Ever feel like your life is the first five minutes of an action movie? The establishing scene, when the (male) hero’s emotional stakes are laid out: loving wife, adorable child, charming house – in short, everything Joe Everyman could hope for. It is generally followed by violence – depending on the rating, the family is endangered from afar (PG), the wife is kidnapped/harmed (M), or some or all of the family is killed (MA).
Luckily, life is not an action movie. Living a clichéd life has a lot going for it – all the more so because all three of the crucial pieces – husband, child, house – are still largely an overwhelmingly pleasant surprise. And although the rating on my life is TBA, I feel fairly secure from assassin attack at this stage. Hurrah!
There is an interesting article at http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/radical-jam-making/ about a rift among feminists. Bluemilk and I believe that caring jobs such as mothering and running a household deserve the same respect (including estimates of the practitioner’s intelligence) as other jobs. Other feminists are convinced that someone who focuses their life on their family is wasting that life and letting women down (including, presumably, the daughter who they have to palm off on someone else against their own will). Although it’s important to me to do paid work (an instinct too deeply engrained for me to fight at this stage), and although I long to spend more time writing novels – being a mum is most of what I am/do at the moment, and anyone who thinks that makes me less of a human being needs to ask themself what they’re fighting for.
Obviously being a mum has enormous physical and emotional down sides (even before society sticks its judgemental nose in), and I didn’t expect to like it half so much as I (mostly) do. But here I am.
Luckily, I can handle an intellectual fight just fine – and I don’t even need my man to do the shooting for me.
I’m with you on this one. The important bit is choice. Do you have a choice to spend your time with your children, or are you being told that you have to (or that it’s irresponsible not to)? Saying that staying with children is somehow letting the side down is taking that choice away from you. Not everyone wants to be the strong female character protagonist, and that’s OK. What’s important is that you can be if you want to.
Depending on the genre of the movie, a stay-at-home mum can be the strong female protagonist as well. I think it’s a vital position from which to change society – for feminism more than any other cause.
Hey cuz,
Are we getting a Eurovision party rundown again? 😉
~J
Yep 🙂
Awesome. Nobody in the US has even heard of Eurovision!
We were mentioned by the official commentator (we = Australia). Mocking people is part of our national character….the tweet feed is the best part.