Truth and Self-Deception I

          A girl is walking down the street.  Clutched in her right hand is a bright pink umbrella.  Her eyes are cast downward, deep in thought.  Occasionally a smile flickers across her face.  Across the street a middle-aged woman stretches across a bench, waiting for the bus to come.  She watches as the little girl reaches the corner of the intersection and stop, glancing uncertainly down the street in either direction.

         "Where are you going?"  The woman calls out to her.

          "The store!"  The girl responds enthusiastically.

          Intrigued that a girl so young would be allowed to go to the store by herself, the woman gets up and crosses the street to talk to her.

          "Which store?" she asks.

          "The mall."

          "Really?  What are you going to do there?"

          "I'm going to be a princess!"

          A smile creeps over the woman's mouth.

          "A princess?  Like the ones that let you sit on their lap by the toy store?"

          The girl nods.

          "Why do you want to be a princess?"

          "So I can wear pretty dresses and sing songs and eat cupcakes all day."

          The woman nods knowingly.  "But wouldn't you get tired of that eventually?  What would you do when you didn't want to be a princess anymore?"

          The girl cocks her head.  "What else would I be?"

          "Well, I am a clothing designer in the big city.  I design clothes for people so they don't have to wear the same thing every day."

          "THAT sounds boring," retorts the girl.  "What's the point?"

          "The point is that I earn money to buy food and clothes for myself.  Eventually, if I work very hard, I will be rich and famous."

         "Then what?"

          "Then I'll sit around and relax and not have to worry about money."

          "That's boring!"  The girl reiterates.

          The woman furrows her brow, trying to find another way to help the girl understand.

          "I work hard every day so that my children can have nice things."

          "Don't they have a daddy to do that?"

          "Well yes, but it's a lot easier to pay the bills when both of us are working."

          "Then who takes them to the princess at the mall and makes them cupcakes and reads them stories?"

          The woman's laugh has a slight strain to it.  "I guess they have to live with not having any of those things."

          The little girl is aghast.  "They NEVER have princess parties?"

          "I'm afraid not."

          "Who hugs them when they fall down and bump their heads?"

          "Normally the nannies at the daycare, I suppose."

          Even more distraught, the girl cries out, "Aren't you a mommy at ALL?"

          "Of course I am!"  The woman says.  "My children are my world! I would do anything for them.

          After a moment of pondering this, the girl hears her tummy rumbles and announces that she must go home for lunch so she won't have to be a princess on an empty stomach.  The bus rumbles around the corner and the pair go their separate ways, each feeling sorry for the other, utterly caught up in their own idle fantasy.

          To choose any profession, be it ever so fine, ever so productive, or ever such a contribution to the world, over that of simple motherhood, is to opt for frivolity over divinity.  It is to become a meal provider rather than a goddess.

                   --Anonymous  

It takes a queen to make a princess.