Here is my copy of C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength.
I think you can see that it is well worn. I have read it many times, and if I open it anywhere, for instance to try to locate a quote, I am immediately immersed in what amounts to prophecy, in both senses of the word: prescient vision and universal truth telling.
It's a story about the end of the world, in one way. In another way it's a little love story: a young woman is newly married to a man who is neither particularly good nor particularly bad. They are both rather mediocre, in fact, and yet each aspires to some kind of greatness.
Jane, the wife, is a perfect type of today's woman (giving the lie to those who would like us to think that our struggles are so very post-1970 — the book was written in 1943). She is working on her doctoral thesis on Donne, determined to continue her scholarly career even after her marriage: “that was one of the reasons why they were to have no children, at any rate for a long time yet.”
Despite working on the poet’s “triumphant vindication of the body” (she was “not perhaps a very original thinker”), she has no clue of what the vindication of her own body might be. She is pouty and a tad bitter towards her new husband. She feels vaguely as if he has abandoned her. She doesn't much like sex.
As Jane is brought into the very midst of apocalyptic events, she has a revealing conversation with Mr. Fisher-King, the Christ-figure of the book and the director of the battle they find themselves in.
“I thought love meant equality…”
“Ah, Equality!” said the Director…and then he goes on:
“Equality is not the deepest thing, you know.”
“I always thought that was just what it was. I thought it was in their souls that people were equal.”
He replies, “Equality guards life, it doesn't make it. It is medicine, not food.”
{Here I am beginning our book discussion with a book I didn't mention. The truth is, the introductory post originally had a lot more than two books on it, but Suzanne told me it was too many. So you will just have to put up with extraneous references!}
Note that he says that equality is not the deepest thing. He doesn't deny equality or say it is a necessary fiction. He affirms it, but makes it clear that if we stop there, we are missing the point of love. Funny – Jane married Mark because of love, and found that love eluded her with its consummation, leaving her thinking only of how she could escape.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was young, growing up going to liberal public schools and living in university towns, equality was the main topic of conversation, and this conversation took place in an atmosphere of upheaval. Not only was my life unstable because of my parents' divorce, but I lived on the edge of societal unrest, quite literally: in the late 60s, the New Haven racial riots took place a few blocks from where I lived, and later the trial of the Black Panthers and Bobby Seale were on everyone’s minds. Of course, as a seven-to-nine-year-old, I understood nothing of the details or even of the broad picture. To me, “riot” meant “adults were not in control.” which I already suspected to be the case.
The conversations floating above my head were extreme ones, often centering on power and anarchy — personal and political. Most people I knew were comfortable claiming to embrace some sort of revolution, and most of them were also experiencing a disintegration of their personal lives. They spoke of sacrifice, but it always seemed that they wanted the sacrifice of others. For themselves, they sought comfort.
I wasn’t a big fan of equality, myself, being quite sure not so much of my equality to others but rather — and I say this with a keen sense now of having lived long enough to know better — superiority.
I always felt privileged, even when somewhat neglected. I didn’t attribute any shortcomings in my life to anyone’s usurpation of my rights. It was more the question of finding stability that worried me, or, let’s put it this way: of figuring out how to bring my life into line with the ideal I found in the books I read.
There, I found and was drawn to the idea of hierarchy. I desperately loved fairy tales (not Disney fairy tales — old tales from Grimm and Lang, like The Enchanted Pig, one of my favorites, and still, I believe, one of the better insights the collective consciousness, if there be such a thing, has provided concerning the truth of the relationship between men and women).
I lived more in the world of these tales than in the real one, which was, to me, a frightening and chaotic place. I hear people my age talk about their calm, peaceful childhoods. I have no idea what they can be speaking of. To me, the world of the 60s and 70s was a tumult – within and outside my own little head.
The fairy tales I took refuge in had in common the idea of a personal quest or task or test that one had to perform or pass, and what was being overcome was the self. (This literary struggle over self was probably my salvation, humanly speaking.)
