Thursday, April 20, 2006

"To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife,"

by Caitlin Flanagan

"...the point of having a mother at home is not so that your children will get into Harvard, or score that big executive job. A home is not a factory for producing children for corporations. The home is not a mere means; it is one of the great things in life you can have, create or give to someone you love. The real point of having a mother at home with children is that children get to be home with a mother who loves them.

So if you are a breadwinning mom who must work, Flanagan has little to say to you or about you. She is not a theorist of women's issues; she is an acute observer of the lives of a certain influential subset of women like herself: educated wives who've chosen to devote themselves substantially or primarily to the home. Or who seek interesting, creative jobs that don't bring home much bacon. The person who makes such choices possible is called a "husband."

And what's the point of having a husband if you are going to be mad at him all the time for giving you choices?

"You need to understand something about men," Caitlin tells me. "Men really want to help women. Yes, there are bad men in the world. Avoid them. Most of them show their stripes very early." (And if women weren't busily being sexual with men they hardly know, she adds, they might find it easier to spot the cads before they moved in with them. But that's another story.)"

Not exactly the sort of headline one expects to find here, but I'm the first to admit when there's a rut on the horizon, so here's part of the cure. Read it, please do. I just might buy her book.

2 comments:

Lemuel Calhoon said...

Coming Tomorrow:

Water, really is wet after all!

Society has known this for all of human history. It is good to see the media finally catching up.

Fits said...

Copy that.