Lets talk about … My fine line
There is a fine line, at least in my pretty little head, between submitting to someone else’s will and choosing to find happiness in someone else’s happiness.
You might need to read that one again. It is a really, really, fine line.
This is a really complicated issue. At least for me. The concept of submitting to the will of another is abhorrent to me. It makes my blood run cold and every single cell in my body rebels against it. As a woman especially, I harks back to millennia of women without an avenue to exercise their own will. Similarly though the concept of finding happiness in someone else’s happiness reeks of the feminine mystique, of 1850′s housewives socially trapped into living only for their husband’s and children.
The key here, I guess, is choice. Choice is what we have been fighting for, isn’t it? Somehow some choices still seem to betray myself, my gender. The difference between an enlightened, empowered choice and a choice that flies in the face of my freedoms and rights? Awareness.
Conscious choice makes all the difference. Conscious choice is the only thing that makes the life of a modern wife and stay at home mother different to that of her 1950′s counterpart. I am choosing fulfillment in my role as domestic goddess. They had no other option.
I chose to marry because it was important to my husband. Not out of fear. I chose to remain at home raising my son, because it is honestly the hardest, toughest, most fulfilling thing I have ever undertaken. And I don’t back away from a challenge. What makes my choices, in my mind, revolutionary and rebellious and empowered is that I am aware of every choice I make. I put my life under the microscope and analyse who I am in the face of my freedoms and choices.
I walk a fine line. My priorities and daily tasks are essentially for my family. My self inquiry, my honesty with (and about) what goes on for me in my heart and head in response to this, that is my saving grace. Conscious choice is the difference between oppressed and living breathing empowerment.
I bet I am not the only woman steadily walking this line. What lines do you walk?
(excuse the late post, I am trying a new parenting style today and it is labor intensive.)
2 comments
This is a line i find myself on ALL the time. I have found that i feel gut wrentchingly sick when I sacrifice my choice before someone elses BUT i have found I HAVE in the past done it ALOT and have been teaching myself NOT to do this, its really really hard as its been inbuilt as a subconscious thing I do with clients, work, kids and partners.
when i am given the choise and have someone who supports MY choice cause its mine .. thats an empowering thing 
I dont have any daughters but my gosh its something i know i will be teaching my boys … your right its about having the CHOICE
Belinda, It is great that I am not out here on my own on this line! With time (and I anticipate as my child gets older and more independent) I imagine the line will be thicker and easier to navigate.