Mary

A Career Girl who wants your story to be shared, too

I’ve been thinking about it lately. Why don’t we see bestsellers or big movies about ordinary, middle-class women like us who are happy with their lives? Why couldn’t someone like that be the main character or star of something?

Are they considered too bland? That must mean I’m too bland.

It’s true I have no fascinating cultural heritage. I didn’t grow up in some exotic locale before moving to the heartland. I wasn’t raised by eccentric aunts – filthy rich or filthier poor – whose charming ideas about child rearing provide a string of entertaining stories.

I had the usual two parents. Dad worked in insurance; Mom ran the house. I have an older sister and two younger brothers, none of whom died young or was kidnapped or lost on a mountainside during a Scout campout or bitten by a rabid dog. I must have fought with them sometimes, but I honestly don’t remember.

What I do remember is playing cards and board games and watching TV and thinking how exciting it would be to go on a three-hour tour, even without a shipwreck.

I can still sing that whole theme song. Can you? I’ve got a bunch of TV songs stuck up in my head, and little bits and phrases pop out now and then: “… the youngest one in curls.” “… she was a V-A-M-Pee-ee-ee, VAMP!” “… you’re going to make it after all!”

Looking back, I guess she was the kind of woman I always wanted to be. Smart, surrounded by funny people in a job she loved, pursuing her dreams.

My dreams were pretty simple. Finish school. Find a nice man to marry. Raise my couple of kids. Finally travel.

When I did graduate with my degree in history, I wasn’t sure what to do next so I started working for my dad. At first it was just front desk stuff, but then I got kind of interested in the insurance business. And he was happy to teach me. I really liked the idea of helping people protect the things they cared about, their homes and their cars and their families. And it turned out I was pretty good at selling insurance.

There’s one positive thing about being bland: people trust you. They trust you to see things their way, to give them good advice. They figure you don’t have the imagination or guts to lie or cheat. They trust you with their money. They trust you with their security.

So with me working with Dad, the business grew. Then one day at the bank I met my nice man. He’d come to town as the new branch manager, and of course he wanted to get to know all the local businessmen like my dad … and that also meant getting to know me. He was really nice.

After we’d been married a couple of years and I had Bobby, Dad said it was time to decide whether I’d stay home with the baby or stay with the business. I didn’t think it was a hard choice because Mom offered to help babysit, and I could set my own hours. By the time Dad was ready to cut back on his hours, the kids were in school, and we’d hired a few more people to help out – so it wasn’t just me anyway.

And then Dad retired completely and turned the business over to me. Me, I own the business.

So that’s the kind of stories I’d like to read and see on the silver screen. Women who thought they were going to grow up and be just like their moms but somehow wound up owning a business more like their dads … and are doing pretty well. Women whose families have the usual ups and downs but no major upsets. Women who form the backbone of their community, doing all kinds of service work like volunteering at the library.

And who sell insurance.

That doesn’t have to be bland, does it? Or even if it is bland, wouldn’t it be nice to see there are other people just like us, working and loving and living and doing OK?