Wait, What?

Every now and then I come across something, someone, or some comment that totally throws me for a loop.  Not often, mind you.  I am the kind of person who you tell your life story to in the grocery line.  I guess I just look sympathetic; and, I do that mirror listening thing without thinking about what I want to tell you about myself or trying to insert my own stories into yours.  (Yes, being introverted helps here, but I’ve got it down pat.)  Also, I’ve been teaching for twenty years, so to really, truly shock me is a formidable task.  Gay?  Cool.  Don’t know what you want to do when you grow up?  Join the club.  Want to move to Montana and live as a hermit with only books and a case of beer?  Have fun!  Confused?  Me, too.  Lost and just need a hug?  C’mon in.  In love with your cousin’s best friend’s ex-girlfriend’s dog?  Okay.  Dislike your parents and hate your friends?  I’m your sounding board.  Really – you cannot shock me.

But, just when I know I have heard it all and seen most of it, I’m blindsided.  This past week I was talking with a group of women.  To be precise, I was listening to a group of women talk. I did not know all of them; several of us had just met for the first time. The age range was 40-70. Topics ranged from marriage to children to in-laws to pets to jobs and back again.  At one point, one of the older ladies suggested, “I guess it’s about having a dream.  I mean, you have to have something you want to do.  A goal.  A dream. I’m retired and I still don’t have enough time to do everything I want to do.”  In less than half a breath a younger woman piped up, “Maybe that’s my problem.”  We looked at her expectantly.  “I mean,” she continued, “I don’t really have any dreams except to just be with my husband.”  Wait. What?  She went on to iterate a couple of dreams he has, but she concluded that comment with, “All I really want to do is spend time with him.”

Now, you’ll all be glad to know that I beat down the feminist in me that wanted to lecture her on losing her identity in a man.  I also shushed the counselor in me who wanted to tell her that she needed to do some kind of guided imagery in order to visualize who she wants to be.  You’ll also be relieved to know that I did not allow the reader in me to quote all sorts of literary ideas about becoming your own person.  And, yep, she did it.  This forty-something woman shocked me.  It really seems to me that hanging your one dream on another human being is a recipe for tragedy.

I don’t know lots of things “for sure,” as Oprah puts it, but I do know for sure that if you have one dream that you assign your happiness to and it  revolves around another person, you will be disappointed.  That kind of pressure will doom a relationship and poison a friendship.  My dream depends upon you?  No.  Who – male or female – thinks that wrapping up the sum total of all of your dreams into one person is a good idea?  Her dream is just to spend time with her husband.  Ancillary to cultivating herself as a human being and cultivating her own interests and dreams, it’s not a bad thing to want to spend time with one’s husband.  In fact, many would argue it’s quite excellent to want to spend time with loved ones.  Let me reiterate:  that’s her only dream.  Her one dream for the rest of her life hangs upon another person. Her one dream for the remaining 45 years on the planet is to spend time with her husband.  That’s it.  Wait. What? 

So, the husband-time-spending thing aside, this woman has only ONE dream for her remaining time in life.  That’s it.  One.  That One is a progression of a role in a family. Only that.  I know women here in Augusta, and I assume they exist all over this country if not the world, whose mission in life has been and continues to be:  graduate high school, go to college, find a husband, marry, have children, join the country club, take family vacations, help the children graduate high school, help the children go to college, help the children get married, help the children have children, enjoy the grandchildren and eventually die.  And, yes, before you ask, I have taught and counseling high school girls whose life plan is some iteration of the above sequence.  In 2013.  Yes, there are girls and women whose whole existence seems to bizarrely rotate around others.  Where, oh where, is the desire for personal development?  For cultivating your own talents?  Women, if you are reading this, you have hundreds, if not thousands, of opportunities to make a life for yourself.  And, most certainly, you may want it to include marriage or family life and many of your desires and dreams and talents may dovetail into family life, but please, oh please, I beg you not to roll up all of your dreams into what your husband wants to do or into some future children. God forbid he becomes ill or dies or leaves you – please have some thoughts about what it is that YOU want.  You and only you. What are your dreams for yourself? If you were totally on your own, what would you do to develop your interests and achieve your dreams?  Wait, what?

Yes, I know that what I’m suggesting might be a lecture for human beings, but it really seems especially applicable to women who roll up their own identity in a husband and family or who minimize themselves for any other person.  Who knows what will happen?  Please develop yourself – individually.  Surely you have interests and talents and desires for your own development.  Children grow up.  Children move out.  Spouses are not extensions of who you are – they are (hopefully) wonderful  additions to who you are, but you must always be you first and foremost. 

Perhaps this lady was simplifying what Jean Webster suggested, “I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.”  Perhaps my new friend wants to just enjoy time with her husband, and I do wish her all the happiness doing so, but I still say she needs a goal.   “It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. Something for ourselves that we are working towards.” (B.E. Mays) 

And that, my new friend, is a tragedy that can be avoided.

On Single Mothers, Sex, and Making Choices

For four years I taught an introductory course called “Women’s Literature and Issues” at an independent high school in Augusta, Georgia.  The type of school and location is important.  Being independent, this school allows teachers to create courses, get them approved, and then, pending student enrollment of eight or more students, teach the course. Augusta, Georgia is worth noting because this is a conservative state and community.  Not just conservative politics.  To wit, there is a wildly popular program called “Social” here.  Starting in sixth grade, parents enroll their children to learn manners and various ballroom dancing throughout the next five years.  If you are among the elite, you will be selected to be in Cotillion – that is, you will be a student-teacher and then at the spring formal that is held yearly in the convention center, the girl will wear a white bridal type dress and present the best dances with her carefully selected be-tuxed partner.  Probably a partner her mother lined up for her back when she was in third grade; that’s when a mother approached me asking if my eldest would be her daughter’s social partner in middle school.  Because of the educational opportunities afforded by my school and in spite of the socially conservative traditions of the community at-large, I had a strong enrollment in a course that reviewed women in history and literature, as well as discussed the issues of women in the Middle East and across the world.  When I accepted an administrative position, something had to give – it was this class.  Well, evidently, I need to get back at it.  Too many comments and articles have crossed my screen recently about single mothers and feminism for me to stay silent.

