Tag Archives: woman

My Little Wifey Education

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This was a wedding gift to me from my bridesmaid. I’m hoping she was trying to be funny. With that said, most woman have seemed to be lost for words when offering me advice about marriage so it seems this will have to be my point of reference and my little wifey education going forward.

You will probably note that it was published originally in 1913. Nearly 100 years on….it’s outdated at points, yes. It’s utterly hillarious at points, yes. Has it got some points of truth in amoungst it all? Mmmmm…yes. Points which the modern, feministic wife would probably rebuke or rebell against, but just quietly between us, they’re probably good old fashioned points we need know and practise, on occasion, for the sake of matrimonial bliss.  

I personally like how the author, Blanche Ebbutt, has painted the image of marriage right up in the preface. Blanche seems to be the put it straight type, and I appreciate her no muck about attitude. I think she might really be able to help me.

Let me share the preface with you:

Art is a hard mistress, and there is no art quite so hard as that of being a wife. It takes a perfect artist to remain married – married in the perfect sense of the term; but most of us have to be content to muddle through.

Imagine a girl called upon without a single lesson to produce a tune – a lot of tunes – in fact, one never-ending succession of harmonies – from the most difficult instrument in the world. Note that the instrument not only gets grumpy in cold weather and skittish in the spring – not only slacks or breaks it’s strings with every change of temperature – but becomes tempestuous over a tight shoe, broody over an out of date egg, and cross, sulky, or mirthful for reasons that no sane woman can understand.

This is what the average wife has to reckon with; and if she intends to play the game -humiliating as some may think it – HE will loom largely on the horizon all her life.

I have a new favourite word from this - skittish! And with that said, I will now go and play wife :)

 

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Top Stuff: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

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There was a book going around like wild fire amongst the woman in my family recently. It was inducing both quiet understanding and profound discussions amongst them. I decided I had to get in on whatever this all inspiring novel was. My sister in law (to be) handed me a copy of The Red Tent and admittedly, over the Easter weekend, Little Vick had to take care of himself for I was not putting the book down.  

I can’t say I’ve ever read the bible in it’s entirety, not even a chapter actually, but I can say this book is the first to make me want to read it. Now you might be getting the wrong picture from the get go here. This book is not a boring, educational, religious experience. This book is so much more than just it’s obvious biblical ties. It brings forth the story of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob, the sister of Joseph (if you’re not religiously inclined you might know the fellow from Andrew Llyod Webber’s musical, Joseph and the Technicolour Dream Coat - although there is not the slightest mention of a rainbow coat on these pages).

Dinah is bought up by her mother and 3 aunties (all married to the same dude) teaching her the honourable ways and traditions of womanhood by and large during their monthly visits to (you guessed it) The Red Tent. Through her accounts of those individual woman we learn about their hopes, their power struggles and their sacrifices.

This novel which combines Biblical fact and fictious points, celebrates the strengths of those woman around Dinah. Their endurance, their hearts and minds along with their bodies. Dinah becomes a somewhat apprentice midwife from a very young age and through her eyes we see birth, death, sisterhood and remarkable strength. The nature of this is delivered and celebrated in a way that I have not experienced in any other book. There is something truly beautiful about it. 

As Dinah grows into womanhood she takes their wisdom but is forced to find her own identity as she discovers love, adversity and grapples with loss and survival.

I felt seriously crushed mid way through the read and then warm and enlightened as I turned the final page of the book. This read is enriching, moving, and most of all nurturing.

There was a letter in the book’s introduction which suggested it’s power and touched me before I even read an ounce of the actual book. I think it knocks the old nail on the head:

I recently read The Red Tent and as a 16 year old, I have to say you’ve opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about my life as a woman, a sister, a daughter, and hopefully, a wife and mother….This story….connects me to some roots, and I feel strength coming from millions of other women before me, who have experienced and survived adversity, make mistakes and still live their lives despite it….

Well said.

It is definitely being added to my top empowering chick reads of all time. Worth the read ladies! :)

Have you read The Red Tent? Care to share your thoughts? What’s your favorite empowering chick read?

Wedding Floristry, Second Babies, Breastfeeding & Tupperware…. The New 28?

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Bridal.

That single word probably sums up my entire existence at this point in my life. It robs me of my blogging time (I’m sure you’ve noted my absence over the past 2 months). I live it. I breath it. I dream it. I despise it. I enjoy it. I make it. I hate it. I organise it. I agonise over it. All so I can become a Mrs. It’s the reality of organising a wedding in 4 months (good choice that one).

I had a little night out for myself last night. The first real getaway since Little Vick was born 17 months ago. How it has taken me that long I have not a clue? But I trundled off to Ballarat to have an old fashioned girly sleep over. I haven’t had one of those since about 1999 so I was excited.

There was 5 of us ‘sleeping over’. I was all set for a night of near to zilch baby and bridal chat and instead listening in on the tales and heroics of single female living. The highs and lows of dating and one night stands. An existence so far from my reality these days but none the less how I LOVE living through my girls. I love hearing their romantic or more often than not awkward and hilarious stories and going on their emotional roller coaster as they re tell their personalised soap operas.