The sacrifice was made by the hero (or, much more often, the heroine) — cutting off her own finger to complete the ladder necessary to find her husband, as in The Enchanted Pig; going up seven mountains; fighting seven dragons with seven heads.
To me, this world made sense and satisfied a very deep longing – and it had nothing to do with being equal to anyone else. If anything, it had to do with being better, which as I said was how I looked at things – more sensitive, more responsible, more singled out. It had to do with being a princess.
The real world, on the other hand, was constantly leaving me cold. It was deeply unsatisfying. It’s hard now to remember or have an accurate rendering of how colorless things were in the sixties…how literally drab the colors were, at least in a run-down city looking out from a pair of sad eyes. I don’t think the popular TV series Mad Men is the reference work people make it out to be at all — but rather a twenty-first century gloss on what was, in truth, a vitiated landscape.
From my vantage as a child, there was the old worn-out way of doing things, which certainly had no magic in it. And there was the frightening, violent, demanding way that was becoming quite usual, as the riots morphed into war protests and people lost their will to groom themselves.
There was also a new bourgeois way, as people got more prosperous, and this new way of doing things seemed soulless and sterile. I can remember visiting people in the most modern, large apartment complexes –among the first I had ever seen with central air conditioning and many amenities hitherto unknown in the lower echelons. Maybe because I lived in old cities, I had never seen anything like this comfortable anti-aesthetic before.
It all left me dry, since my New England sensibilities called for hand-finished wood, screen doors, porches, and old lawns. Yet, at the same time, I was attracted to the idea of getting rid of the dust, metaphorically. I loved the clear bright colors of the newly-stripped and remodeled houses of my friends' well-to-do parents. Their hip take on everything from vegetarianism to architecture excited me, and I listened carefully to their views and tried to understand them — especially equality.
I wanted to be like them. I can’t really say in what way, because these same people didn’t care about what was deepest in me – the longing for the unseen good, the noble sacrifice, the hidden service. And sometimes they seemed, even to me, a young teenager, really dumb: as when a friend's father opined that the world would be a better place if people took turns doing each others' work. He seemed quite earnest, albeit very naive, in stating that a man should collect trash for two years, then be an architect for the next two. I still don't detect any irony in the memory of his words. I think he was completely disassociated from reality. Nevertheless, in many ways all these (otherwise) smart, knowing people attracted me, and I tried to embrace their world view.
In the 70s – I think I was 14 — I subscribed to Ms. magazine. I devoured it. Amusingly, from my point of view now, I seem to remember the strongest pull coming from one issue with a feminist retelling of a fairy tale — supposedly with an updated, free female in the role of the princess. I had such high hopes….However, it wasn’t a good story.
I was a kid, on my way to growing up. In the normal course of development one seeks to put away childhood things, and it crept into my consciousness that while the arguments and narratives I read in Ms. were of course imbued with the one theme of power politics, they had something else in common: a fixation with adolescent self-absorption.
Have you ever heard of the feminist “click!”? Gloria Steinem – and Ms. – invented and brought into the lexicon the click! – the moment at which a woman achieves consciousness and awareness of herself apart from the roles thrust on her by society. The magazine featured these clicks, these individual stories, prominently.
But they didn’t move me. They often seemed like whining. Occasionally they were stories of injustice, but no more so than any of the myriad injustices that people perpetrate against each other and suffer — and always have, with no particular reference to sexual roles other than as a handy stick in the general beating that is the all-against-all of life at its worst. And often these authors were disturbingly childish, in the sense of an immature exploration of their own orifices, too bored to bother looking up from playing in the muck — and using their adult position to make it sound as if this wallowing was somehow artistic, creative, or revealing.
A telling example – trivial, yet emblematic – sticks with me. A woman, on her journey to feminism and lesbianism, celebrates her body by braiding her hair, and I’m not talking about the hair on her head.
