Keep in mind~ this is my room with a view and I'm stickin' to it.
*MINI NOVEL ALERT* ......so if you have the guts to hang until the end, I certainly commend you.

I was just reading an entry that someone named 'Avalon' had posted here, pertaining to finding balance between work and family, when I found myself staring into space~ ie: watching a really bad Dr. Phil evening edition of his show..........reminiscing about my mother, my 17 year old son, and myself, and the whole Gloria Steinem movement of 'We can have it all! Burn that bra!'

Here's what I have to say to that:

STOP IT. JUST STOP IT.

Although those earlier 'feminists' of the 1970's, who paved the road for women's rights are admired for 'the cause', the Gloria Steinem's of this world meant well....for the times. Unfortunately and unknowingly, they paved that road with a few shards of glass along the way~

They didn't foresee a generation of overweight, Ritalin infested kids with the manners of a rock, who eat a Hot Pocket in the car on their way to therapy where they sit on a Coke stained couch whining, "My mommy didn't love me!"

The male species was not happy about this newfound movement either~ I mean, how could they be? Their homey cavemen relatives from millions of years ago were draggin' the females into a cave to make some dinosaur grunt love........for thousands and thousands of years, the male has been the dominant of the species. Man worked the fields, voted other men into offices, paid the bills, what they said goes........and this scenerio had been the same for centuries.

Then within the tiny amount of time, a 52 year span, women are allowed to vote, wear capri pants, burn their bras, get jobs, and whoa...can you imagine how their heads spun around spewing projectile vomit when they came home from a hard day's work, only to meet their wife at the door?

Husband: Where are you going?
Wife: Hi honey~ I'm going to vote, and I'm gonna write in Joan Baez for president. I got a job, and can you see through my blouse? I don't have a bra on. Oh, and dinner's in the oven....Swanson just came out with a new TV dinner......in 18 minutes, peel the foil off, and there you are.....beef stew! Don't burn it. Bye!

I'd say that poor guy sat in his recliner, watching HeeHaw and shoving instant mashed potatoes into his head thinking, 'What in the HELL just happened here?????'

Our mothers had it drilled into their craniums that they also matter as women, and that was fine. It was ok to go out, get a job, be somebody, no problem......after all, it was all a new concept.

But that concept is like everything else that is new~ there are going to be flaws, and things will have to be worked out.....tweaked along the way. But personally, I think this is where Gloria and the 'gang' went wrong and it backfired. Oh, it didn't backfire on that generation. It backfired on the ones proceeding it.

Now, stay with me here.......

The 70's generation was basically the experimental one. The females got jobs, left their kids with their mothers, and told men to step back...they can now hold open their own doors, thank you very much. Since this was new to men too, they stood back and watched, mostly out of pure astonishment.

Now, let's forward to...say, 1983. Those kids from the 70's rebel years are now starting out on their own. The women get jobs, have babies, leave those babies with babysitters, get home late, and then spend the weekend cleaning house and tryng to catch up on their little girl's clarinet recital they missed on Tuesday......and the men are dealing with this 70's concept~ they haven't accepted it, but it's either go along
with it or you won't get laid. Atfter all, you two have penciled in that 15 minute 'our time for sex' slot on that magnetic fridge calendar for Saturday evening.....the kids have had to fend for themselves moreso than the previous generation.....hey, this two income family thing isn't bad. 'I saw a nice beamer on the way home that we can afford since we're both working.'

And if we feel bad for not spending enough time with kids, we'll just put a couple more tv's in the house~ put the channel on PBS before ya leave the house, or drop them off at the mall..........what we're not here to teach them, they'll learn from there......it'll all work out. Oh, don't forget to hit the grocery store this weekend~ we're out of juice boxes and Geno's Pizza Rolls~ those are easy for little Jill to fix when we're not here, and yeah, Lucky Charms.........that way I can sleep while they get ready for school.

Pacify the kids, and pacify momma's...........latch-key guilt. But hey, it's all for 'the cause'. You're being that independent woman who has it all. Mom told me that Gloria said it was.....ok~

Now, let's forward to...say, 2001. By now, the woman is getting tired. She's not only over-extended herself at her millennium job, she's going to be late getting home, the nannycam is probably going to show a scene of hell, so she's going to have to up their Ritalin dose....... the husband doesn't care anymore, and doesn't even bother coming home until last call at Joe's Nip N' Cue, and as she goes through the front door of her home, she screams in horror as her teenage daughter takes the smoke from her mouth, only to reveal that she had over half of her tongue cut off and branded with a peace sign. "Dun wuhrhy...muhm....ith uhl the rageth....thtop behing a bith."

