I think a lot about what it meant to grow up idealizing my future husband. Recently, I sat with a friend and we spoke about how similar our childhoods were. We are both women and grew up conservative christian; on top of that we are also pastor’s kids. The list of things we both began to recall about “nuestro futuro esposo,” felt too familiar, too achingly familiar.
The list of this future husband went something like this…
Que sea
Un hombre de Dios.
Hijo de pastores.
Futuro pastor.
Virgen, that he waited for me as I waited for him.
Que no venga de una famlia con padres divorciados.
I was supposed to aspire to be his ayuda y donia. Mi mami would tell me, with such hope in her eyes that she prayed for him, desde el dia que yo nací.
Imagine growing up, being told your aspirations and your family’s aspirations relied on your marriage to an hombre de valor, un hombre de Dios. I even went to conferences, where I prompted to list what I wanted in a man and was encouraged to pray for this imaginary man. I could not exist without someone jamming matrimony down my throat.
The more I think about that, the more I am angry that I was not even allowed to leave my parent’s house on my own. I was only allowed to leave unless I had a husband who would take care of me.
A man who was
Hijo de pastores.
Futuro pastor.
Virgen, that he waited for me as I waited for him.
Que no venga de una famlia con padres divorciados.
But no one tells you how fucked a lot of pastor’s kids truly are, how good we are at presenting ourselves as “godly” as possible only to turn around and be expertly rebellious.
I am an amazing liar, because in order to merit such an “wonderful” man of God, I had to become a wonderful woman of God. So I learned to lie and to perform “good,” behaviors. I learned to switch from one personality to another, and I also learned that other pastor’s kids were equally as fucked as I was.
I remember in high school making the very real decision to only date atheists. And I have been pretty consistently on that path since. I began to date people who defied all the things I had been told to marry into – imagine who you date being so important to your mami and papi that in your rebellion you put a ton of energy into dating anything but what they wanted. Imagine thinking that you were being self-governing but in reality you were just doing what they said, because at the end of the day I did not exist without a man who defined me, even in my rebellion.
Sitting with my friend, I felt a chill thinking how far I have come, but also how much work has yet to be done because little girls are still being told: “yo oro por tu futuro esposo, todo los dias,” by well-meaning mamis.
Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez
National Speaker, Guest Writer & Founder, Latina Rebels