The magazine was full of such ridiculous trash. It was like a forum for expressing and indulging in all the unproductive thoughts and urges that I was trying to leave behind, just in the simple act of growing up. Most of the self-referential content repelled me, and the political rants were irrelevant. Hadn't I been encouraged by my parents, including my Egyptian father, to excel in everything academic? (But aren’t men from other cultures the very first in the ranks of the oppressors, according to the gospel of Gloria?) Didn’t I have every opportunity available to me in any field? There was no oppression that I could see. Only a dreary landscape of scrabbling for position, and, increasingly, an opportunistic rush to identify with some sort of victim class.
Equality to me was an irrelevant, because unfulfilling, given. But what did I base that conviction on? Some today want to claim that the women’s movement gave the level playing field to those who, now, feel no gratitude. But I was there at the beginning, and all I saw was a lot of unseemly behavior that ended more in the destruction of family life than in any utopia of parity.
Meanwhile, I began to think about the education of children. It seemed that while women were demanding certain things from others, there was actually a strong claim that others have on women. It really seemed to me, above all, that the nurture of small children depends wholly on the attention of the mother, and the development of the mature, adult person depends wholly on the foundation laid in early childhood. And isn’t the development of a more just society dependent on the maturity and virtue of each adult person? So it all goes back to whether the woman, the mother, is willing to provide that nurture. And it seemed that these proponents of equality were not willing.
That seemed so contradictory to me. More than anything else, lack of mother/infant closeness seemed to be the strongest example of how the male-oriented industrialized society interfered with the real expression of womanhood, if that was the way you wanted to look at things.
Medicalized childbirth, bottle-feeding, maternal coldness, daycare; weren’t all these things the result of male domination? But the feminists only wanted to talk about equal pay, or if they did talk about babies, it was in the context of what the world owed them, not of any sacrifice one person makes for another, loved, one.
Tellingly, the “click” tales seemed to be more about parental neglect and selfishness than any other one factor. It’s amazing how the seeds of the radicalism of the person are planted in the deterioration of his parents’ marriage, with the inevitable neglect of the child coming in its wake! But how to reconcile the dire necessity, precisely from a social point of view, of devoting oneself to one’s children and their proper nurture, with the power struggle enunciated by feminists?
What about equality? If it is a fact, is it the deepest thing? That's what the first part of On the Dignity and Vocation of Women (Mulieris Dignitatem) is about.
Anne R Triolo says
i'm excited to be the first comment. i'm not sure i've ever been the first!Medicalized childbirth. Are we against that?I want to read all the books on womanhood and home economics and education that you talk about on this blog on a regular basis, but I don't have time because I am busy keeping house and educating/nurturing my children. I find it a little frustrating that I wasn't made to read these things back when I was being "educated." I can think of so many books I had to read in college that were full of useless bunk. Why wasn't I reading these things instead?! Ok, I'll quit whining and just say, Thank you for summarizing for those of us who don't have time to read these things at the moment.
messy bessy says
A fascinating post. I was born in 1970, so I do not remember the turbulence of those "revolutionary" years, but I do certainly remember the self-absorption. And when I was ten, there were suddenly a lot of people's parents getting divorced. By the time I was in my teens, the "equality" talk had largely ceased except as a dogmatic sort of talk — of course you had to talk about how men and women were equal — but it didn't seem very important to the girls I knew. There was a "level playing field" which basically meant that girls were about as promiscuous as boys, and sometimes a whole lot more. The Lewis book you mention in the beginning of this post is one of my favorites, except of course that it's so dark. It truly is prophetic, and especially regarding marriage.
