Developmental Milestones for A Woman’s Life:

The tragedy of most people’s lives is that they die without having fulfilled the purpose of their life on this earth.  It is sad, but sometimes we can not control the circumstances of our lives. I have always told my siblings that I was a “late bloomer” or a “late comer”! I remember one time when I said this to my sister, she rushed to deny it for me saying that I wasn’t and almost sounding apologetic about it.  But I was comfortable with labeling myself as such. Growing up in a family of competitive over achievers, I had to accept that it’s OK to be a late bloomer, or a laggard as the metaphor would have it. In fact the older I get the more I don’t mind being a laggard on some things, because it gave me the time and opportunity to  survey then weigh my options, then once my mind is made up, I surgically strike with precision and passion for the goal I want! I call these achievements societal developmental milestones. I have not been good at them.

In my family you had to finish high school by a given age, then go to University and get a degree, then get the “right job” then marry the right man (meaning he was from the ‘appropriate social class’ with the ‘appropriate credentials”) then own your house, and have legitimate children, and live happily ever after! For a woman,  I knew these societal developmental milestones were to be achieved before or latest by your 30^th birthday. How did I know – through innuendoes and insinuations in conversations. Nobody really came to me and said you should have your first degree by  22 years of age; be gainfully employed or a proud housewife, married by age 24; have your first child by age 25 (which was acceptable if you went to college, if you didn’t you would have been 5-6 years late!). If you could multitask, even better – you were more efficient at. I was on course till I graduated high school at 16.  My path from age 16 followed a completely haphazard roller-coaster which I think sometimes almost gave my mother a heart attack, if not occasional nervous breakdowns! The only “developmental milestone” I ever achieved was finishing high school early, only because my father send his kids to school at age 5 instead of 7 as was the standard in the British colonial education system.

Well, at 16, contrary to the grand family action plan, I decided to go and work instead of going to University! There was an uproar. But at this stage, my father who had helped my grandfather raise his five sisters and my older sister had decided that maybe it was time to experiment and do things differently! The grand family action plan, which was my grandfather’s action plan for his girl-children had worked for some, but not all! Years before, my oldest Aunt had gotten married after Form 2 (grade 10) but it was better than having a child out of wedlock, and as a married woman she was her husband’s problem now. My sister, fell off the wagon for a minute when she got pregnant at 18, but was quickly put back on the path and went on to get her bachelors and MBA in flying colors, marrying well and having 4 beautiful children! This is not to say that her momentary lapse in judgment did not give my father a shock when it happened, and send tongues wagging in the family – both immediate and extended! My father was known to brag about his impeccable children, who were going to do what he couldn’t do himself. Besides, she was the first born and daddy’s favorite little girl, she had to succeed! I had been born a girl when he willed, or rather felt entitled to a boy-child for his second off spring – therefore, I was a disappointment to him from the day I was born! Anyway, I was his experiment – after 6 girls, what could go wrong? After all to whom less was invested, less was expected. Besides things always worked out and all his sisters were either highly educated or/and well married! So when I decided to go to  work instead of pursuing college, he was like OK, then I decided to move into an apartment in the city center (a taboo for any African girl from a decent family), and he said OK. On the other hand, though my mother was silently perturbed if not horrified. From the way she treated me like the ‘skeleton in the closet” at family gatherings, I secretly believed she had already concluded that I was going to be the shame of her life. But she was too polite, loving and sweet by nature to chastises me openly. For the most part she gave me the “EYE”…every black mother has the eye! Funny I also have it now for my teenage daughter – when she gets fresh or goes rouge on me!

The long and short of it was I worked in various jobs and by age 22, I was a manager running a department with 4 employees and being bypassed for promotions because I was a smart high school graduate without a degree. That’s when I realized, without the formal credentials to validate your smarts, no one really cared. So one day I woke up and decided I was going back to school. Packed my bags and left for UK via America. I never made it to UK. Got stuck in NYC. Twenty-two years later, I had a PhD and have discovered what an intellectual samurai I am partaking from time to time in my part-time academic endeavors. I had made my father and grandfather happy, postmortem, but I was still not married – an issue of contention with my mother. However, it was not so much that she minded my being a single Mom, because I was doing so much better than my “married’ cousins, it is more her aspiration for her daughter to find true love. But knowing my no nonsense, relationship romantic ‘miscapades’, coupled with my intolerance and short-leash for commitment-phobic men, she did not push it. A spinster daughter is better than a jailbird one any day.
According to me however, I still had not caught up to my woman’s developmental milestones! I had my daughter at 31, unmarried to my mother’s chagrin! To add fuel to the fire, when my fiancé confided in my sister that I was the reason a wedding was not taking place, there were a lot of painful female kangaroo court meetings in which I was told on numerous occasions that I must ‘submit’, for the ‘rewards’ of being MRS  were greater after the marriage! Instead I went rouge and was a recluse by the time I left my homeland. On the other hand to my surprise, my father, he was just relieved that, despite the ‘illegitimate’ grandchild, I was neither barren nor a lesbian! Which I found rather intriguing for the fact that in his African psyche the latter was worse than my having a child out of wedlock! When I asked why he was not angry he just explained that with an MA degree (at the time), I was sure able to support my child – with or without a husband! He was a strange man at times with his pragmatic reasoning! That was our last face-to-face conversation before his death in 2003. To illustrate how far behind I was with my woman’s developmental milestones at this time, most of my friends I had left behind had 2-3 kids, some who were already in elementary school or if not starting middle school. They were living the typical suburban lifestyle. Some were already getting divorced or going on for their second marriages! Wow, to me it felt like they had already lived nine lives! Without the marriage, I came back to my adopted home- the USA, which afforded me my anonymity and obscurity without the pressure of the “developmental milestones” of the elite African woman. I started my life again, this time joining the ranks of Western single parent female statistic. Certain only that stomach butterflies would persuade me to give up my single marital status!

Now as I reflect, I do not think I would have done it any other way, with or without a plan. I feel like I am exactly where I need to be, although knowing what my destiny is, I am late again. Ironically, the other day I hosted my WEN (Women Entrepreneurs Networking) Business Breakfast and my guest speaker was an awesome lady who spoke about her life, her entrepreneurial experience and how she had evolved into the multi-million dollar business entrepreneur she is today. Aldonna told the business ladies who attended this breakfast that nothing that happened in her life or career had been pre-planned, but the result of sheer tenacity and guts. The only thing she new at age 11 was that she wanted to be a consultant after listening to her father (who was a professor of mathematics) vent to her mother every weekend about how top management did not get it. She remember telling her parents she wanted to be a consultant to top executives and her father telling her that this was not a career for a woman, what made her think men with power would listen to her, let alone allow her in? Well they are listening now (The Growth Strategist Radio show -www.growthstrategistradioshow.com). She is a business strategy samurai! She said actually when she did not know what she was doing is when she delivered her best work. All that happened to her was the dynamic outcome of asking herself “Why not” when opportunity presented itself, then throwing fear to the wind and consciously or unconsciously taking the risk then strategically doing what she needed to do at any given time when life threw lemons on her path! She survives, but more importantly she prospers!

So having said all this, my advice is, as long as you are evolving in a spiral and not going in circles, you will be fine. People who have not been exposed to other elements in the universe or fail to learn from past experiences will always go in circles. People who have the exposure will navigate life in a spiral process, like climbing a spiral stair case, hitting the same points but at different levels, and gaining mastery as you go up! You peg your own developmental milestones! I am ready to launch to the next level – better late than never!!!

Copyright @ May 21 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA/Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.