Personal Essay #2: What is a Role? My Role?

What’s your role in your family?

When I look back to when I first started questioning my role in my family, I’m brought back to a middle school assembly. Students packed squished against each other trying to fan ourselves to fight against the summer heat as we all turned our attention to a question projected on the school’s stage: What did you do this weekend? We all quickly turned to the people next to us and I found myself talking to a young girl whose name escapes me. She started first, talking about looking after her little siblings, helping her parents out with the dishes, and deep cleaning the house. She ended her story with a confident “I’m my parent’s little helper” and turned to me with raring eyes. For a moment I stuttered, my cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and I started to feel selfish. I hadn’t gone out of my way to help my family as she had. I had only done the things that would assist me, make my life easier like cleaning my room and doing my homework. And while the assembly ended before I could formulate my own response, the question began to eat at me for the rest of the day: what did I do for my family? 

From vague memories I remember taking the question to my mother, asking her what she thought I did for the family, and if there was anything else I should be doing. She responded to me simply, almost as an afterthought, “your role is to be my daughter, that’s all.” At the time, I didn’t completely understand what she meant by that, but I think the relief of having a “role” eased my mind enough to let me sleep peacefully that night. 

Now, I think I know what she means. She meant my role less of something I had to do or achieve but something I am. There was no list of chores or general things I had to do in my family to earn the role of daughter, I simply had to be a member of the family, one that would help when asked but wasn’t initially forced to. And so, the definition of daughter was left for me to figure out. And I have since defined it as an ever-changing experience formulated by my independence, rooted in my connection to my family.

When I was younger, “daughter” to me was simply defined as being a child, ever learning from my parents' experience to slowly garner my own baseline of independence that I would be able to grow upon. Today, “daughter” means someone who is independent, able to cook for herself, do her own laundry, manage her own finances, drive, and able to juggle school, work, and life in general with the ability to fall back upon her parents when times get tough or a shoulder is needed to cry upon. And looking into the future, I believe it would mean being able to go off to college without the fear of being too reliant on others, being able to create new opportunities for myself, and still being able to come home occasionally to warm open arms and a shoulder to cry on. 

So, if I were to meet up with my younger self, in that auditorium questioning who she was, and she looked towards me for that answer, I would answer exactly as my mother did. No job description, no requirements, just simply being a part of the family was my role and that is a role that I will continue to play up into adulthood and even after I am put into the ground because even though who I am will change, my role of “daughter” is constant.