Standing Up

Here's the thing:  I am a woman who grew into adulthood from the mid-60's to the late 80's.  If there was ever a crap time to grow up, it was then.  Or now.  Or maybe, sometime in between.  But, I was squarely in the middle of it all.

I listened to the cries of feminists that I wasn't being given a fair shake.  I heard women tell me I COULD, indeed, have it all.  I heard women tell me my body is my own and what I do with it is my choice.

I was told a hugely unfair, gigantically unethical, morbidly outrageous pack of lies.

As a result, I grew to mistrust those in authority, who were mostly men.  I believed I could balance a career and a family and a house with no issues.  I bought into the mantra of being liberated sexually.

And, you know what that got me?  Heartbreak.

Had I been taught the lessons of the 1940's, I would have known that there is no shame in marrying someone you love, who wants to take care of you financially, and staying home to raise your kids.

I would have understood that my college career would lead to a job that would fulfill me until my children were born, when I would fall head-over-heels in love with them and every neuron in my body would fire pain through my system when I had to leave them.

I would have understood that my body is my own, created by God, for the express pleasure of a relationship between me and my future husband.  I wouldn't have been so wreckless in how I chose to express love.  I wouldn't have hurt and been hurt.  I wouldn't have had to cry my eyes out in the shower from the sheer pain of knowing that my husband had to "share" me with all the men in my past.

And the longer I live, the more I know that I was born in the wrong generation.  But, I can't change that. 

So, I have to be a voice for those who grew up with me and after me, who have these same feelings but feel smothered by those who think old-fashioned values somehow demean women.

I have the scars to prove that living any other way isn't living at all.  So I am going to stand up. I'm going to speak my voice.  Just like those women who tried to convince me the world was my oyster and I should fight to own it.

I'm going to hope to influence others to stand up with me and speak the truth in love.

I'm going to do this and so much more because I'm tired of generations of women trying to tell me I'm being gyped. 

Because, I'm not, thank you very much.  I'm living a blessed, abundant, wonderful life as a stay-at-home housewife and Mom.

And, if you have eyes to read and ears to hear, I hope you take this to heart.  Yes, you.

Because the lies have to stop.  And I hope it is my generation that stops them.  And, I hope you stand with me.

And, if you don't?  That's your right.

Just please back away from the megaphone and let me live in peace.