I am proud to be a woman. I am proud to be part of what 'woman' stands for. I am proud of the fact we campaigned to be equal, to have the right to vote, to have equal pay and opportunities in the work place.
I am also proud of a heritage that seems to be disappearing. The smiling picture of a woman in an ironed apron , showing off her clean home and sharing her fabulous baking; while the children are nurtured into school and the husband knows there will be a meal on the table when he gets home from his long day at work.
I have always been ambitious. I have always enjoyed empowering opportunities to prove myself. I wanted a career and a family. It's not too much to ask - to be the best mum, the best wife, the best friend, the best cook, the best house-keeper, the best daughter, the best sister, the best teacher - after all there are a whole twenty-four hours in a day, if we don't sleep too many of them away.
But, in all that ambition the smiling nurturer has to be sacrificed. In order to achieve what we, as women, campaigned to vigilantly and valiantly to achieve in the early twentieth century, the fifties housewife has gradually become replaced by a stressed, hormonal scowling and anti-social bitch who is spread far too thinly across work and family to ever really achieve either fully. A selfish zombie who hasn't the patience or tolerance to live harmoniously with neighbours, work cooperatively with colleagues or spend hours reading children's stories to her children at bedtime. The modern woman is destined to live a miserable unfulfilled life missing most of it in the blur of the fast lane. When we retire at sixty-five will we look back and feel proud of all those sacrifices and un-cherished memories? The children, now married, with children of their own, following in our full paced life-race, who we never really noticed growing up?
I am proud to be a woman. But, just as men's expectations, once the traditional breadwinner and absent father, are now changed and often confused, so are women's. We have ended up trying to be superheroes, trying to be everything to everyone and ending up as nearly nothing to no-one. What happened to our family values and neighbourly conversations? What happened to the government and country that once encouraged and nurtured those oxo family values that kept our families together and taught our children about what was really important in the world? Is it too late to recapture tradition and security before our children turn into our modern selves?
I am also proud of a heritage that seems to be disappearing. The smiling picture of a woman in an ironed apron , showing off her clean home and sharing her fabulous baking; while the children are nurtured into school and the husband knows there will be a meal on the table when he gets home from his long day at work.
I have always been ambitious. I have always enjoyed empowering opportunities to prove myself. I wanted a career and a family. It's not too much to ask - to be the best mum, the best wife, the best friend, the best cook, the best house-keeper, the best daughter, the best sister, the best teacher - after all there are a whole twenty-four hours in a day, if we don't sleep too many of them away.
But, in all that ambition the smiling nurturer has to be sacrificed. In order to achieve what we, as women, campaigned to vigilantly and valiantly to achieve in the early twentieth century, the fifties housewife has gradually become replaced by a stressed, hormonal scowling and anti-social bitch who is spread far too thinly across work and family to ever really achieve either fully. A selfish zombie who hasn't the patience or tolerance to live harmoniously with neighbours, work cooperatively with colleagues or spend hours reading children's stories to her children at bedtime. The modern woman is destined to live a miserable unfulfilled life missing most of it in the blur of the fast lane. When we retire at sixty-five will we look back and feel proud of all those sacrifices and un-cherished memories? The children, now married, with children of their own, following in our full paced life-race, who we never really noticed growing up?
I am proud to be a woman. But, just as men's expectations, once the traditional breadwinner and absent father, are now changed and often confused, so are women's. We have ended up trying to be superheroes, trying to be everything to everyone and ending up as nearly nothing to no-one. What happened to our family values and neighbourly conversations? What happened to the government and country that once encouraged and nurtured those oxo family values that kept our families together and taught our children about what was really important in the world? Is it too late to recapture tradition and security before our children turn into our modern selves?
1 comment:
Like that a LOT, and in total agreement with it. M xx
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