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Old Wives' Tales: Or, Why We Should All Just Give Up Now
New York, 12:01 AM
Sat Nov 28
29 posts in the last 24 hours
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Old Wives' Tales: Or, Why We Should All Just Give Up Now |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
10/22/09
They both rock, and have never once suggested feminism sold them a pup, or that I should just keel over now. They ground me and keep me sane, but also give comfort and support when I need it.
What women like Gottleib seem to not get is that, yes, shit will go wrong in your life, because that is what happens. Her pronouncements about relationships going wrong and life not quite working out how you thought it would are, how do I say this, stating the bleeding freaking obvious. Only a blind rabbit that has been kept underground forever and fed a diet of happy endings wouldn't realise that life doesn't always work out the way you think it will. It's the tag line on a million romantic movie posters, for god's sake. #arrogance
10/22/09
10/22/09
"If you're of this age group and you have been lucky in life. . . don't think that it's because you are somehow more reasonable, loveable, worthy, etc. than the ones who lost out: you're not."
I don't think that - I think that I was lucky to grow up with a questioning curiosity, a healthy mistrust of authority and a lot of empathy for people less fortunate than I was, which politicized me at an early age. There is no way one could grow up in our generation and not be aware of the huge suffering caused by our rapacious capitalism around the world; once you are aware of it (as I became, at 17 or so), if you don't start questioning the system, you're either selfish or stupid. In the words of Frank Zappa: "If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it."
10/21/09
10/22/09
10/21/09
IMHO, that's why there are always seemingly insurmountable problems with those choices.
And no one seems to want to talk about that part. #arrogance
10/21/09
cuz if not, you know, you're probably just bitter.
signed,
Society. #arrogance
10/21/09
10/21/09
10/21/09
Life ebbs and flows. Having choices is messy, but I'll take those choices and the ability to shape my own life over what you see happen to millions of people all over world who, through lack of opportunities, poverty, war, class, gender, or race, don't have any.
I mean, if you're surprised by the fact that life is sometimes disappointing, and sometimes you have regrets, and everything isn't a wonderful fairytale every second...then you missed something more than just being idealistic. You missed reality.
We're all going to get old and die. And you're going to be faced with choices and difficulties at every stage along the way. There's no magic wand that will make life awesome every second you live it. I think expecting that is a much larger problem than not "having it all". Which is different for each person anyway.
And frankly, if you spend all your time on "should haves" and regret, it's no wonder you feel disillusioned. Plus, life is not over after 40. My mother just turned 60, is going back to school, and just got her real estate license. If these women really do have all the opportunities, educations, and intelligence they say they do, then they're not nearly as stuck as someone who doesn't. #arrogance
10/21/09
I read Lori Gottlieb's anorexia book when it first came out, and if you learn nothing else about her, you learn that she has some very SERIOUS FAMILY ISSUES and some very TOXIC PARENTS.
I can't believe anyone would even set her up and pay her to dispense life advice of any kind when she has had the hideously painful parenting/life experience that she seems to have had.
Like getting soda pop at a mushroom farm.
Like getting hot, molten lava out of the gumball machine.
Help me out here. #arrogance
10/21/09
Dignity lessons from Levi Johnston?
Twitter lessons from Megan McCain? #arrogance
10/21/09
I think, as women, we CAN have it all, just perhaps not all at the same time.
I am currently staying at home with my infant and having a blast (most of the time, when I am not despairing that I am ruining her with my ineptitude). I took last year off to finish an MA program (and that's when I got knocked up). So I have pretty much resigned myself that these are my "developmental" years (in my field, as a mom) and that I will go back to my career in good time.
I am lucky to have a supportive partner who makes a good living, but I know other moms whose partners don't make much but they stay at home for a while anyway, and are happy being in a reduced economic circumstance if that means time to be a SAHM.
I think the "cautionary matrons" are upset they didn't/couldn't have it all, all at once. (not grammatical, I know) But what they don't get is there are simply not enough hours in the day to do everything, nor do we humans have enough energy to do it all. C'mon, guys may write about being fathers, but do they agonize about how they should stay at home? Nope! If they make that choice, fine, but to me men seem far less likely to beat themselves up over choices like this the way women do. Maybe we should take a cue from that.
Please don't fling any anger my way too hard. :-) #arrogance
10/21/09
I think, as women, we CAN have it all, just perhaps not all at the same time.
I am currently staying at home with my infant and having a blast (most of the time, when I am not despairing that I am ruining her with my ineptitude). I took last year off to finish an MA program (and that's when I got knocked up). So I have pretty much resigned myself that these are my "developmental" years (in my field, as a mom) and that I will go back to my career in good time.
I am lucky to have a supportive partner who makes a good living, but I know other moms whose partners don't make much but they stay at home for a while anyway, and are happy being in a reduced economic circumstance if that means time to be a SAHM.
I think the "cautionary matrons" are upset they didn't/couldn't have it all, all at once. (not grammatical, I know) But what they don't get is there are simply not enough hours in the day to do everything, nor do we humans have enough energy to do it all. C'mon, guys may write about being fathers, but do they agonize about how they should stay at home? Nope! If they make that choice, fine, but to me men seem far less likely to beat themselves up over choices like this the way women do. Maybe we should take a cue from that.
Please don't fling any anger my way too hard. :-) #arrogance
10/21/09
Really? I doubt that. Men just do it differently - I bet there isn't a bartender alive who hasn't spent many nights listening to men moaning about their lives. #arrogance
10/21/09
To believe you can have everything is just greedy and foolish. To believe you can live a good life is a prophecy you can fulfill, and we all balance our priorities and make choices based on what we value. Having children can be fulfilling, so can working in a career you love, forming bonds with friends, participating in your community, striving to reach lofty goals, going back to school, etc.
