Robin, I want you to know how impressed I am with this essay. The way you wrote it clearly impacts your reader. You are heard and you stimulate some excellent thinking.
This is me, just now after reading your post, thinking about the journey of life and glass half full/half empty. No matter the cards one is dealt, and so many of us get handed some pretty shitty ones, I have always believed( as I know you do too) that glass half full wins in the choice department.
Not saying that the “full” choice wins every day or that we always wake us with a “Gee this is wonderful” attitude. I am just saying we aim for and believe in the “full”.
Here is my “but” ( as opposed to my butt :-). 51% of the population, us, the girls/women/chicks/all that, start life out inside some type of “container” plastered with these care giver/selfless/ here only to serve posters all over the walls. The way this gets communicated, the intensity of the message etc. varies depending on tons of factors. Yet in some form, the message/expection is there from birth.
Sure for some, the message of go forth and accomplish something great and make your mark on the world is there too. Varying in format/intensity as well. Yet for women, in some form or another, the caretaking and related expectations dominate. And please note, on purpose I am excluding child rearing as part of my discussion right now. When I say caretaking, I mean in general.
Oh ha ha. Look what I feel compelled to add: Just to clarify: I have the utmost respect for everything that goes into deciding to have and raise children. I love the fact that (in one way or another)we choose to make it a full time or full time plus life commitment. (I add this to enable me to keep my present train of thought in this comment and avoid having any reader suggest I am not valuing being a mother.)
Thing is: I am doing right now( in this paragraph above) what I observed so many women clients do over a business lunch. We talk about their successful carreers( we ARE meeting for business, not social) yet 9 times out of 10, I watched them interrupt the topic at hand to assure me that they are good mothers. It never even crossed my mind that their success at work meant they sucked in the mother department…
So…all this. Long way around to say: it takes women longer to figure it all out because we first have to decide how and where we fit in that “container” around us. We have to figure out what is ok to question. We have to search to find our choices and answers and contend with limitations and/or roadblocks. We have to sort this all out while we decide what we want to be when we grow up.
Are there other groups with similar issues? Of course. But this is a comment to Robin’s excellent essay and solely about women.
Robin, huge congratulations on what you have accomplished and learned so far. Huge congrats to us all. And with that, back we go to life long learning and growing. How good is that…
😍😍😍😍👍
