Family Matters

There are things roiling beneath my surface, and they will coalesce into later posts, for now -if you are in the temper for thinking about demanding revelations and exposures- then here is some reading matter for you.

First on the list, Greg has two entries on the role of Father. He begins with an introduction, and then moves further into his own experience and observations. while he feels “that a father’s absence seems to have the most damaging impact upon male children.” I would say that the impact for women is more like U-boat while for men it is more like a destroyer. Both carry heavy payloads, but one is more visible than the other. He also pinpoints a salient point in all this: that men in our culture often feel helpless in the face of family responsibility. “What’s important in all this, though is that the shame my father felt was not directed at me, as I perceived it was, but rather at himself for being unable to stop what happened to me.” This is not easy reading, friends.

The second article which I found via Parableman, is Off the Top’s “Stay-at-home motherhood: domestic bliss?” I’ve touched on some of her points in my own posts on the Mommy Wars, but this is one more layer.
she makes some points such as:

• “there’s such a societal standard for appearances, it’s awfully embarrassing to be seen looking like a rag heap and needing a shower!”
• “I [did not have time for] even basic things like being able to take a shower, trim my nails, use the bathroom without a baby hanging on me in a sling, have the house even marginally kept, have a conversation without constant distraction or interruption”
• “Society needs to get down and dirty with the realities of motherhood, and help these heroes of our civilization out!”
• “children need to learn not to expect Mommy to be directly attending to them constantly….that they are the center of the universe”

There is lots more there…. I think it expresses the common cry for help that women are either too ashamed to express or that they submerge in escaping altogether through saying yes to a ‘you are only worth your work” type of world.

All these things are thrown together in my mind with some of the thoughts from the “abortion” discussion. I have to tell you that it rankled me to have some male author say my thoughts ( generally addressed) were “irrelevant” because I don’t shoulder the burden of society more thoroughly. When we discuss abortion and reproduction every woman has relevant thoughts. Our voice is important. I intend to speak a little more on these things, and I don’t really care if it has little impact because I can’t manage to be a popular blog. Every voice counts, and the more consideration we give to our say, the more it adds to the dialogue. That is what I think, anyway.

Parableman spoke of a type of coercion. I think that is what woman are often subjected to in our society-maybe most societies- especially when they begin to awake from the lies prevalent in their culture. Whatever those lies are.

And hint -hint: don’t ever tell a woman like me that what we have to say is irrelevant when it impacts our lives and our families…because you have just aroused one bulldog of a reaction. Maybe it’s like that saying about “hell hath no fury….”

Maybe because there is more than one sort of fire.

Society’s message about women and their worth, its policies that impact that, the lies that damage and erode our potentials and the scope of our roles…. These all have importance of the gravest weight in our thinking, these things demand our consideration even if they are unpleasant, and contentious and difficult to untangle.