Item One:  A New York Times Article: “Single Mothers With Family Values” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/single-mothers-with-family-values.html?_r=0

The thrust of the article is that family values are found primarily in Christian and Republican tradition. Not so.  Any single mother who is caring for herself and her children values her family, regardless of religion and politics.  To be fair the article notes a couple of democrats, a libertarian, and a Hindu.  However, the article centers on women who have embraced Christian and conservative ideals as a path to success.  The article notes, “Ms. Maggio credits God, not government assistance, with helping her climb out of poverty.”  Say what? This woman reportedly went from welfare to a six-figure banking career, and she is unwilling to give a nod to the assistance that helped keep her off the street?  Even more disturbing:  she doesn’t take any credit for her own, presumably, hard work or business acumen in the rise. 

Okay, so one can argue that if a person wants to credit God with their success, she is entitled to do so.  Granted.  However, her refusal to give any credit to assistance or herself can incriminate women who do take credit for pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.  Women who are smart and hard-working are being discredited by women who refuse to take credit for their accomplishments.  The implication is:  tithe, credit God, and it will all be okay.  Oh, let me mention that she is now married – that’s another perk of this self-effacing paradigm. Work hard, use government assistance, take and give no credit to anyone except God, and then you’ll have riches and a husband. 

I’m getting a little queasy.

Item Two:  Another New York Times Article:  “Sex on Campus: She Can Play that Game, Too.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/fashion/sex-on-campus-she-can-play-that-game-too.html

Women are hooking up on campus with no intention of finding Mr. Right or even pursuing a relationship.  Women want to do their own thing and have some uncommitted sex in their free time.  Dandy.  Men have been doing this for millennia.  However, there is a woman, Susan Patton who “wrote a letter to The Daily Princetonian urging female undergraduates not to squander the chance to hunt for a husband on campus, say that de-emphasizing relationships in college works against women.”  To be specific, Mrs. Patton suggests that, “For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you.” 

Oh, dear.  Well, luckily Princeton is not handing out MRS degrees.  Certainly, many of us meet future partners in our college years.  We might debate whether or not that is a good thing.  However, the suggestion that it is incumbent upon young women to find a husband in college in order to secure the “cornerstone of …happiness” is ridiculous.  Many women do not want to marry.  Of those that do, a great many will divorce.  Furthermore, why is the advice to snag a smart wife not being given to men?  It would seem that the suggestion is that men can be successful on their own while women need a smart husband in order to succeed. Why, oh why, is a successful business woman (who, incidentally did not follow this advice in her youth), foisting such a load on younger women?  People  – regardless of gender - need to be educated and mentored to make informed decisions about marriage and relationships.  And, they need to know that they can be successful without a partner.  Marriage is not required.  Mrs. Patton – sit down.

I definitely feel nauseous.

Item Three:  The stay-at-home mom vs. working mom debate that has been aired nationally on television and in print media.

“What do you do all day?”

“Your children will be drug dealers and prostitutes unless you are home with them.”

“Must be nice to have the whole day to yourself.”

“If you give up your job, you’ll regret it forever.”

“If you stay at your job, you’ll regret it forever.”

The dialogue can go on and on.  The more it goes on, the more vitriolic it becomes.  I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for a grand total of ten months, plus summers when I was a classroom teacher.  The rest of my career, I have been a working mother.  I had my first child in the first five months of my first job. 

Web MD reports, “In a 2005 study, the U.S. Census Bureau reported an estimated 5.6 million stay-at-home moms. That is a 22% increase from 1994.  ‘It used to be more popular and widely accepted for moms to work,’ says Cara Gardenswartz, PhD, a clinical psychologist in independent practice in Beverly Hills, Calif. ‘There's been a backlash, because right now, there's actually more status to not be a working mom.’”  I take issue with Dr. Gardenswartz’s assertion.  I think the prestige of being a stay at home mother is highly dependent upon the area of the country one lives in and the profession in question.  Here in the South, there is a definite wealthier class perception that if the mom works there is something wrong with the family.  This is not something that I encountered when I lived in the suburbs of Chicago. 

One of the original points of the women’s movement was to validate and open up opportunities for women to have careers.  This point continues in the current-day conversation of salary equality and glass ceilings.  But, stay at home moms and working mothers have taken each other on in a battle that vilifies everyone.  Isn’t the point here for women to have choices in a wide variety?  But women have too long tried to prescribe ways of living for other women rather than encouraging each other in our different pursuits.

This idea is illustrated well in this clip from the movie Mona Lisa Smile that I used to show in my women’s lit class.  Joan (in white) has been grappling with wanting to go to Yale Law and wanting to be married.  Her art history instructor, Miss Watson, has spent the semester encouraging the girls in her class to make their own choices (so she believes):

Several important points rise to the top here:

1.       Ladies, if you are a single mother, you deserve a lot of credit.  Take it.  Take a bow.

2.      Men and women, you do not have to get married.  Unlike in the board game Life, it is not a requirement.  Having a partner is an option.

3.       There is a myriad of choices available to everyone – explore them. Take charge of your choices.  Don’t coast through marriage and family decisions on some kind of default setting.

4.      Rather than telling others to marry or not to have sex or to join a church, help others think through how they want to live.

I feel better now.