One Woman’s Anti-Feminist Awakening
December 5, 2011
MRS. M. writes:
Thank you so much for your site. It is proving to be a great source of courage for me as I plan my transition to homemaker in the future.
Robin commented on your last post: “It would take a radical leap of faith on the part of this mother to reverse this situation.”
This struck a chord with me, as I wish it was not such a radical leap of faith. Even on your own site, I find that the situation of women like me is not often addressed. I am yearning to be a homemaker, but we cannot afford it. I am 30 years old and have one daughter, aged 20 months and another on the way. She attends daycare 3-4 days per week and stays with relatives the other 1-2 days. I know daycare is inferior to what I could provide and I loathe the hectic lifestyle. As I am in Canada, I am fortunate to have one full year maternity leave (although I believe such policies are ultimately harmful). You have written often about the need to be frugal and live a modest lifestyle to make a one-income family possible. This is very true, but it is only part of the story. We have a 900 sq ft. house, never eat out and grow as much food as possible, clip coupons, buy bulk, etc. But, it is still not enough.
The main problem keeping mothers away from their children today is the disgraceful student loan system. Along with all of the other lies of feminism, it has been drummed into young people’s minds that they NEED a college degree, even if they cannot afford the mammoth cost. So, there are millions of North American women in their mid-twenties with massive student loan debt. I am paying double my monthly payment and it will still be at least four more years until it is paid off.
I had my conservative “awakening” at age 24. I firmly believe in personal responsibility, and that I must pay off the debts I incurred. However, I still feel bitter and angry due to all of the lies my generation was told about sex, marriage, babies, motherhood, money, debt…the list goes on and on. Feminism is a lie, a massive lie. Not once was being a housewife every presented to me as anything but a disgrace to the women’s movement and something to be mocked – let alone an option. Women like me need not be chastised by feminists, but taught that another way is possible and how to get there financially and emotionally. The responses I usually hear include “You will be bored at home,” ” You are too smart to stay home all day,” “Everything is geared towards two incomes now,” “You will be poor,” “You need to work so you can provide the best for your child,” “Your child needs socialization”, etc., etc., etc. All lies! But, when the same overwhelming “truths” are coming from parents, school, media, university, friends – it is no wonder that so many women are in the same boat. My goal now is to make sure my children know the truth and do not believe any of these lies if they are subjected to them.
Technically, I am also one of the “lucky” ones, as I have a husband and a child and no abortions in my past. Some of my 30 year old acquaintances have finally woken up to their biological clocks and are faced with a sea of man-boys – interested in nothing but sex sans commitment, let alone the willingness to provide for a family.
This has turned into a lengthy comment, but I wanted to end it with a question: Do you know of any good books/guides to planning a move from the work-force to full-time motherhood?
Laura writes:
Thank you for writing. I’m very happy to read of your awakening and your wise observations of feminism’s lies.
Many women, I am certain, are like you and would gladly turn in their expensive degrees if they could. College is not worth years of indentured servitude. The idea that a woman should have a college degree no matter what is part of what the writer James Tooley called “the miseducation of women.” College today is an expensive way of rendering a woman unprepared for the most important role in life. The expense of it also keeps many people from having more children and that’s just plain stupid. Your anger is a sign of health and sanity.
To be told that your deepest instincts now as a mother are wrong is also profoundly demoralizing.
As far as the nightmarish financial bind that keeps your daughter in day care, it’s important to bear in mind that children are very conscious of the moral tone of our actions. What this means in your case is, though you have your daughter in day care now, it is not the same experience for her as it would be if you wanted her to be there. In her reviewof day care studies, Jenet Jakob Erikson writes that one of the most serious problems with day care is its negative effects on maternal sensitivity. Mothers often become less responsive when they are not caring for their children. For children of mothers who don’t want to work and don’t want their children to be in day care, however, there doesn’t tend to be this loss of sensitivity. Even babies can pick up on the intentions and deeper attentiveness of their mothers. It is worth serious poverty to be with our children. It is our duty to raise our children ourselves, but you should not make things harder for your family by guilt. You are doing your best. You will almost certainly achieve your goal someday and you will be able to raise your own children to see through the lies. Your struggle is not wasted.