I told the girls where I was at with all my planning and my mothering stories and I was done. Then I waited for their antics to be told and you know what was the topic of conversation for virtually for the entire evening? WEDDINGS & BABIES!!

3 single woman out of 5 in their 20′s and they wanted to talk about WEDDINGS & BABIES?!

Something has happened. Something has seriously changed from how I remember things when I was part of the free and frivolous singles group. And they’ve most definitely changed since the days of sleepovers (back in 1999) when we used to lie around disecting our male crushes and snogs at the local disco. At that time when we predicted where we would be when we hit the age of 27,28, I don’t think it would have gone like this…. When I’m 27 and I have a night out with the girls we will discuss wedding floristry, having second babies and the finer points of breastfeeding.

Wasn’t that reserved for the ages between 30-38? Wern’t we all going to be fabulously successful career woman living in the city, who dined every Friday night and re told our successes and weekly male encounters? OK. Maybe that’s just a Sex and The City episode. It’s true we would never be wearing Manolo Blahniks. BUT, it was how it was going to go right? No rush for weddings and definitely no babies to dictate to us until we were on the other side of 30.

Seems not. There’s definitely some suspicious behaviour going on around me. I’m starting to wonder if woman can’t just help themselves and that they in fact have very little control over the husbands and baby chat & desires. Can they really be blamed?

The happenings of the sleepover has made me see that there is something that is programed so deeply in woman, that despite all other better knowledge or pre existing ideals, once one arrives at 28 (more often than not) they start hard core yearning to ‘settle down’. In fact I’d go as far to say that it brings about a new obsessive chapter. I watch many woman try and try and when they don’t succeed at snagging a husband to breed with pronto, they seem to lose spirit and are quick to write themselves off as a failure or/and become super obsessive about it (and there’s often something unattractive about that). Like a caveman on the hunt for meat. I can’t tell you have frequently I hear woman say… “before I’m 30….” and more often than not they’re 28 and still single!

Are we as human beings, as woman, this suseptable to social conditioning?

It’s a little shocking quite frankly. I thought we were above this social conditioning stuff as modern woman. That we could withstand it or not be infected by it, or have stronger wills or something. I admit I think I might have been poisoned in some form recently. I’ve started talking about purchasing a family home and planting a vegetable patch. Huh? When was I ever going to do that? Wasn’t I forever going to rent and purchase my vegetables from the markets and perhaps have a pot of herbs as my consolation veggie patch, even with kids in the equation? It’s news to me but obviously I’ve been ’conditioned’ to believe success is in the form of home owning. It’s an example of how conditioning creeps into our minds and can takes over our entire life objectives despite previous stubborn values. As for my friends I thought I had a good 5 years or so of being able to live through their adventurous dating and sex lives before they all started to try and emulate me.

A friend of a friend (yes, it’s one of these stories) apparently was adament she was never going to have children. No desire whatsoever. You’ve never met a woman who didn’t want children more in your life. She was so convinced she asked to have her tubes tied at age 22. A ridiculous idea clearly and this was agreed on by her doctors. THANKFULLY as this unbudging attitude suddenly melted away at … guess what age? 28. It got her. Whatever this thing that infects woman is. Come the day she turned 28 she suddenly started begging her husband (handy she had one) to plant his seed and so convincing was she that that is exactly what he did (cos a woman really needs to work hard at convincing a man to do the deed) and she got herself a baby. Another woman converted.

See, it’s happening people. My friend of friend says it’s so.

This next paragraph is little off the topic but I feel it rates a mention here. Last week I got an invitation to a Tupperware party. I know, I know, Tupperware is excellent but I’m also slightly horrified. To me Tupperware parties reek of middle aged housewives. Am I about to embark on middle age at 27? Ha. Ok. That’s being dramatic (but seriously?). Babies, weddings, Tupperware… it’s all too much. It’s bad enough I’ve had to grow up, but does everyone else around me have to as well?

Of course I know not every 28 year old woman is single and childless (take exhibit A for example….) But honestly, I don’t know how I got a man and baby? I didn’t ask for it particularly and it’s true I never did or will experience that ’yearning’ and churning in my ovaries. Thanks to my girlfriends there’s enough of that going on around me to definitely bump the world into ‘overpopulated’ if they all breed.

For now there are a handful of friends that I can rely on to not have children until indeed they’re ‘over the hill’, no I mean, past 30, if at all. My actor friends. Thank God for my actor friends. People who would rather stay in full denial about their age, for various reasons, and who forever want to live freely and somewhat selfishly. That was once my identity. They’re fun and they’re never going to invite me to a Tupperware party. Hallelujah!

What social conditioning are you a victim of?

What age did the baby monster get you ?

V xx

 

(Image from http://rachelcamhc.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/here-comes-teen-bride.html)