Don’t be impressed. You’ve never heard of them. Here’s what happened. I was just starting my first year of college. I’d enrolled in a state school about a million miles from home, away from my parents and brother. To call them, ah, conservative would be an understatement. I had to fight with them to wear pants, and I lost. I carried a pair of jeans in my backpack and changed in the bathroom after I got to school, then back into my ankle-length skirt before my father came to pick me up. Dating? Out of the question. You wouldn’t believe what I went through to assert myself and choose my own school. My family hated everything about it. The university itself (a state school) the location (as far away as I could get) my major (biotechnology). I think my mother would have sent me to a nunnery if she could get away with it. I saved my allowance for years before I left for school. I kept the clothes they bought for me. I kept them in the bottom drawer of my dresser and bought a new wardrobe as soon as I was sure they wouldn’t turn around so my father could launch a surprise inspection of the dormitory.