To be a good mother is to be counter-cultural. I don’t just mean on this issue of staying home, but on almost everything related to your family’s future. You live in a shallow, materialistic, God-loathing culture. You have to live in a condition of cultural exile – as if you were a foreigner in your own country – in order to resist it and protect your children. You have to take refuge in a self-created island.
The greatest challenge for you is spiritual, not financial. The devil wants to defeat you. He knows that every mother’s love is an entrance to divine good. The stakes for him are very high. He will do everything he can to demoralize you, to make you tired and discouraged, to create tension between you and your husband, to make you feel your poverty, to make you bored, to deflect you from the inner life, to encourage criticism from others, to beckon you with expensive junk, to spur you to focus on your children’s material welfare instead of their spiritual and intellectual development and to make you lose awareness of the love that is with you always, every minute of the day. Your highest goal is to defeat him and reciprocate this love. If you reciprocate the love of God, if you respond to this ocean of warmth and affirmation that surrounds you, you will not go wrong. You will achieve everything.
As far as reading, I don’t know of any guides per se (see the many suggestions below). As I have said before, I highly recommend Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to any housewife or aspiring homemaker. Crusoe’s challenge is your challenge: how to survive on an island. Crusoe was an extremely practical guy and we can take inspiration from his constant motivation to build, plant, grow and make things for himself. He thought with his hands and that’s what a housewife must do. But most importantly, he was a humble man. He did not pity himself (I am not suggesting that you are pitying yourself but that it is a natural inclination in all of us) or lose sight of how much his own stubbornness had misled him. He came to realize that his trials were his salvation. He fell on his knees and thanked God for the storm that shipwrecked him.
And so, dear sister, you too will come to know even more clearly than you do now that no matter how poor or shipwrecked you are, you have this power to love.
Marianne writes:
For Mrs. M, who longs to be at home but must stay employed to repay her student loans, I would recommend: (1) take a look at the website www.stretcher.com (Dollar Stretcher) which contains an archive of numerous articles on making-do with one income, and (2) investigate student loan deferral options. In particular I have heard that student loan payments may be deferred as long as you are “still in school”, and that “still in school” isn’t defined as fulltime enrollment. I suspect it could be cheaper to maintain a minimal school enrollment for the next five years (at a local county college) than to pay for day care over that same time period! Then at some future time, when the children are school age, or when Mrs. M’s husband has advanced in his career and is earning more, repayment of student loans could begin again. By that time inflation will probably reduce the impact of each repayment dollar, too. Mrs. M feels a moral obligation to pay her debts and that’s commendable, but she doesn’t have a moral obligation to do immediately — she can do so when it makes sense for her to do so.
Robin writes:
Regarding Mrs. M, my heart goes out to her as she looks across the chasm between what ought to be and what is at the present. I can truly identify with this, as I have been called out of the masses of heartless, Godless society and into a Pilgrim existence where there is little support for the radically different lifestyle. You are correct; it is right to be angry about all of the lies we were fed as women, yet we must slowly allow God to move us beyond this and into a new way of life.
It is here that I offer the encouragement of several resources that have helped me. Again, God has led me to these things slowly in my re-education of sorts. While I agree with you that there is not a manual with ten neat steps for deliverance from the fetid mire of modern feminism, these resources have helped shape my new vision for our children and our family.
Many blessings to Mrs. M. I pray she has the courage to call things that are not as though they were, until such time as they manifest naturally: hope is necessary in this situation. Hope that the awakening brings beauty from ashes.
I recommend this article “Hot to Get Back Home” at Ladies Against Feminism. Also, I recommend the Suburban CEO and websites, books and posts here, here, here, here, here and here. Blessings!
Laura writes:
Thank you. The Internet is filled with resources for the New Women’s Movement. We are fortunate.