Sue says
Wow! I just checked that book out of the library, because I've never read it. What a "coincidence"! Now I'm really motivated to get started on it.I'm with Messy Bessy, since I'm a 1971 baby. I didn't experience a lot of what you wrote about first hand. I did experience it some second hand, because my four siblings were all born between 1956-61.It sometimes amazes me that my sisters and I come from the same family. They all have been career moms (medicated births, bottle feeding, kids in day care from 6 weeks old, etc., and two of them divorced and re-married). I am totally different from them (they all think I'm a bit crazy, but they do love me anyway, as I love them). I have a lot more in common with my brother (and his wife), who is the oldest, and almost 15 years my senior. Maybe I was born just late enough to miss some of those influences. I would call that God's grace!
susanjohnston says
I don't have time at the moment to write anything thoughtful, so I'll just gush–thank you. I can't wait to read along through the rest of Lent. I typically hate this sort of thing: the bloggy book club but, as usual, you are exceeding my expectations. Please tell us what the rest of your booklist was. I'm in that magic window where I have a lot of time to read right now.
Robin says
First of all, Ms. Leila, thank you so much for giving we Stay-At-Homes some wonderful things to chew on. These are the types of things I like to think about while I'm making dinner, or driving around doing errands. I have to mention that I was on retreat at the Benedictine Abbey in MA this weekend, and Fr. Peter mentioned you in his talk about "virility in women". That would be a great addendum to this book talk.Keep 'em coming. We're listening!
Pippajo says
Brava. This reminds me so much of my own mother!Mom often spoke of the loneliness of being a truly feminine woman in the age of feminism. In a period when hardly anyone else was doing it, from 1972 to 2002, she was a housewife who breastfed her babies, stayed home with them, drove them to and from school, cooked for her family every night, cleaned for them, did their laundry, sewed clothes, costumes, toys and gifts for them. On top of this, every Sunday morning, she made sure that shoes were polished, ribbons were pressed, tights were darned, faces were scrubbed, parts were straight and braids were tight so she could look into a crowd of children from her post as Sunday School Superintendent and pick out her four little girls looking fresh as daisies.She spoke to us often about many things. She spoke to us about God's love, the absolute truth and beauty of Scripture, living in a post-modern world but not of it, the folly of seeking after riches, history, religion, the history of religion, politics, art, music, sex, literature, humor, forgiveness, principles, integrity, you name it. She never once spoke to us about equality, unless you count her muttering about feminists under her breath. There were always far, far deeper things to speak of.Three of her daughters are now married with children. All of us are mothering just like her. We're all home full-time, all serving as housekeepers, laundresses, chefs, referees and instructors. All four of her girls have a relationship with our Savior and all are striving, above all, to be Godly women worthy of our calling. I have not yet read this particular book by Lewis, but I am certainly going to! Looks like I've got a nice list of books to get next time I'm at the library (going to try to go today).Thank you, once again, for broadening my mind and encouraging my spirit. Thank you for being a vessel that willingly pours out what God so extravagantly pours into you. Thank you and God bless you!
Leila says
Annie– hehehe, you are funny! I'm glad you were first, too — you made me laugh.Messy Bessy — yes, the playing field now consists of both teams creaming each other at the game of being crass.Sue — convergence is a major theme of the book, so, no coincidence there! Susan — I don't even know what a bloggy book club would be. I tried to find out, but had no patience ;)So we'll just be doing our own thing here. I will throw stuff out and you can throw stuff back. Robin — you would dare to call me MS.??? LOL! Fr. Peter is too funny. He doesn't realize that I'm the least of the virile women (that seems to be an oxymoron, anyway, right?). Every day I meet fabulous women who are far more devoted, strong, and willing than I. But I talk more.
Anonymous says
Leila:I am so grateful for your blog. This post was so wonderful and gives lie to the idea that we women who stay home to love our children and our husbands have abandoned our intellects along the way. You have a book in you! Thank you for this beautiful gift of mentorship to us moms out there who need to hear from those who have been at this job longer and have wisdom to share. I am a "recovering lawyer" homeschooling and loving four small ones. I was born in '69 and experienced some of the false allure of radical feminism but always rejected it. During my childhood most of my formation was premised on succeeding professional (academically and ultimately in a high powered career). Ironically I now feel like the class dunce when it comes to the domestic arts in my chosen profession of wife and mother. (God bless my poor husband. Need to get those laundry files you posted in motion.) I will be reading attentively and pray that you are blessed abundantly for this apostolate!God bless,Kelly in VA
JMB says
I was born in '66. I'm that sandwich generation that gets blamed for not caring about what our ceiling crashing older "sisters" did for us in the work force, or on the homefront. All I know is that when I worked on Wall Street back in the late 80s and up to the mid-90s, I remember thinking that there was not one job of any of those "older sisters" that I wanted. The women that I envied (the job that I so wanted) was that of my bosses wives who were at home, in the leafy NJ suburbs, being mothers to their children. That's what I eventually did, and I have never regretted leaving the paid work force for the privilege to be with my children.
