The answer to that question I posed....
After six months of intense, non-scientific, non-documented, non-relevant to anyone else but myself research on that topic, I have reached the conclusion that the answer is NO.
I have not found a man who is struggling with family/career. There are men struggling with providing for a family, and in this economy, even struggling just to provide for themselves, but none seem to carry around the guilt and stress that women drag around on a daily basis. Nearly every woman I know wakes up every day and yokes herself to a struggle about her appearance and her worth as a person. She may be worried about work, or her kids, her significant other or lack thereof, or her weight, but whatever it is, the average middle-aged American woman is very often worried. And to exacerbate it, she berates herself for wasting time worrying!
I see no other way around it except to just STOP. STOP it! You're not fat. You're not a terrible mother. You're not a failure. You are, in fact, good enough. Better even. Can't keep all the balls in the air? No one can - not all the time! And why is it that men seem to understand this, but we don't? I think it might be because we think there is some trick to understanding. There's not. This is one thing our gender needs to learn from the guys.
Princess Caroline once said, "i think women understand the gravity of life because they give it." I think worrying and laboring over the well being of others is innate with most women for the simple fact that they do bring forth life and even those who never raise a child are nurturers by nature. It's just part of our wiring to put others before ourselves (for the most part anyway). That is enough to give any woman the feeling of being constantly torn in half. That inner struggle pretty much has you waking up to two options on any given day: is today my day to be selfish and focus more on me?....OR..... Am I going to fall in line with what I'm compelled to do, AND what "society" expects of me by doing those things that "selfless" mothers/nurturers do?? The pressures from within and the pressures from 'without' would most certainly leave any normal person chasing themselves in circles over this never ending dilema. Is it no wonder men have little to no issue with this "ISSUE". They grow up all too well aware it is simply mom's duty to worry and so the torch is passed as he becomes a man and watches his wife become a mother. Believe this....there never seems to be much for you to worry about as long as you're partnered up with someone who is worried, obligated and diligent enough for the both of you.
ReplyDelete@gilmour11: EXACTLY. Just... exactly! Thank you!
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