The problem to me seems to be expectations that were never tempered - just as people accuse Generation Y of feeling entitled to things they haven't yet earned, it would seem Generation X and the Baby Boomers probably suffered from the same delusions of grandeur. #arrogance
10/21/09
No one likes being condescended to or getting unsolicited advice or told their experience means nothing. So it seems like the best approach is to keep one's thoughts to oneself. Except I do think we culturally sell youngsters a load of crap, expectation-wise, and we need to find a way to prepare them for reality. I think this is especially true for young women, who often think their marriage and career will be free of all those ugly pitfalls older women have experienced. I have a lot of friends right now tasting bitter disillusionment in their 30's and they're starting to give those cautionary lectures. Maybe some of this is inevitable in life, but I also think much of it is because we're raised with a vision of equality and fairness that our real life adult patterns haven't caught up to yet. #arrogance
10/21/09
10/21/09
10/21/09
10/21/09
10/21/09
The other is that it's a thing that you do to yourself. We only are what we habitually do.
It's sometimes an incendiary thing to say, because I'll say it and people think that I think it's easy, when I don't--I just think it's simple. The way that you stop being depressed is: stop being depressed. #arrogance
10/21/09
10/21/09
How do you envision a difference in the way that I treat someone who is depressed and someone whom I've written off? #arrogance
10/21/09
I do apologize for using the phrase "write someone off", because those were my own words, not yours. I simply chose them because it sounded to me like you were saying that you would not sympathize with a depressed person who did not seem to be making an effort to resolve the situation, and the people I knew during my period of medicated madness who weren't sympathetic were also the ones who disappeared from my life. I don't really blame them as I was admittedly difficult to tolerate, but still, their reaction was to basically write me off as a lost cause as my process of recovery was not apparent enough to them and not going fast enough for their tastes. #arrogance
10/22/09
10/22/09
10/21/09
Everyone needs to realize that happiness is self-generated and it really helps to stay away from toxic miserable people. #arrogance
10/21/09
We can trade off--you can be the "Bitter Crone" one day, then I'll take over. Then you can be "the Wise Crone" and I'll take over that, and back around again!
Also? You wanna go buy some poison apples with me? #arrogance
10/21/09
Yes. A thousand times YES. #arrogance
10/21/09
Over 35 and single? Whoa! You must be terrified you'll never find anyone.
Oh yes, of course.
Because you base your views on this demographic on "Cougartown." #arrogance
10/21/09
10/21/09
"Yep - not picking up for that one." #arrogance
10/21/09
Have a few really good friends who love you and you love back - and find a hobby you're passionate about to take you out of yourself for several hours per week (I'm a potter on the weekends). #arrogance
10/21/09
10/21/09
Afterwards, let's grab a Premarin-tini. #arrogance
10/21/09
10/21/09
Indeed.
It may not LOOK like the male cliche: trucking off with a younger woman, buying a Harley, getting an earring, trying to get the band back together, shopping for hoodies at American Eagle.
But thematically? It's the same: Did I make the right choices? If not, what can I do to change them? Why am I so dissatisfied? Will I ever be HAPPY? Christ, what if it gets WORSE?
Same, same, same. Only diff. is that men are authorized (and more able) to start Family 2.0 in their late40s and beyond, and women, typically, don't go bald.
Look at the work of these writers--even back in their 20s. They were NEVER happy. Hell, they're a Virtual Cottage Industry of Mope.
That they're adjusting their carping to age-related themes seems typical. I find it somewhat refreshing--at least women can voice midlife malaise--and something of a cautionary tale.
My anxiety is bound up in the physical aspects of aging. Maybe that would change if I weren't in a relationship. Or if my work sitch changed and I became old-n-unemployable. I dunno.
What I do know is that we're in the Era of "Is That All There Is?" and as a writer, I don't care to join the chorus. I'd rather keep my own counsel on this stuff that an even MORE anxiety around female aging. We never, ever, ever, ever get a break.
God forbid we're subjected to Caitlin Flanagan if *she* gets dumped. Oy. #arrogance
10/21/09
Indeed.
It may not LOOK like the male cliche: trucking off with a younger woman, buying a Harley, getting an earring, trying to get the band back together, shopping for hoodies at American Eagle.
But thematically? It's the same: Did I make the right choices? If not, what can I do to change them? Why am I so dissatisfied? Will I ever be HAPPY? Christ, what if it gets WORSE?
Same, same, same. Only diff. is that men are authorized (and more able) to start Family 2.0 in their late40s and beyond, and women, typically, don't go bald.
Look at the work of these writers--even back in their 20s. They were NEVER happy. Hell, they're a Virtual Cottage Industry of Mope.
That they're adjusting their carping to age-related themes seems typical. I find it somewhat refreshing--at least women can voice midlife malaise--and something of a cautionary tale.
My anxiety is bound up in the physical aspects of aging. Maybe that would change if I weren't in a relationship. Or if my work sitch changed and I became old-n-unemployable. I dunno.
What I do know is that we're in the Era of "Is That All There Is?" and as a writer, I don't care to join the chorus. I'd rather keep my own counsel on this stuff that an even MORE anxiety around female aging. We never, ever, ever, ever get a break.
God forbid we're subjected to Caitlin Flanagan if *she* gets dumped. Oy. #arrogance
10/21/09