TheBanyanTree: renaissance woman or feminist reject

[Laura]

On 12 Oct 2008 at 11:41, Julie Anna Teague wrote:

> But I think we also bought into an idea of what women should no longer
> be doing, the kinds of things that were considered demeaning to women
> who had better things to do with their lives. 

While Julie and I are the same age, give or take a few months, I was the last of a brood of 4 
children, an afterthought,13 years younger than my oldest sibling, though Mom swears I was 
planned.

I grew up with an old-fashioned Mom.  Not that she had a lot of choice.  When my Mom was 
growing up in the 30s and 40s, women stayed home and kept the house and kids.  That's 
what they did, there were no other choices.  Yes, my Grandmother was a shop clerk before 
her kids were born, and she did teach school for a while, but for the most part, once the kids 
were born she stayed home.

BUT... my Grandfather instilled in his girls the idea that girls could do anything they wanted 
to do.  Anything.  While the girls did help their mother in the kitchen and with housework, 
they also helped their Dad on the farm.  They went to school and were encouraged to 
progress beyond elementary school.  My Mom actually graduated from high school when 
she was 15, and finished college at 18!

She was a journalism major, with years of experience as a radio announcer and newspaper 
columnist and editor.  She got her teaching certificate and taught for a year at a one-room 
school house in Arkansas.  She performed in the theatre in college.  That's where she met 
my Dad.  For him, it was love at first sight.  She took a little more convincing.

He was a career army officer.  Knowing that, she still married him.  She knew going into the 
marriage that she could have no career of her own because of the demands of being an 
officer's wife.  She took on that burden happily.  Well, maybe not always happily, there were 
some heated discussions about protocol, and once she even packed her bags and left - for 
about 5 hours.  She changed her mind and went back.  Dad never knew about it.  But she 
made that choice to be a wife, homemaker, and mother, and I don't think she ever regretted 
it.

While I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, I  was also taught to believe that girls could do 
anything they wanted to do.  But that was tempered with the idea that all people, not just 
girls, should learn basic maintenance skills.  We all learned to at least stitch up a split seam, 
or put a button back on.  We helped in the garden.  My sister and I learned basic cooking, 
and so did my brothers.  We all helped break beans and can tomatoes.  We pickled beets 
and put up apples.  We made jam, and cut up, blanched and froze I don't know how many 
hundreds of squash.  To this day I am hard pressed to look a squash in the eye without a 
grimace.

I don't know about my sister, but I know I was always welcome to work with Dad on the 
house or in the yard, and he would show me how to use and maintain the tools and 
equipment.  As a result, I can build projects, and maintain and repair my own home.  

As for me, I had every opportunity a person could have wanted.  I worked at several 
different jobs and learned valuable skills from each one of them.  I am a jack-of-all-trades, 
and I like it that way.

When I met my husband, I was the one working and making the money while he went to 
school.  I liked being the money-maker.  When he got his job, I continued to work, because I 
like to work.  Then we decided to have children.

I stayed home with the babies, planning to return to work when they went to school.  I found 
I really, really enjoyed being home with the kids.  I found great fullfillment in having happy, 
healthy, intelligent children.  I found pride in maintaining a clean, healthy house.  Ok, so I 
still don't like to cook, but I can and do plan and prepare healthy meals for my family.

Afte the kids had been in school a few years, my husband and I decided that it would be 
best for our kids if we homeschooled them.  It was one of the most difficult decisions we've 
ever made.  I knew I would have to be completely dependent on my husband for income, 
and I would be "tied" to the house and kids for years to come.

I discovered I liked that, too.  Imagine - me, an independent, intelligent, skilled woman, 
deciding to stay home and be a housewife and teacher.  I refuse to apologize for it.  
Frequently, when asked what I do, I reply that I am a homeschool Mom.  "No," they say, 
"what do you do for a LIVING?"  I just smile and tell them I spend my days watching soaps 
and eating bon-bons.

But, by golly, it's MY choice, and isn't that what the feminist movement was all about?  Not 
about rejecting womanhood, but having choices.

-- 
Laura
wolfljsh at gmail.com
http://wolfsinger.wordpress.com