What a Knitting Woman In My Math Class Taught Me About Freedom

You're Not Escaping Stereotypes You're Building Smarter Boxes

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We are bombarded with stereotypes every day.

Societal stereotypes don’t live as long as they used to.

The housewife of the 1950s was replaced by Superwoman in the 1980s. Superwoman morphed into today’s Influencer. Each era swaps one costume for another, but the function remains the same.

A script for how a life is supposed to look.

Stereotypes become dangerous when we internalize them.

They stop being social commentary and start becoming an inner compass. We orient our decisions around them. We don’t have to think for ourselves anymore—the projection does the thinking for us.

We go on automation.

That’s when the box forms. The box is seductive. It’s safe. It’s comfortable. Nothing is expected of you.

Over time, safety turns into a rut.

The rut becomes a way of life.

Life isn’t seen accurately from inside the rut-box. The walls act like filters, letting in only what confirms the script. While inside it, nothing truly new can be seen. Your rut meshes neatly with other people’s ruts, and the world becomes predictable.

Everyone is following a role.

Life becomes a poorly directed play.

We don’t notice the boundaries of the box until something slips past the filters.

That happened to me while I was a junior in college.

The Moment the Script Cracked

I attended an evening math class.

There was a very interesting couple with me in class.

The man was about seventy-five and attended class with his wife. I was fascinated by them from the start.

The classroom was typical. Most of us were in our twenties, rushing in from jobs or other classes, stressed about assignments and exams.

But not them.

They arrived early every session.

He’d pull out his notebook with careful precision. She’d settle in on the side of the room with her knitting bag, pulling out whatever project she was working on. While he listened to the lecture, his wife’s needles moved in a steady rhythm.

During our dinner break, I watched her set out a simple meal for the two of them.

Tupperware containers with what looked like homemade sandwiches. A thermos of something hot. They ate quickly, smiling at each other, entirely absorbed in their small shared world.

The class itself didn’t mingle much, but I overheard conversations. (It’s always the overheard conversations that matter.)

He had retired from his job and was now pursuing a degree in mathematics.

I don’t even remember what his former career was. What struck me was that retirement hadn’t stopped him. He was still learning. Still following something that mattered to him.

At seventy-five, he was doing what most people say they’ll do “someday.”

This stayed with me long after graduation—especially now, as I enter an older phase of life myself.

But it was his wife who unsettled me the most.

She attended every single class. She rarely spoke—maybe answered “good evening” when greeted. She always smiled. Her presence was quiet but constant.

I grew up with the woman-at-home stereotype. And without realizing it, I placed her neatly inside it.

I was offended on her behalf.

Here she was, sitting through math lectures in support of his dream. What about hers? She couldn’t possibly find differential equations interesting. She was just there because—well, what else would a wife of that generation do?

My internal monologue ran wild with assumptions.

She probably didn’t work outside the home.

Probably spent her whole life supporting his ambitions. Probably never got to chase her own education because she was too busy raising kids and managing a household.

I projected an entire life story onto her based on absolutely nothing.

I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know her life. I didn’t know if she had a PhD or had never finished high school. I didn’t know if she was bored out of her mind or fascinated by the material.

But I knew the story I had assigned her.

As the semester went on, my outrage softened into curiosity.

What if my assumptions were wrong?

Maybe she was a math professor herself, attending class to help him. Maybe she was the CEO of her own company and welcomed the stillness after a demanding day. Maybe knitting was her joy. Maybe this was simply how they chose to be together.

The possibilities multiplied once certainty dissolved.

Whatever her reason, she inspired me. Not because she defied stereotypes loudly—but because she didn’t seem to organize her life around them at all.

Homemaker or executive didn’t matter. She appeared content. Present. Unbothered by how she might be read.

In my mind, she threw the stereotypes out entirely.

I tried to do the same.

The Stereotype I Didn’t Notice Turning Inward

For years, I thought that moment freed me from stereotypes.

But over time, I noticed something still operating beneath the surface.

I had stopped stereotyping roles—but I was still stereotyping responses.

I carried a belief that if I revealed too much of my inner world—my spirituality, my way of seeing, the parts of me that don’t translate cleanly—I would be dismissed. Not attacked outright. Just subtly set aside.

I assumed rejection before it happened.

This stereotype didn’t look like fear. It looked like discernment.

I softened language before it was challenged. I explained myself before I was questioned. I translated inner knowing into acceptable terms.

It felt like wisdom. It felt like maturity.

But it was still a box.

This kind of box is the hardest to see because it feels thoughtful.

You’re still engaged. Still articulate. Still present. Just not all the way.

The walls are invisible, but they filter everything—what you say which truths stay untranslated.

The world becomes predictable again—not because people are limited, but because I had already decided how they would respond.

The stereotype wasn’t that others were small-minded.

It was that I assumed they would be.

What I’m Still Unlearning

I am still unlearning the belief that my inner life must be defended before it’s offered.

That spirituality needs justification to be credible. That depth requires translation to be acceptable. That being fully myself carries an automatic social cost.

Sometimes it does.

But often, the cost is paid only because I expect it.

I notice this pattern most clearly in my writing.

I’ll draft something authentic.

Something that came from a real spiritual experience or inner knowing. Then I’ll go back and soften it. Add qualifiers. Insert “I think” or “maybe” or “in my experience” before statements that I actually know to be true for me.

I’m translating before anyone asks me to.

No one challenged me. No one questioned it. I defended myself against an attack that existed only in my head.

The woman in that classroom wasn’t living in reaction to perception. She wasn’t managing the audience. She simply showed up as herself—knitting needles and all.

That’s the freedom I’m still growing into.

I’m practicing showing up without the preemptive translation.

This means publishing something that feels vulnerable without adding the safety net of scientific explanation. It also means sharing a spiritual practice without first explaining why it’s not “woo-woo.”

Or simply it means trusting that the people who need to hear what I have to say will hear it.

The ones who don’t are simply not my audience.

I’m learning to let my work find its people instead of trying to make it palatable to everyone.

This doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring about clarity or accessibility. It means I’ve stopped apologizing for depth. I’ve stopped assuming that spiritual language needs constant translation into secular terms to be taken seriously.

The irony is that the more I practice this, the more connection I actually create.

When I stop managing everyone’s potential reactions I just share what’s true for me.

The right people respond. They tell me they’ve been looking for someone who talks about these things without apology. They say they’re tired of spiritual content that feels like it’s constantly defending its right to exist.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one living in that particular box.

Freedom, Revisited

Freedom isn’t rebellion.

It isn’t proving anything. It isn’t explaining yourself into safety.

Freedom is letting go of the reflex to pre-shrink.

It’s allowing yourself to arrive without apology—and letting the response be whatever it is.

Some people won’t understand. Some will quietly drift away. Some will surprise you.

That was always true.

The difference now is this—I no longer need the stereotype to decide for me.

And that, slowly, is what stepping out of the box actually looks like.