Breanna says
Oi, Leila!I love, love, love this Lewis book, and I read it at least once a year. To me the most frightening person in the book are not the wicked scientists of N.I.C.E., but Miss Hardcastle of the secret police–who says "Face it. You won't get anyone to do this job who doesn't enjoy it."Jane and Mark both come to the same realization that you describe, I think–that to to grow up means service and loyalty to something other than your own self-fulfillment. Great, great book.And what a great discussion, even for someone born in 1984! 🙂 I sometimes think that people my age have some disadvantages because we can't remember a world that wasn't "equalized". Thus "Mad Men".Incidentally I am Protestant and haven't read much Papal writing outside my medieval studies, so thank you very much as well for Mulieris Dignitatem.Breanna
Bethany says
I'm very grateful for your blog, and glad I found it. This was a particularly well-written and beautifully explained post.
Elizabeth says
Well well well. Where do I begin? I second the comment "You have a book in you". Also, I'd like to add my thanks. Since I decided not to go back to work after our baby's birth, I've been feeling a bit lied to. All I ever was really told growing up was to go to college, get a job, and be good. Now that I did those things, and found them mostly good, but not quite enough especially in light of a loving husband and baby, I've been wondering what I should have been told growing up…Still working on that, so excellent timining with your Lenten reading suggestions. Side note: Last night as I was making soup and ironing and holding my teething baby, I was discussing St. Augustine's Conefessions with Mrs. Triolo, and I have to say that if that isn't what the good life is, I just don't know what it could be.
Kari says
I'll have to chime in too with love for CS Lewis' Space Trilogy! Every time I read it, there is something newer (or older perhaps?), deeper, and thought provoking that sends me into "distracted thought mode."A heavy topic, but so needed–thank you! I'll have to read it again and some more to glean more of what I can from it. Incidentally, thanks to you, I'm now in the middle of five books, some fluffy, and the 2 on your Lenten book list and the olympics are distracting me from my reading! But they only come once every 4 years so I'll enjoy and then get back to my book list!Thanks again,Kari
Anonymous says
Wow! What a great post. There are so many things to agree with. I appreciate your taking the time to think and put these ideas down in writing. I "third" the idea that you have a book in you. I also appreciate the confidence boost because I feel so conter-cultural since I am at home with my kids–and enjoying all of my time with them. Thanks so much,Mom in MO
Anonymous says
I read the post and the comments – I LOVE your blog. I just checked the C.S. Lewis book out at the library so I'm looking forward to starting the book. I was born in 69 so I missed most of what you are talking about. Plus, I was raised in a small Missouri town so we were pretty sheltered! Now in Arkansas, it's still pretty sheltered but we hear about things and we have our share of strange ideas, etc.Thanks so much and please keep writing.
Nancy says
I was raised by babysitters during the 1960s since my mother chose to work because… "she would be bored raising children at home". My mother was very much influenced by the women's movement…the pill, the equality between men and women in the job market, and how children could tie a woman down to the home.Our weekend parish priest's (we were minority Catholics in Protestant area) main line in jr.-sr. high school CCD class was for us to use our conscience. Needless to say, it was a very confusing time for me.Thank goodness for Pope John Paul II and his writings!
