When I was around sixteen years old, I went out shopping for the day with my mum. As we made our way down the bustling high street I noticed a woman who appeared to be flagging us down. It turned out she was an old friend of my mum’s, and she appeared to know me too. She remarked at how I’d grown and what a lovely young lady I was turning into. I didn’t know the woman but I smiled warmly and thanked her, being sure to address her as “Aunt” because that was a mark of respect in our community. The conversation meandered; somebody was getting married…someone else had divorced…had we heard the latest scandal? Eventually the woman turned to me and asked what everyone always asked: “Are you courting?”
I shook my head, no I was not “courting,” the word made my skin crawl. She was only asking if I was dating anyone, but the term “courting” conjured up all sorts of panicky ideas about commitment and entrapment in my mind.
“She’s still in school” my mum told her. The woman raised her eyebrows. I could see her searching her mind for the appropriate response. It was as if my mum had told her something terribly disconcerting and she wasn’t sure how to react. Eventually she smiled and answered “oh that’s nice…she’ll be a good help to her husband.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. This wasn’t the first time that I’d been confronted with that sentence and it wouldn’t be the last.
I was born into a culture where a majority of the people wholeheartedly believe that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. The fact that I was in the middle of my GCSE’s, working towards my A Levels, was regarded as a novelty at best, and a frivolous distraction at worst. There was no accolade in going to school — a good Traveller girl’s main aim was to get married to a good Traveller boy and have good Traveller babies so that the cycle could continue. None of this sat well with me. I knew that I could never be content with that life…and yet to pursue anything else would see me shut out from my culture.
I managed to spend the first eighteen years of my life straddling the proverbial fence. Over time I developed a coping mechanism which was to separate myself into two halves — two lives that never eclipsed. I told nobody in school about my heritage, knowing the stigma attached to it. Most days I’d hear “Pikey” slurs in the classrooms and hallways, from students and teachers alike, but I said nothing. The slurs were never aimed at me, I didn’t fit any of the stereotypes they held in their heads — if anything I was a model student. Sometimes I wondered how they would react if I told them the truth, I liked to imagine their faces as I smashed through their prejudices, but blowing my cover wouldn’t have been worth it.
In my last year of sixth form, everything finally came to a head. While my friends at school were writing their personal statements and applying to uni; my traveller contemporaries were planning their weddings. I wrote my personal statement. I set my heart on an undergraduate course that combined philosophy and history — my two favorite subjects. For a while I truly believed that it was going to happen.
Then reality hit. My dad laid down the law — he’d let me stay in school far longer than most girls were allowed because my mum had fought for it. She, like me, loved to learn, but she was removed from school at eleven to travel the world with her family. My mum’s influence had kept me in school for years, often against my father’s wishes, but my father’s conviction was too strong this time. Under no circumstances would I be allowed to go away to uni. Traveller girls do not live away from her parents before they get married; if they do, their value as a potential wife decreases exponentially.
We had a huge argument. I’d never stood toe to toe with my father before that night but I fought tooth and nail for my right to continue learning. In the end he told me I could go to a local university, as long as I came home every night and didn’t get involved in any social aspects of student life. That wasn’t good enough for me. The local uni didn’t do the course I wanted. I was young and volatile — it was all or nothing. Sometimes I wonder if I ended up spiting myself.
When my teachers found out that I wasn’t applying to any universities they were shocked. I’d always been so academic, surely this was a natural progression? My head of year even organised a private meeting with me to find out if everything was ok. I sat in her office and lied to her face. “I just don’t want to go,” I told her, throwing in some vague excuse about student debt and job prospects. I left that meeting, shut myself in a toilet, and cried.
The friends that I confided in couldn’t understand why I didn’t just go against my father, but it wasn’t as simple as that. The reality was that if I went to uni I would be closing a door that could never be reopened. Once you go the non-Traveller way, you can’t come back and expect to be accepted.
When my A Level results came through in the summer holidays, it was bittersweet. I was proud of myself — I’d done well, but it felt like a hollow victory. I wasn’t going to do anything with them now, they were just letters on a piece of paper. Without the non-Traveller world to give them significance they meant nothing. I spent the next few years with a civil war going on in my head. Some days I convinced myself that I could be happy if I just followed the template cut out for me — get married, raise a family, be a housewife. Other days I would see my school friends posting about uni on Facebook and I would grow angry and resentful. I worked just as hard as them, I was just as smart. Why were they getting to further themselves while I sat there, stagnating, waiting for my life to begin?
These days I no longer get asked if I’m “courting” — I got married last year.
I stopped being angry with my dad. I know that he believed he was keeping me safe. All he ever wanted for me was that I find a good husband to take care of me, and I have. My husband is a Traveller man who is also conflicted about our culture. He knows what it is to live in two worlds without truly belonging to either and together we are attempting to carve out and navigate our own path through life. Although he is the main bread winner, while I balance working from home with the cooking and cleaning, neither of us have entirely stuck to the traditional roles that most married Travellers play out. I have been toying with the idea of starting an open university course. I know he would support me, but I don’t think I’d ever live it down with my family if I spent time and money on a degree that I couldn’t guarantee would forward me. My fathers words echo in my mind: “You can’t stay in school forever.”
I know that I’m one of the lucky ones, I had more opportunity than most and I knew what I was doing when I chose to get married. And there are plenty of happily married Travellers like me, but the lack of education paired with the societal pressure to marry young has landed many young people, girls especially, in unhappy and abusive marriages. With no qualifications, most women are totally financially reliant on their husbands. If their relationship turns sour a woman has two choices: stay and put on a good public face, or go back to her parents.
Our culture is the product of years of persecution and isolation. The community has always been insular because that’s how it survives. But the world is changing. We can no longer choose to cut ourselves off from outsiders. The traditions that once preserved our way of life have become outdated and archaic rules that suppress diversity and independent thought.
I see babies born into our society and over the years I watch them conforming to the standards it sets. It saddens me to see their potential being squandered as their options in life are curtailed one by one. Many Travellers believe that if the community opens up, it will risk losing its identity, but I believe that if it does not, it will not have an identity worth preserving. When I have children, I won’t allow our community to place its limits on them, even if that means leaving it all behind some day for good.
Photo credit: Lydia/Creative Commons