Dad cannot get home in time to start dinner: Get the pot, boil the water, cut the vegetables. Sweep the floor, feed the dog, unload the dishwasher and then beg Abe to take out the trash. Mom has a meeting on Monday morning: Make sure everyone has their lunch, load the car and then bring everyone to school. Maggie is upset: Help her relax and look for her missing baby doll. All is well, peace. Tears coming from across the house because Eliza is confused about homework: Read the question, help her understand then reassure her that she is the smartest cookie in the class. My parents cannot pay for dance or soccer this season. They ask me to help pay.
I am a first-born daughter. I am all that researchers and scientists claim: bossy, hard-working, timely, cautious and reliable. I do as they predict and emulate the role of a second parent, especially in a household that is challenged by divorce and financial hardship. I am also goal-oriented, outspoken and prone to perfectionism, all of which are qualities in some of the most well-known leaders in the world. The parallels between intrinsic maternalism and leadership run deeply within me, creating an arduous desire of needing to be a caretaker and an achiever.
However, upon entering Emory University, I largely ignored the caretaker role and solely focused on achieving — making sure I was in the greatest number of clubs, keeping a 4.0 GPA, overloading my course schedule and holding a part-time job. In my first year, as I walked through the bustling campus, the laughter of students echoed around me, a stark contrast to the emptiness I felt inside. Each step toward class felt heavier, as if the emptiness I carried weighed too much. I struggled to find community because I was hyper-concentrated on ensuring I was the most accomplished in all settings. This is what I believed college should be — a place for prioritizing academics where being social always took the back-burner.
Starting in fall 2023, I began to nanny for three sweet boys — Ben, Josh and Sam. Of course, like all of my life, I needed a job so that I could support myself and my academics. However, this job feels so different from all of the service industry jobs that I previously held. In their home, I found the kinship I had been missing during my time at Emory.
The Emory Wheel opinion section published my first article on Oct. 4, 2023. A section of strong, intelligent, and intentional women welcomed me while uplifting my work and writing, as well as my soul. They critiqued me when I needed to be critiqued and challenged me when I needed to be challenged. Most of all, they inspired me to write and live through my writing.
Within these two worlds, I can confidently write that I have found my purpose at Emory. I have also learned that I can transcend the labels that constrict me. I am more than the labels that my lived experiences and birth order have assigned me. I am not a mosaic of contradictions, but an intricately woven together craft, each piece contributing to the core of my identity. To be a caretaker is to be an achiever, and I am and will continue to be both while transcending these limited expectations.
My Tuesday evenings are a beautiful, chaotic entanglement of these two worlds that I live in. I wake up, put away my laundry, get ready, attend class one, attend class two, do homework, eat a quick lunch, go babysit, take care of the boys, then head to the Wheel offices where I stay until midnight. As I pick up the boys from their school, they push and shove each other, fighting over who gets the front seat of the car, and rush to greet me with wide smiles and eager chatter. We tumble into a whirlwind of laughter and games, the joy in their eyes reflecting back at me. Then, my role changes and I put on my writing cap. I get to join my friends and fellow writers for challenging work and soul-warming conversation.
Being at Emory has taught me how to fight against the cliques and labels that shape our everyday lives. It is difficult to be a low-income student at the Wheel — where I spend the vast majority of my time — when only 13.5% of students identified as low-income in the Wheel’s 2024 demographic report. At times, I feel discouraged to be surrounded by people whom I feel have a much higher chance of success and accomplishment than me. The culture of pre-professionalism at Emory makes me feel the need to only focus on my qualities of leadership, ambition and direction.
All of these emotions arise just because I have to work a job and other students do not. I should not feel shame for needing to work a job. I always need to stop myself in this thought, for it should not matter to me that I am surrounded by so many peers who come from different lives and statuses of financial privilege. My unique position as a low-income student has amplified the gratitude I feel for Emory, and I should not discredit my love for the Emory community simply because my experience is not shared with as many people.
When confronted with this insecurity and resentment, I force myself to pause and reflect on my job, on the boys that made Emory the place for me. No, they are not on campus, and no, they do not push me intellectually, but they made this space fit for me. They fill a hole within me with their brightness and curiosity. I would not be pushing the bounds of myself without the wisdom that both the Wheel and nannying give me. They make me continuously grow into the creative, energetic and imaginative person that I always was but needed some encouragement to fully project. Instead of forcing myself into a bubble of one thing or another, I am expanding and growing so that the bubble will no longer constrain me — it will pop.
Lola McGuire (26C) is from Nashville, Tenn.
