Posted on 11/29/2018 12:54:27 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Every Wednesday, the second hour of my national radio show is the “Male/Female Hour.” A few weeks ago, a woman named Jennifer called in.
For reasons of space, I have somewhat shortened her comments. Every young woman should read them. This is precisely what she said:
“Dennis, I want to get right to it. I’m 50 years old with four college degrees. I was raised by a feminist mother with no father in the home. My mother told me get an education to the maximum level so that you can get out in the world, make a lot of money. And that’s the path I followed. I make adequate money. I don’t make a ton of money. But I do make enough to support my own household.
“I want to tell women in their 20s: Do not follow the path that I followed. You are leading yourself to a life of loneliness. All of your friends will be getting married and having children, and you’re working to compete in the world, and what you’re doing is competing with men. Men don’t like competitors. Men want a partner. It took me until my late 40s to realize this.
“And by the time you have your own household with all your own bills, you can’t get off that track, because now you’ve got to make the money to pay your bills. It’s hard to find a partner in your late 40s to date because you also start losing self-confidence about your looks, your body. It’s not the same as it was in your 20s. You try to do what you can to make your life fulfilling. I have cats and dogs. But it’s lonely when you see your friends having children, going on vacations, planning the lives of their children, and you don’t do anything at night but come home to your cats and dogs. I don’t want other women to do what I have done.”
I asked, “Was it hard for you to make this call?”
She responded: “It was. I want to be anonymous because I don’t want people that I know to really know my true feelings. Because you do act like ‘My career is everything. I love working.’ But it’s a lie on the inside for me. It’s unfortunate. I didn’t realize this until it’s too late. I don’t know if it’s too late. I would like to find somebody to go on vacation with.
“You have other concerns when you get older and you live alone. Who’s going to take you to your medical appointments? If something should happen to you, there’s no other income there to help you. These are things you don’t understand when you’re in your 20s because you don’t think you’ll ever get old and have health problems.
“I’m stuck now because I go to work every day. I smile like I love it, but it’s very painful to not plan a vacation with someone. It’s painful to not have a Thanksgiving dinner with someone. You sit home alone and you do nothing. I avoid my friends now that have children because I have nothing in common with them.
“Somebody asked me the other day, ‘Why did you stay single and never have kids?’ There’s answers: Because I was brainwashed by my mother into this. But it’s hard and it’s shameful to tell people, ‘I don’t know. I ran out of time.’
“There’s not a good answer for it except: ‘I was programmed to get into the workforce, compete with men, and make money.’ Supposedly, that would be a fulfilling life. But I was told that by a feminist mother who was divorced, who hated her husband—my father.
“She tried to steer me on what she thought was the right path, but feminism is a lie. That’s what I want women to know.
“I didn’t realize this until late in life. I want to tell women: Find someone in your 20s. That’s when you’re still very cute. That’s when you’re still amiable to working out problems with someone. It’s harder in your 50s, when you’ve lived alone, to compromise with someone, to have someone in your home and every little thing about them annoys you because you’re so used to being alone. It’s hard to undo that, so don’t do what I did. Find someone in your 20s.”
I said, “I’m thinking of transcribing your call and making it a column.”
“Do that, Dennis. I want to help whoever I can,” she said.
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Because we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Most men WANT a woman with a good paying job, which means a career. It takes the pressure off of them to provide all of the income. Apparently, some men on here are of an older generation who were willing/able to be the sole breadwinner. With a few exceptions, that’s not “doable” anymore.
I’m 51, single, never married, never wanted to be a mother and I am happy too. Oh well.
No, not jealousy-just the age old discrimination against women for “getting old”, which leads a good many men to cheat on their wives...
True. I think some posters here forget that marriage was almost mandatory in earlier generations. Now that people have a choice (especially women), things have changed. There have always been “lifelong bachelors” and “spinster aunts”.
Agree. Both my Grandparents had 9 and 10 children respectively and died MARRIED.
Mrs. Chandler’s maternal Grandparents were devout Catholics who had 14 children and died married.
I know, but I wonder if the stats are old and have not kept up with the doings of the older baby boomers? I have only started seeing this phenomenon about three years ago.
What I have found is that a job is only 40 hours a week, but a marriage is 24/7. Even the bedroom is the office. And the living room. And the car. And the kitchen, oh boy, the kitchen. And the laundry. A married woman is at the office every single minute of the night and day.
Prov 30:15b There are three things that are never satisfied, Four never say, “Enough!”:
16 The grave,
The barren womb,
The earth that is not satisfied with water—
And the fire never says, “Enough!”
I was talking about averages. I'm glad you found somebody to make you happy.
Singleness isn’t necessarily a bad choice for every woman. I met one a few years ago where I get my car worked on. I asked her if she was married; she indicated that she was happily single. She looked to be at least my age (which was upper 40s at the time).
Crying babies can drive me crazy. INNOCENT BABIES!!! So it’s quite possibly good that I am still single, and should either remain single or enter into a childless marriage.
Better reply is, “Certainly I can handle somebody your age, but I am actually ATTRACTED to [your wife’s name].” JM2C.
I'm the eldest of seven. My mom had all of us in a span of ten years. Because of that, I was well acclimated to the sounds and busy-ness of a house full of kids at a very young age.
Perhaps that's one reason I wound up with six kids myself. From the time I was little, I just thought that was the right and proper way to live.
Babies don't cry forever. They quickly grow into darling children. The bonds you build with them are like no other relationships you can have, and are for life.
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