In the daytime, I was expected to be the straight-A student. I was expected to be college bound. I was expected to be a great big sister. And then at night, I was just a club kid.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the contrasting expectations placed on an individual during the day versus their nighttime identity.
Jacqueline Woodson expresses the challenges of balancing societal expectations with personal identity in her quote. By day, she is held to high standards as a student and a family member, but by night, she embraces a different, more liberated self as a 'club kid.' This duality reflects the complexities of navigating different roles and the struggle between fulfilling external expectations and embracing one's true self.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a discussion on the pressure of societal expectations in schools.
'Brown Girl Dreaming' was a book I had a lot of doubts about - mainly, would this story be meaningful to anyone besides me? My editor, Nancy Paulsen, kept assuring me, but there were moments when I was in a really sad place with the story for so many reasons. It wasn't an easy book to write - emotionally, physically, or creatively.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.
I don't want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.
The strength of my mother is something I didn't pay attention to for so long. Here she was, this single mom, who was part of the Great Migration, who was part of a Jim Crow south, who said, 'I'm getting my kids out of here. I'm creating opportunities for these young people by any means necessary.'
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
We need to confront the life-killing stereotype that says we're all about suffering. We need to bear witness to our pleasures.
The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes.
The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.
The first priority will consist in restoring a sense of the acceptance of life as a gift from God. According to both Sacred Scripture and the wisest traditions of your continent, the arrival of a child is always a gift, a blessing from God. Today it is high time to place greater emphasis on this: every human being, every tiny human person, however weak, is created 'in the image and likeness of God' (Gen 1:27)
Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.
Regardless of your age, you will always have adventures, unexpected joys and unexpected sorrows.
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