TheBanyanTree: renaissance woman or feminist reject

[Gloria]

Laura wrote:
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.
Both you and Julie were blessed with parents that understood the changes
going on and thus encouraged their daughters to dream and to do whatever
their dreams foretold.  Others like me weren't as fortunate.  I was told to
get a job the day I turned 16 or don't bother coming home.  After seeing a
boyfriend for a spell, the words became:  Don't come home pregnant or your
bags will be at the door!

Job, job, job.  Get a job... a real job.  One that will give you health care
and a retirement plan.  One that pays well.  And oh yeah, no college for
you.  You'll just find a husband, have kids, and stay home with them.  No
college needed.  Can't afford it anyway.  "But I want to go to college!" I
declared.  "Help me figure out how to do it!"  For what?  I'll tell you
what.  It will cost $? for 4 years of college, debt you will take on.  While
going to school you will have lost $7K per year by not working.  How many
years will it take you to catch up?  Besides, you wont' work after you're
married anyway!  What a waste of time and money.  My father.  Bah.

Mom stayed in her world of cleaning, cooking, raising 5 kids, attending
PTA,  enrolling us in enrichment classes, swimming, sewing, gymanstics,
piano, etiquette, and more.  She had graduated with a cosmetology degree,
worked a couple years, got pregnant! (1940), then married and had 4 more
kids, and never worked outside the home again.  Her only joy, I think, were
her children.  Lord knows that while in my teen years  I begged the two of
them to divorce.  I wanted more for Mom than what she had.  Him mostly.

So I did what I was told.  I found a job and then another one and then
another.  Only 3 jobs in a lifetime.  This last one has lasted 30 years so
far.  I can't blame the parents for that!  I look forward to the day that I
dream a dream of my choosing and chase after it.  I suppose if I lived alone
I'd be doing that now.  Hard choices.  For now, I'll stay.... and the 30
years will continue to grow in number.

Dreamer...always dreamin' of a kinder, gentler world for ALL








On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Laura <wolfljsh at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>