LeeAnn says
I am looking forward to reading more of your thoughts on this. I also love "That Hideous Strength" although the quote that always comes to mind for me is something about how one could never be expected to listen to everything a person has said. That always cracked me up! And it's very true. I went through a lot of feminist type struggles as a newly married person…compounded by my husband having been raised in the same "feminism is normal" world. That kind of thinking still rears its ugly head in our marrige every now and then. I am hoping I have raised my children to think differently, but there's still a long way to go!
Carrien says
I read those books in my early teens, but not since. I find myself wondering how much they have influenced my thinking since in ways I was unaware of.Your description of your mental journey is like looking in a mirror, thought the back ground for min is vastly different. Mine was a stay at home mother, breastfeeding home making mom of the 70s who nonetheless internalized the feminist homilies around her and they came out in her attitudes, her talk her expectations for her daughters, her endless dissatisfaction and finally divorce of my dad, and the pleasure she and her friends had in figuring out which men of their acquaintance were misogynists. So you could say hers was a delayed reaction and much of my journey was a reaction against that, sensing it was wrong and needing to find out why.Thanks for writing this. I"m looking forward to the next installment.
MamaBug says
Leila – I want to say thank you. My sister and I were brought up by our widower father, and weren't taught much in the way of keeping house, but were loved. We weren't pressed with feminism or prejudice, although our father was born in 48 and went through both eras aware of the goings-on. We e-mail about how we are learning how to keep house from Auntie Leila!That aside, I'm a 23 year-old stay at home mom of two, and active church-goer. Your thoughts inspire me, and make me proud to be one of the post-feminist SAHMs. I nurture and tend because I'm fortunate enough to have a providing husband that allows me to choose to do what I love – being with, and raising, my children. Thank you again.
pam says
Hi Leila,I was born in '64 and grew up in a state of emptiness. My mom stayed home but seemed to always long for more. The feminist ways were never questioned as far as I remember. We bought it hook, line and sinker. I excelled in school and was placed on the college-bound track in high school…which of course means that I learned none of the skills that all of us eventually need to run a household. Anyway, after college and a "career" and a divorce….God finally brought me to my knees and lovingly rebuilt the empty shell of me. I am blessed to be happily married with 3 children. I wouldn't trade my crazy days of home schooling and home making for anything. I never had a clue how wonderful it could be to care for a husband and children every day. God is good. Thank you so much for blessing us with your insights.I'm off to check out that book.Pam
Meredith says
Like the others, I am so grateful that you are sharing what's been on your heart so long.I wonder how many pots of soup and loaves of bread you have baked while thinking of these things.
jill f. says
Wow! What a delight to read such a thoughtful post. I was born in 1960 to parents who chose to turn their backs on the small town deeply Christian upbringing to move to a little hippie village in New Mexico and surround themselves with other like-minded liberal Ivy League professors (my dad is a Yale Ph.D).I can remember feeling very scared and alone hearing about the Vietnam War and feeling the anger of my older brother and sister toward the "establishment". It felt like we were living in a world gone mad where the school superintendent smoked dope with the students and parents wanted to be called by their first names. No one wanted to be "the authority" and the children in my little world suffered. Perhaps that is why I found it easy to turn to a loving God who not only created the world but redeemed it. I have stumbled after Him since my college days and He has made something beautiful out of my life by giving me an incredible husband and eight beautiful children (all of whom look forward to the delights of marraige and family if the Lord so provides that for them). I have known a few of those angry feminist women and I have seen them age into bitterness. My offering to God for His salvation is to be as joyfilled and committed to my calling as I can be. May He be glorified as His grace in our lives refutes the anger and emptiness of the feminists.