Laura adds:
Though not everyone has had to pay off student loans, almost everyone who lives a traditional family life has had their financial situation worsened and made more difficult by a culture that has failed to prepare them for living this way. There are many reasons for this lack of preparation. For one, there are many institutions – universities, banks, retailers – who benefit from the promotion of the dual income model.
Jill Farris writes:
All of the wisdom shared here with this young mother is good. I would remind her that there are two ways to free up more money in your life; create more income or stop the outgo.
I encourage this mom to immerse herself in the “University of Frugal Living” and aquire an education which benefits her her entire life. She needs to educate herself in different ways to save money. I mean really learn how to buckle down to brass tacks!
I know of many very large families who have been able to feed, clothe and educate their children against all odds on ridiculously small incomes (even in Canada…we go to church in Canada!). This does take a completely different kind of mindset which goes far beyond the usual idea of couponing here and there.
I recommend the Tightwad Gazette books. They can be found in most libraries. The books are a compilation of newsletters on the subject of frugal living so it is filled with suggestions by readers that aren’t always great ideas but if you read the author’s own research and ideas and apply them you will save money. You will look at the world differently.
By the way, the author finally stopped the newsletters because, as she became well known, she was ridiculed for her “extreme” views on saving money. Yet, she and her husband were the parents of six children, lived in a huge debt free house and drove new debt free vehicles just by applying frugality in many little ways over the years.
My other advice is to pray. The Lord who created the bond between a mother and her baby, between a father and his child knows your heart. You are praying according to His will and He is always pleased to work out the details in a way that astounds us.
Laura writes:
The Tightwad books are excellent. However, before one ventures deep into tightwad territory, one must make inner changes. Living a life of extreme frugality means living differently from many other people, very possibly most of one’s friends and family. Christmastime is one example of the many pressures to conform and to spend wildly. It takes strength of character, courage, and the willingness to go it alone to resist these pressures.
Marianne writes:
I second Jill Farris’ recommendation of the Tightwad Gazette books, but I would like to raise a very respectful question about her statement that “the author [Amy Dacyczyn] finally stopped the newsletters because, as she became well known, she was ridiculed for her ‘extreme’ views on saving money.” My recollection is that Mrs. Dazyczyn wrote, somewhere in her introduction to the set of books, that she stopped writing newsletters because she really felt she had said everything that needed to be said on the subject, at least for the time being. I mention this only because I would not want to believe that someone as spunky and independent as Amy Dacyczyn stopped writing due to ridicule. Again, I raise the question with no disrespect to Jill Farris at all, and I read her comment with interest and appreciation. Thank you for your wonderful website.
John E. writes:
Laura wrote:
“But most importantly, he was a humble man. He did not pity himself (I am not suggesting that you are pitying yourself but that it is a natural inclination in all of us) or lose sight of how much his own stubbornness had misled him. He came to realize that his trials were his salvation. He fell on his knees and thanked God for his island.”
I think your inclusion of the portrayal of humility by Crusoe is key, and I am grateful that you recognize and aren’t afraid to identify the spiritual aspect of the battle against feminism. Two signs of this humility are gratitude as you noted, and also a desire and effort to make restitution for past wrongs. It is one thing to recognize that you made mistakes in the past, but true humility will not allow that you should blame another for mistakes that were caused by you, and it will compel you to do what you honestly can do to restore things to their rightful place.
I realize this may sound disingenuous coming from a man regarding a problem, feminism, that afflicts women in a particular way, but I say this knowing that there are few things I have seen in the world more beautiful than true feminine humility, and few things that have been able to show me my own shortcomings as a man, and few things that would then give me the desire to remedy my shortcomings.
Kimberly writes:
John E.’s comment is brilliant and encouraging. I find that blaming others for my mistakes is a common fault of mine, and I am encouraged to do it by the feminists, too! Well, it’s my fault if I listen. Thank you, John E., for your inspiring words. At every turn, I find God telling me to find true humility.
Sarah Nelson writes: