Boundaries and Women

 Who are we as women, and how do we really desire? Women were not always the strong, independent, "I can go anywhere!" wonders that they are now. When I was in high school in the 1950s, I had to get approval from the relevant board before I could enroll in mechanical drawing. Would you believe they said that because the all-male school board found that the only reason I wanted to take that class was to spend more time with the boys? So, although times have improved in the last 50 years, they haven't changed all that much. Sure, women may pretty much pursue whatever occupation they choose, but what actually distinguishes them?

The bulk of child care, housekeeping, decorating, buying, and cooking is still done by women. Men can accomplish such things, but it's not usually part of their regular routine. Women increasingly work full time and perform all of the housework as well. This is all their fault.

So, what exactly am I saying? It's like this. 

Women can be their own worst adversaries. We say we desire equality, but what exactly does that entail? What about equal compensation for equal work? Child care sharing? Housework and cooking divided? No! Most women want stuff done to their specifications without actually telling a guy what those specifications are. Women want males to be able to read their brains. They want a guy to know when and what sort of flowers to deliver. They want a guy to understand their emotions without them having to explain them. They want it recognized that "whatever you can do, I will do just as well!" yet they don't want to perform those tasks, such as repair the vehicle, take out the garbage, pound nails, and so on. Women are complex beings who desire a lot of things but aren't always ready to ask for them.

How many of you sacrifice yourself for the sake of your relationships? Please allow me to explain. Do you put off plans with your pals in order to get a special phone call of the one you love? Do you sit at home and wait for the phone to ring? Do you avoid touch with your relatives and friends since your new love consumes all of your time? Do you cancel plans with your pals because your significant other need you to go and do something at the last minute? Do you agree to do things you don't want to do because you don't know how to say no?

C., one of my clients, regretted the fact that her sister was supposed to visit for two weeks. When I asked her how she was unhappy, she said. "I can't afford that," C said. She said that her sister gets to meet and wants to go to expensive places and wants me to drive her everywhere, but she doesn't bring any money, so I struggle financially for months after she goes. Investigating the facts, I learned that her 33-year-old sister was jobless and expected C to support and amuse her for two weeks. The issue is mostly in C. Although her sister is self-centered, it is C's lack of limits that exacerbates the situation. We devised a plan for C to establish some ground rules with her sibling.

1. Tell her sister how excited she is to visit her and enjoy hours with her.

2. Establish some ground rules for the visit.

3. During her stay, the sister is responsible for her own bills and amusement.

4. The sister may use C's automobile under 2 phases: C must go to and from work. The sister is responsible for her own gas.

If these terms aren't met, the sister will have to hire a vehicle on her own.

5. C needs 8 hours of sleep on work evenings, thus partying is restricted on such nights.

As said that by setting these limitations, her sister's visit will be something to look forward to rather than fear.

Why is it so tough to inform the people you care about your personal boundaries?

Are you concerned that you may offend their sensibilities?

If you don't take care with yourself and establish your limits, you're allowing others to take advantage of you, and you'll hate them afterwards.

You are responsible for everything that occurs in your life.

Understand how to create limits.

Learn to be specific about what you desire.

Learn to request what you want.

Being open with someone you care about, expressing everything from your smallest to your greatest anxieties, is a mark of trust. If you're afraid to share these things because you're afraid they'll be used as ammo, you're not in a holy intimate connection.

Choosing Life Work Balance and Other Things

According with 2000 census, the amount of kids cared for by stay-at-home mothers has climbed by about 13% in less than a decade. Two-thirds of moms between the ages of 25 and 44 currently work less than 40 hours each week. In June 2000 (the most current statistics), 55% of women with newborns were in the work force, up from 59% only two years before. That was the first decrease in that figure in a quarter-century. And, among the previously indicated career women, between a quarter as well as a third are unemployed.

My informal schooling on the subject appeared to imply that, contrary to what females in their 30s had all been conditioned to anticipate, having a profession, a happy marriage, children, and time for oneself all at the same time was almost impossible. In any case, not in a 24-hour day. I'm still not sure how the ostensibly "superwomen" I mentioned at the start of the piece accomplish it, but I'm sure they're in the minority. And I am certain that I am no longer jealous, insecure, or guilty. In fact, when I read such commercials and publications today, the first thing that springs to mind is pity. No one can maintain all those balls in play for very long without becoming very, very weary, no matter how effortless those ladies make it appear. No one, not even Superwoman.

It also seems that the unique notion of adults rearing their own children is well received by the general population. According to a Gallup poll conducted last year, just 13% of respondents said that the ideal family scenario was for both parents to work full-time outside the house. Fourty-one percent said it was best for one parent to work full-time while the other worked part-time or at home. Another 41% said that one parent should remain at home to raise children while the other worked to support a family. Surprisingly, the Ministry of Labour puts full-time homemakers as the country's biggest single occupational category. And the figures are likely to be far higher than we realize, since moms who work outside the house, even for a few hours a week, aren't given strong homemakers by the government, even if it's how they describe themselves.

Before I go any further, let me state unequivocally that I believe in all of the feminist ideas and goals for which women have battled so long and so hard. I believe that women should be allowed to follow any route they choose without being limited by their gender. However, I believe that for a long time, women believed they had to be precisely like men in order to be deemed equals with them. Following the women's rights movement, women started to join the corporate sector and compete on a level playing field with men. Women have been seeking to compete, accomplish, and flourish in a man's world for decades. But it seems that we women have overlooked that we vary from males in some very genuine and significant ways. But it doesn't make us any less equal. While men and women are immensely diverse, their differences are often complimentary. I believe that for far too long, women have attempted to push their sensuality to the margins in order to compete in a man's society. Isn't it time we just acknowledged and celebrated the very real distinctions between the sexes? Women should not be carbon copies of males in order to achieve equality. Different does not imply better or worse; it simply means different.

Consider the authors Coney and Mackey's thought-provoking idea proposed in their 1998 essay "Culture Evolution & Gender Roles: Added benefit." In it, they argue that evolution does not support females surpassing men in the labor market. According to their research, women are expected to be the main caregivers all over the globe. This idea evolved from the fact that in the past, "if a job or duty interfered with mothering, that work was assigned to males." This explains why women are naturally predisposed to be caregivers. Coney and Mackey go on to show that expanding possibilities for women, both in schooling and other areas, is associated with a decrease in fertility in that cultural group. As a result, they suggest that communities that anticipate and prioritize women to take on the role of mother would ultimately supplant other civilizations. That's a really compelling notion, but it's backed up by good study and facts.

I also know that there are many cases of males raising children and same-sex couples adopting children and starting families, and I've no doubt that they do a fantastic job of caring for all those children. I just believe that as a culture, it is past time for us to accept that women, on average, have a natural caregiver instinct that males do not have, at least not in the same degree. I mean, from the dawn of time, men and women have just been built differently, both physically and mentally/emotionally. Even in our earliest days, males were the hunters and gatherers, while women were the nurturers. I don't believe it happened that society, on the whole, tends to structure itself around the family as the primary unit, with the male spouse providing for the family economically and the female partner caring for the house and family domestically.

Again, I'm not attempting to propagate stereotypes; rather, I'm attempting to recognize the very genuine reason many women today feel pulled between their families and their professional life in ways that very few men do. Rather than pursuing equality with our own terms, it seems that women have wanted equality on men's terms. It's no surprise that women are experiencing so much tension in their lives these days. They are straining to accomplish all a man has traditionally done while being unable to give up the genuine feeling of commitment they often feel to be the nurturer and caregiver of their house and family. As a result, they wind up playing both jobs and quickly learn that there isn't enough leisure in the day to perform both. When children are thrown into the equation, the struggle becomes much more pronounced.

Men, but at the other hand, do not experience the same level of tension in their life since they have never sought to play two things at the same time as a group. Sure, there used to be a time when men were motivated to "connect with their feminine side," and there is no doubt these as a result of the feminist movement, men are much more hands on across the house and with the kids than they were before, but men have never attempted to take on the leading role in order to prove their entitlement to anything.

Women, on the other hand, are a different story. We go into the office and work hard to demonstrate to the corporate world positive attributes that are traditionally considered masculine in nature, such as competitiveness and winning at all costs, only to do a dramatic turn at the time of exit when we return home to our families, who expect to see a wife and mother walk through the door and prepare a tasty, nutritious, and well-balanced dinner.

Let's face it: very few guys have reservations about utilizing slice-and-bake cookie dough for their child's upcoming annual bake sale or being too busy to attend every dance performance, school play, or PTA meeting. When a woman worries about these things, her husband will advise her not to worry since no one can expect a woman with a full-time job to care about making home-made cookies or attending every short course planned in the middle of the day. What males don't realize is that WOMEN EXPECT IT. Working women, in fact, demand it of themselves more than anybody else. We feel terrible because we consider household activities to be our area of competence, and God help any spouse who naively offers that he assist with a few of those jobs. Women may grumble that they need more assistance or support from their partners, but they also do not want to take on any of the typical work tasks that come with the "mother" moniker.

After my second child was born, I decided to be a stay-at-home parent. When I made the choice, it seemed like the full weight of the law was instantly lifted off my shoulders. For a brief moment, I felt as if I was betraying the whole feminist cause, which I had previously loudly supported. But, when I reflected about it, I realized that, more than anything else, I started feeling like I've been true to myself. Isn't that what the wave of feminism was all about? I don't have to prove to myself or any guy that I can work a job and "make it" in a man's world. In my own reality, I've already "made it." Surprisingly, I'm satisfied with becoming my family's domestic caregiver. 

I like trying new recipes and completing all of the housework that I never had time for before becoming a full-time mother. I'll even confess to spending hours this past holiday season crafting cranberry and grain garland for the family Christmas tree, a chore I previously would not have contemplated given my legendary lack of free time. But guess what? I'm not embarrassed of it in the least. And do you want to know anything else? When I go into bed every night fatigued from caring for my two children, I know that I should have invested my day making a difference in the life, no matter how trivial the events of that day may have been. When I worked outside the home and went to bed exhausted every night, I was unhappy because I had spent my day doing such a variety of completely mind-numbing activities for a faceless business giant and working my dorsal fin off to put a couple more million into the pocket of some CEO whose name I honestly don't remember.

It Is Possible To Get Everything (Just Not At The Same Time)

I was flipping through a local newspaper recently when an ad for a neighboring fitness club grabbed my eye. There was a photograph of a lovely, well-dressed lady who seemed to be pregnant. The ad began with her initial name and proceeded to describe the main features of her life, such as the fact that she's been married for 12 years, has two children (with another on the way), and runs her own company. The ad's message was that she not only takes care of her family, but she also takes care of herself by leaving her children off at the health club's kiddie area so she can Aqua-cise on a regular basis and treating herself to a treatment at the club's spa twice a month.

A few pages later in the same issue, one of the weekly columnists wrote about a local female pediatric orthopedic specialist. The first thing said in the article was that she was extraordinarily gorgeous and full of life. Needless to say, the qualifications that came next were flawless. To top it all off, she was a standout athlete in middle school and still competes in triathlons. 

She was wedded to her high school love and has two children with him. She said that she comes from a hardworking family, and that while her mother worked, she always made time for her children, one of whom is now a surgeon. The article then went on to discuss a one-year fellowship in neurosurgery that this lady had just been given at one of the country's leading spine institutes. It was also said that, despite her hectic schedule, she still finds resources to devote with her children and husband, and that they often go skiing and mountain biking together.

Not long ago, seeing the fitness club commercial and the news about the physician would have made me feel a combination of jealousy, insecurity, and shame. Those advertising and articles used it to make me feel, although I'm sure they do for many other women, as if there was something wrong with me. Why did I feel unhappy most of the time as a successful woman with a law degree, a decent career, a secure husband, and a beautiful daughter? Why did other women appear to handle it all so easily, while I felt like I was in a race against the clock the minute I walked out of bed every morning, a race that wouldn't conclude for another 18 hours?

That's not until I had a second child and took some time off following her birth that I was able to understand and accept what I had being feeling for so long. I was also able to glance about, and I saw that the majority of women in this nation seems to be experiencing the same feelings I was. I heard and observed the same disappointment in regular women like myself, and it won't really matter whether or not they had professional degrees. The hair stylist seemed to be as disillusioned as the doctor. I also started to see more stories about women leaving the workforce to raise their children. I've even seen recent popular works of literature in which the employment of nannies and the effort of one or more women characters to "have it all" were not represented favorably.

It seems that a new term has been established to characterize this phenomenon—"sequencing." It's supposed to convey the idea that at different points in their lives, women need or want to focus on different aspects of their lives, and that once children enter the picture, women are supposed to step away from the workplace for as long as they deem necessary in order to focus on their children and families. When I heard a medical student say on a widely syndicated show that once she was married, her spouse and kids would come first, and she did not plan to be a working mother, I realized there had to be some powerful winds of change in the air. She went on to claim that she had seen her own mother do it and had been put in day care since she was very little, and that she did not want to raise her own children in the same manner. She said that she'd like to get married while still in medical school, she would leave out since it would be pointless to obtain a medical degree if she was so close to beginning a family.

I also read Lisa Belkin's now-oft-quoted New York Times essay on all those professional women "opting out" of their employment to be stay-at-home mothers. But I also saw a lot of non-professional ladies doing the same thing. I believe the Times piece merely touched the top of the iceberg. Yes, well-educated, professional women are quitting their jobs to have babies, but so are women without advanced degrees. Our tendency of putting aside employment to focus on family, I believe, is about women generally in this society, not just one subtype of women.

I'm also not attempting to make women outside the house feel guilty or humiliated about their choices. I am well aware of the grim realities that govern certain family circumstances. All I'm saying is that I believe women have backed themselves into a hole. We may be equals to our husbands without having to live in their world. Women should learn to enjoy and be proud of their gender distinctions. So, if that's what you genuinely want, go ahead and just be a domestic goddess, and don't allow anybody make you feel anything other than proud for having the bravery to live the life you desire! I like this comment from an anonymous lady who was featured for a book called "And what are you going to do? When Females Choose to Remain at Home ".. Her favorite response to "Or what do you do?" was "I'm making a difference kid at a time." Baby, we've gone a long way!

A Lesson in Suffering

 I spent the most of my weekend rebuilding and redecorating, but I avoided carrying in the largest item from my vehicle. This parcel was loaded for me by a lovely guy at Target since it weighted more than I believed I could handle.

When I got home tonight, I looked at the gift in my backseat and thought, "I can do this." Once, twice, and three times without success. If only a strong guy, significant other, or even my father were home, the box would be laying on my living room floor, ready to be put together.

The words came out of my lips as I took a big inhale...

I'm in need of a guy.

I was disappointed in myself for even thinking it, much alone speaking it out. After all, I am a strong woman, watch me roar.

Women all throughout the world are preaching independence. And as a 28-year-old single, I've been teaching the same thing. But the hard lifting made me wonder whether it's appropriate to require a guy or any connection at all.

"A meaningful connection is when your passion for one other overcomes your need for each other," I recently heard. That is true of all of our interactions. We shall confront difficult situations in which we will "need" our friends, parents, or important other. And reaching out to them does not imply weakness.

The lesson is to not get engrossed in the connection. It is not necessary to rely exclusively on another person to help you through times of "need."

So I took that lesson and returned to my vehicle.

That gift arrived in my living room. And when this beautiful young gentlemen asked if he could assist, I batted my eyelids and replied, "Yes, please hold the door."