Carol K says
Unfortunately, I have no time to read all the great comments so forgive me if I am repetitive and/or abbreviated.Equality: It seems important to distinguish between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. The search for equality of outcome leads to many ill conceived government programs which result in holding people back and making people dependent. However equality of opportunity is much more of a fact in this country than many are willing to admit.A note on medicalized birth…my three highly managed births were both necessary and beautiful….just saying. 🙂
WunderMom says
Leila,You never cease to amaze me! I know this sounds a bit stalkeresque, but every time I read your blog, I feel so connected to you, like you're an upgraded, wiser, more eloquent version of me! The things you post about, items in your house I see in pictures, your thoughts, likes and dislikes- they all seem like things I think and say and do, only better!I adore the Space Trilogy. Usually I re-read books I love over and over, but I haven't been able to start the trilogy again in many years. Why? Because *That Hideous Strength* is so deeply disturbing to me. Sometimes movies or books disturb me so much that I can barely sleep for thinking about them. (AI is a good example. Shudder.) I have avoided re-starting the trilogy simply because I would feel incomplete if I didn't read THS, but couldn't bring myself to do it. You've given me courage! (Lewis' book Till We Have Faces is probably my favorite fiction of his. It keeps me awake at night each time I read it, but in a good way. I'd love to discuss this one over tea!)I haven't even finished your post yet, but wanted to comment on THS first. I'm impulsive. Much love and many blessings,Becky in FL
Leila says
Carol K: Good to hear from you!!We will talk more about equality! Every right-thinking person believes in equality of opportunity and sees its lack as an injustice. But equality as power struggle is devastating to the order of love.As to birthing, in the course of trying to cram many ideas into one blog post, I elided, hoping the word "medicalized", rather than, say, "medicated" would convey the point on its own. Human reason and resource can be a great blessing to those in pain and danger! I'm exhibit A in that one!!But that more than 30 percent of deliveries in the US are by C-section — that statistic should give us a clue that things are not right.
Nina Patricia @ The says
I'm devouring your posts. I have the same conflict about this issue. My mother was a SAH of six but she hated it.she always said how jealous she was of my aunts that worked. I was told I should get an education and work but I feel this is not my calling anymore. Our youngest is only 9 months and there is not a week that passes that I don’t regret not spending more time with him. I feel like I’m doing both jobs (work and home) half assed. -sorry, no other way to put it.Financially, we need the money but at the same time we pay more for daycare than rent! I don’t know how to go about leaving the work place when we need that income. When I tell my family I’m contemplating staying at home they seem to think I’m crazy.It just doesn’t seem right that I’m basically working to pay someone else to raise my kids.Thank you for another insightful post.
deb says
Like Kelly in VA, above:"Thank you for this beautiful gift of mentorship to us moms out there who need to hear from those who have been at this job longer and have wisdom to share."deb meyers
Anonymous says
I've been meaning to de-lurk myself and this post ended the procrastination! Meaningful thoughts, beautifully shared. I'm a Mennonite homeschooling mom of 2. I consider your blog one of my professional enrichment courses. Thanks for all you do.-Rebecca
Anonymous says
I love the Space Trilogy, and since I had been thinking about rereading That Hideous Strength sometime, I started it today!By the way, I found your blog recently and am really enjoying it. Even though a couple of my kids are adults, my youngest is two and I am still learning from others.
Anonymous says
Thank you for this post. I just found out I am pregnant with our fifth and am scared as anything! People think I'm crazy enough as it is; staying at home and homeschooling them! Thanks for giving encouragement. F
Anonymous says
I will start by telling you that I truly enjoyed this. I found myself nodding and saying "Amen" and relating quite a bit.I had to laugh at the pictures of the book. Mine looks about the same. It was printed in 1978 and has been through many hands!
Terri says
WOW – Auntie Leila, you inspire me with every post! I was born in 1982, and I have been noticing an internal struggle of late with my hyper-intellectualism and domestic yearnings. Why should these things be in conflict? Thanks for being you!
Carol K says
Leila,Thanks for the response. I had another post that never made it off my Ipod Touch that was all gushy about your blog and explained in detail how I somehow avoided the feminism of the 60's70's (born in 64), I suspect due to the fact that I was a day dreamer and wasn't listening in school anyway (though I must give kudos to the Nuns in elementary school…they were great,holy faithful women, and to my mom, of course, who loved(s) being a mom). I always, always wanted to be a mom…a stay at home mom. But didn't get to do that until I was 37!! Now I have three and homeschool and love it. And I try to keep the MA in Theology from going dormant in my brain by reading blogs like yours. Thanks again….can't wait to keep talking about the lenten reading!