And the men? Hell, they don't know WHAT to do anymore. You open a door for a woman, she gives you a dirty look and how DARE you even offer, and forget about hearing a pleasant 'thank you' from her for doing it.

If you take a woman out to dinner and don't immediate reach for the bill, how DARE you insinuate that she even lift a finger to look at it....and yet women wonder why men are so screwed up~ their mommas, if they're worth a damn, teach their boys to treat women like ladies, and when they try, they get knocked down with the old 'I'm an equal' speech.

Just for the record, I personally like it when a man opens a door for me and treats me like a lady~ that to me shows more respect in this day and age, than trying to impress him in the boardroom.....I can assure you - I didn't burn 'my' bra.

You begin to wonder if having it all was really worth it, ya know? 'I don't understand.........my mom did it. But the husband and I haven't had sex since Clinton was doing Monica, and we can't even go out to dinner with the kids because they embarrass the livin' HELL out of us. We have stark-raving mad banchees for kids! How many times can we be kicked out of all places, Big Lots?'

My mother told me before she died, that being a mother is 80% guilt~ she's right.

No matter how well you've raised your children, no matter how many birthday parties you threw, no matter how many times you wiped the tears from their eyes when they were sad, no matter how much you've been there for them, you will always have it in the back of your mind, that you could've done........better.

That shouldn't be construed as guilt though when it comes right down to it, but mothers being the nurturing, caring creatures we are supposed to be, always feel as if there was more we could've done.

You have to look at it like this:

The current generation of girly women who have young children need to STOP teaching their children that they can have it all. "Yes! YOU can have a career! YOU can have children! YOU can do everything you set out to do!" Do you know why? If you teach them that, one of them, either career or family, is going to suffer, and in turn, later in life, the guilt will then make 'you' suffer because somewhere along the line, your child became very unhappy~

If there's going to be change, it has to start with the current generation of new mothers. Don't teach your kids that they can have it all, all at once.

Instead, teach them the 'pie goal'. They can still have it all, but do it in a sequence~ if your kid has a passion for something, and that's what they "wanna do when I grow up", then teach them to go after their dreams. You see, you have to teach them that life is like a giant pie. Half of the pie is career, and the other half is 'family'. Teach your kid that he/she can take half of that pie now, and nurture it, make it into something great, and family can come later on. They can always come back and get the other half of that family part of the pie later, but make sure they're ready for the family part.

If you take the whole pie at once, you're going to be 'full'. You're going to cover yourself up so heavily that you'll not only feel overwhelmed, but some part of that pie will end up souring....if you're not careful, 'having it all' can be a selfish act. You don't mean for it to be........it's just called social conditioning.

You see, by doing it this way, you're taking care of yourself first. You're taking care of those inner dreams and aspirations that gnawed away at your soul. That way, when you have family, you can be a little more devoted, instead of feeling hatred and having feelings of 'Well, if I didn't have these kids here, I could be out doing what I always wanted to do.' Now, if your kid's only goal in the world is to get married and have a cajillion kids, there ya go, end of story. Your job just got 1000% easier~

If you want a career, great, go have one, but make sure that when you have children, you're ready to put your own things on the back burner for a while.

Do you see what I'm getting at? It's called LIFE PLANNING, not 'having it all'. 'Having it all' has become very abused and misrepresented. You've now brought a new life into the equation that didn't ask to be brought into your trials and tribulations, so teach them manners and respect, make sure they're a well adjusted human being, and when they're secure enough, you'll know it because they'll LET you know~ then, you can go back to having your career again, because by that
time, they'll be out in the world doing the very things you taught them. They're not going to be living with you forever, so then, you can get your pan off the back and put it back on the front of the stove and boil the hell out of it, knowing that you not only have your own career and a family, but you were able to do them both without 'burning your bra'. There's a difference in having it all and having it all end up a mess that you cannot blame anyone else but yourself, for getting into.

I'm not saying Gloria Steinem was wrong~ not at all. Maybe updating her original stance on the whole women's suffrage movement of the 70's wouldn't be so bad~ even Dr. Spock came out in his latter years and said, 'Ya know, maybe putting your baby in its crib at night and letting him stay there until it shuts up' may not have been the best way to go.........but then again, like I said, everything new needs worked out along the way~

Maybe instead of burning the bra, we can burn a thong.

You know what's happening after reading that:
The men's heads are spinning around spewing projectile vomit.