciate, or would they be turned off by the sameness and the mundane of it all.

Although I don’t know how I got here, my choices led me here. My desires led me here. Was I influenced by the American dream a bit? maybe. But do I like this life I have? I am still trying to figure it out. Am I grateful for the life I have? Absolutely.

Tell me, are you leaving your dream life?