Growing Up When Girls Didn’t Matter

Maria Sikoutris-Dilorio as a Child.

I remember the moment clearly. I was still young when my father said words that

would echo in my mind for years: “You should have been a boy.”

He didn’t say it with cruelty. He said it with conviction — the kind passed down through generations. In the world my parents came from, sons carried the family name, the legacy, the future. Daughters carried responsibility. Daughters married. Daughters had babies. Daughters supported. Sons achieved.

I grew up in a traditional European household where expectations were clear and unquestioned. College was not part of the plan for me. My role, as it was explained — sometimes directly and sometimes through silence — was simple: get married, have children, and be a good wife. My Big Fat Greek Wedding felt deeply personal to me, almost like a mirror reflecting the life I was living. Beneath the humor lies a reality many girls quietly carry: the assumption that their value is measured by domestic duties

rather than by intellect, curiosity, or ambition. Watching that movie, I recognized my younger self — a girl with dreams that didn’t fit neatly into tradition, trying to find her own voice amid expectations that told her otherwise.

And yet, even as a young girl, I felt something stirring inside me. A curiosity. A hunger. A knowing that there was more.

Resilience often begins as a whisper, not a roar.

When you grow up feeling “less than,” you develop one of two responses: you shrink, or you rise. I tried shrinking. I tried being agreeable. I tried not wanting more than what was prescribed. But the desire to learn, to grow, to think deeply, would not go away. It felt less like rebellion and more like survival.

Being told I should have been a boy did something unexpected. It did not make me wish I were different. It made me determined to prove that being a girl was never the limitation.

Choosing college was not just an academic decision. It was an act of quiet defiance. It meant stepping outside of tradition. It meant disappointing people I loved. It meant tolerating disapproval. But it also meant honoring the part of me that refused to disappear.

Resilience is not always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like filling out an application when no one thinks you should. Sometimes it looks like sitting in a classroom where you feel you do not belong. Sometimes it looks like believing in yourself before anyone else does.

Over time, what was once resistance became purpose. The very messages that told me girls were secondary shaped the therapist I would later become. I understand what it feels like to question your worth. I understand the tension between loyalty to family and loyalty to self. I understand how cultural expectations can quietly shape identity — and how powerful it is when someone finally says, “You matter.”

"Against all odds is not about anger at where we come from. It is about growth beyond it."

I love my family. I honor their history. But I also honor the girl who refused to accept that her only value was in becoming someone else’s wife or someone else’s mother. Ironically, I did become a wife. I did become a mother. But I also became educated. I became independent. I became a professional. I became a voice.

And perhaps the greatest resilience of all was this: I did not have to become a boy to become strong.

Strength was already there.

It just needed permission to rise.