Are You Afraid to Rock the Boat?

This is a cautionary tale about rocking the boat.

My mother took me to the small college to begin my freshman year. A fine school, both then and now, it was my parents’ alma mater. “You’ll love it,” they said.

I didn’t love it. I didn’t even like it most of the time. The school didn’t fit me. Yes, I should have asked more questions, but I never thought about rocking the boat. I didn’t want to disappoint them.

To my mother’s dismay, I wasn’t placed in the stately, southern women’s hall with the elegant, central living room at the bottom of a grand staircase. Seriously, think Scarlett and Rhett’s place in Gone with the Wind. The check-in lady said, “The women’s housing is full, but we have a room for you in a classroom building.” Classroom building? The small makeshift room didn’t even allow me a roommate.

Abandoned over and over by her alcoholic father, and with a mother who seemed to need parenting, Mom learned to stand up for herself at an early age. Good thing, because now she had to stand up for me—again. I would have stayed in that room rather than, you guessed it, rock the boat. She marched us back to, uh, request an alternative.

“Well,” the lady said, “we’ve placed some women in one wing of a men’s building on the other side of campus [window shades to be drawn on the guys’ courtyard around the clock], and we have an older student without a roommate. If that will do…”

My roommate was twenty-eight years old. She was nice, but she was about as drab as those dorm rooms. I felt at odds, but again, I wasn’t going to rock the boat, and at least I was in a dorm. The following semester I moved across the hall with a roommate who managed to have late-night visitors–and I let her do it.

The administration had rules stricter than my parents, although I’m sure it’s changed in some ways by now (this isn’t one of the schools you’re probably thinking of). Freshmen had to get permission to go off campus, and to drive their own cars. Women had to wear skirts a certain, arbitrary length, and they couldn’t wear pants except in gym class, when participating in an athletic event, or in the dorm. Demerits were no joke.

This was regression, and oh how I wanted to spread my wings. Not to get into trouble, but to grow. Yet I wasn’t brave enough to even consider taking any steps.

When I discovered the college didn’t have the major I later chose, I knew I had to tell my parents I needed to transfer to another school for the fall, being honest about all the reasons. I had to push away all the times I hadn’t stood up for myself—the few times I was bullied, the times I was ridiculously wronged, the times I completely withdrew from a situation rather than rock the boat.

This has been a lifelong challenge.

Standing Up for Ourselves Isn’t Selfish

“Standing up for ourselves” can sound selfish to some ears. For others, the phrase connotes a feminism they don’t favor. But I don’t believe God wants any gender’s appropriate submission to others, nor their living out the Golden Rule, to lead to an oppressed existence that hinders the growth he intends.

I’m not talking about fighting physical or emotional abuse, although that’s a critical challenge to conquer. I’m not talking about fighting for rights. I’m not talking about fighting at all. I’m talking how we can be so fearful of rocking the boat—ever—that we accept what we shouldn’t. Fear of rocking the boat can stem from many sources, but some boats need to be rocked, even for ourselves. Where do we find the courage?

Stand, but Not Alone

My parents were disappointed, but they supported me. I’m grateful, because I never asked God for guidance. I stood, but I stood alone, a nervous wreck. I was young, both in years and in my faith, and I didn’t yet understand the significance of Scripture with messages like this, true in any battle: “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength” (Isaiah 40:29 ESV).

Too many of us, well beyond our teenage years, believe we must stand alone to stand up for ourselves, even if we’ve come to the place we’re willing to try. That’s not true. If we ask him, God will give us the wisdom and strength to appropriately and biblically, lovingly and confidently, stand on our own behalf.

Dare to trust him, and with God’s help, dare to rock the boat.

Jean Kavich Bloom is a champion coffee drinker and a freelance editor and writer for Christian publishers and ministries. She doesn’t garden, bake, or knit, but insists playing Scrabble is exactly the same thing. Jean and her husband, Cal, live in central Indiana. They have three children (plus two who married in) and five grandchildren. She blogs at bloominwordstoo.blogspot.com.

Photograph © Julian Santa Ana, used with permission