Leila says
Carol K. — I was born in 60 and…no nuns, except the ones next door to our apartment complex who ran the school over there, which was a complete mystery to me. The children's uniforms, the nun's habits. That's all I ever saw. I knew nothing else about it!So I didn't escape…
emily says
Auntie Leila,I absolutely adore your blog; I've been reading it for a while but haven't commented until now. Now that you're taking on feminism I just can't resist. I think yours (and others like them) are the most widely-felt and yet unspoken words of the recent generations of women. I was born in 1975, and raised in a posh, secular private school. Feminist values and principles were assumed. My mother stayed home and showed, by her actions, that she loved being with her daughters and cooking and sewing (to a lesser extent cleaning 🙂 for them. Overtly, the message from father (and mother, to some extent) was that we should pursue the academic path and ultimately discover our "significance" through career. As for my mom, she has told me that she felt my sister and I had the opportunity to choose a path different than hers and she assumed that we would want to go that route. In hindsight, resumes, college entrance exams, law school exams–these were all concrete and easily-measured rubrics of success (though, of course, not significance). And so I pursued them without question–the word "leming" comes to mind. Interestingly, though, I always knew that I would stay home with my children. And as I followed the professional path, I found myself becoming more and more . . . uncomfortable. Even as my academic successes continued and thoughts of "responsibility" and "stewardship" of opportunities and resources crept in, I knew I wanted to become a mother. And I remember the moment I looked at that ridiculous box of pills and told my husband we needed to get rid of them. He (thankfully) also always wanted a family and we took the plunge (we have not looked back). With a "part-time" position set up for me upon my return from maternity leave, I held my baby in my arms for the first time and knew immediately I would not return to the office. And even though I still felt some shame and embarrassment at telling others I was leaving law (and federal clerkships, and all that), I no longer really cared about what "They" thought. Not enough to ignore my inner longings, at least.Last month (or was it the month before?) I read a letter to the editor in First Things magazine written by a woman who found herself trapped in a successful career, while watching the time with her little ones wash away. I cried. I actually bawled. I could have been there. I prayed for her and for those who are. I hope that words like yours give women the confidence and assurance to choose the road less traveled by; and the understanding that those who have labeled this road "boring" or "insignificant" have either never traveled it, or have some other (ulterior) reason for not wanting others to do the same.
bearing says
I just want to say that I love the photograph that's second from the bottom — warm on the left, cold on the right. With the snowflakes.I'm not sure if it has something to "say" relevant to the post, but it sure makes your home look like a cozy place.word verification: "rumple" no kidding!
Mrs. JD says
As someone who is finally trying to put my jumbled thoughts on feminism (secular and Christian), birth & feeding, and other sundry topics related to women on paper, I want to say thank you thank you thank you! Sometimes when I look at my rough drafts I become afraid. Very few people share these opinions and I don't know if I am willing to go public with them yet!As far as equality of opportunity goes. I don't see it as a necessity or even as a good. The fact is that God gives us different talents and different circumstances in life we have to deal with, the idea of everyone needing to have equal opportunity is an enlightenment ideal which does not take into account that although in dignity and being children of God all are equal, in everything else we are not. If all were equal we would live in a very bland world.
Leila says
I'm enjoying reading all your thoughts…even if I don't mention you by name here, I appreciate so much this outpouring. Each and every comment…bearing…thanks for noticing…Mrs. JD…I agree that everyone nods their head about equality of opportunity. It seems just. And right away you have to start asking, equal IN WHAT WAY?
Anonymous says
Auntie Leila :)With the theme of equality in marriage, do you have some reading suggestions for containing the 'ego'? Or a blog post? Due to many reasons, I keep struggling with its effects on relationships.. fatima