A love letter to one who walked away
On some of the unintended consequences of the sexual revolution
Alo dear reader!
This is a love letter and a rage letter and touches on some of the most sacred cows of our current society - the sexual revolution.
Interested?
Read on.
Scared?
Close this message meow.
One of the smartest people I know is also one of the bravest people I know.
And I must be pretty damn smart too because I chose to marry this woman.
That’s right - Laura.
Laura has a PhD in Education. She’s run an English department in inner city Toronto Schools.
She’s pretty frickin’ amazing.
And?
She quit. She walked away.
And that was a defiant act of bravery.
Women these days are subjected to more pressure than ever before, so much so that the biggest job, the best job and what I believe the most important job has been replaced with wage earning.
That job?
Being a mom.
That’s right.
Being a mom and loving and nurturing your offspring is more important than being President, more impactful than leading an HR department and more influential than teaching other peoples children.
And it’s been undervalued since the 1960’s.
These days, the statements above are likely seen as foolish, heretical even.
Because, hell, natural, biological abilities to feed and millennia of hard wired nurturing can easily be disrupted by pills, choice and bra burning.
And for whom?
Instead of loyalty to the family and for the benefit of the tribe, a woman’s super powers get turned away from the family and towards the functioning of the state and for the benefit of the corporations.
Yay progress?
Laura, facing cancer, had the bravery to walk away from the machine and the insurance support to turn her efforts towards supporting her family.
At work?
She was under incredible pressure to care for a nurture a lot of other people - other parents, other teachers and other peoples children. Hundreds of them per year!
And when middle class women walk away from a career that could have / would have /should have led to even more social status and pressure with a university career, they are silently judged and seen as a failure.
She’s had these unawares judgements passed on her for over a decade and a half now.
And?
She has the bravery to ignore and withstand the girl bullying in our culture that pushes women to perfectionism - Lioness at work, mamma bear at home and a minx in the bedroom.
I’m not sure that the revolution of the 60’s made things easier for women.
I hear the ordinary fools clucking in the media all the time
Men need to be better. Men need to do more.
Why?
We did’t ask for this.
We didn’t lead the revolution.
It used to be such that a two income household could get ahead.
These days?
It takes two and a half incomes to keep a family going.
So, with the revolution, who won, men, women, or the corporations who continue to extract more wealth from our efforts?
Family first is the core of community and shouldn’t be seen as a reactionary point of view.
But that’s the machine for ya, it simplifies narratives, creates good and evils in the world and finds someone to blame for the inadequacies of progressive culture
The biggest person Laura had to battle though was herself.
If I’m not there, they’ll miss me. What will happen to ______
We learned quite soon after she quit that she wasn’t missed.
She was disposable.
She was replaced.
Sure for a while they spoke about her.
These days though, there are few teachers at her old school who even remember she was there.
You are disposable.
You don’t matter.
One day you will be gone.
You will be replaced.
You don’t matter to the system nearly as much as you think.
Family first.
Love the people who love you and fuck the fucking fuckers