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The three women who showed me I can do everything
When my mom was my age, she had a child — me. By that time, she had already graduated from medical school, with a PhD and an incredible career ahead of her. Soon after, she wrote a book that was published just before my brother was born. And then, she became a full professor and the vice dean of the number one medical school in Serbia (a role she kept until retirement). Once in a generation superstar. Now, in her 60s, she continues doing everything she sets her mind to.
She married someone her mother didn’t approve of so strongly she didn’t even attend the wedding. But my mom went ahead with it. And then, during the ceremony, when asked if she would like to take her future husband’s last name, she said ‘no’, which in conservative Serbia in the 90s wasn’t a fun decision to make out loud, in a room full of people who are becoming your family.
From my perspective, it wasn’t a fun question to get as a child either. “Why does your mom have a different last name? Are you parents divorced?” That’s how ‘crazy’ her decision was perceived to be. Nobody thought that a woman can be both married and keep her identity.
My school friends had moms who didn’t work, but who would always pick them up in expensive cars, dressed like pop stars with full faces of makeup, styled hair and long, red-painted nails. For me, they looked…
