Posted on 01/08/2006 2:24:03 PM PST by Lorianne
It is 25 years since Terry Hekker hailed the housewife, now in a landmark decision the acclaimed author has rejected her past saying she was wrong
Terry Hekker wrote a book in 1980 that made her famous. Ever Since Adam & Eve was a passionate defence of her decision to eschew a career and spend her life as a wife and a mother.
Coming at the end of the Seventies, when feminism was enjoying a renaissance and the career woman was emerging from behind the cooker, Hekker became a celebrated poster child for more old-fashioned values. She wanted her job choice of 'homemaker' to be considered as valid as those of up-and-coming women bankers, bosses and company directors.
Today, Hekker told The Observer, she is planning a follow-up book. Its working, albeit jokey, title is bluntly honest: Disregard First Book. For her life did not turn out as she planned, and she now believes her decision to become a housewife and homemaker should serve as a warning for young American women. 'My anachronistic book was written while I was in a successful marriage that I expected would go on forever. Sadly, it now has little relevance for modern women, except perhaps as a cautionary tale,' Hekker wrote last week as she announced her U-turn.
In a display of spectacular bad taste, Hekker's husband presented her with divorce papers on their 40th wedding anniversary and left her for a younger woman. The divorce left her facing an uncertain financial future, bereft of income and - after spending her adult life bringing up five children - lacking skills to make her attractive in the job market. Despite that, the judge in her divorce case suggested that - at 67 - she go for job training.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Unfortunately, in the cases that I personally know, it is the man who has cheated on the wife. In 1 case, the man didn't cheat, he just started drinking and taking drugs. He ended up in jail.
**I think some DIVORCED male FReepers use this forum to bash women because they are so ineffectual in having a genuine discussion of their problems in real life.... I suspect a lot of men like playing the femme fatale as much as women do.**
It's called the men's movement and they have burrowed into the conservative movement drawing on conservatives' sympathy for the abuse men have sustained under femenazi rule. But these flaming girly-boys are as hateful of women as the femenazis are of men. We need to sideline them from power as we seek reform in family law and social doctrine.
Hear Hear! :~D
I'm just thrilled to see so many good she-type-posters begin to fight the all-too-common hateful anti woman tone on these threads. I'm sure we've all read through them and clicked off them in disgust. I know I've debated them alone and outnumbered more than once. But they don't really represent conservative values at all, and I'm glad to see them now being countered. There's a change brewing here.
'tis nice, isn't it? It wasn't that long ago that a Wimmen R'Evil thread would run into the hundreds, with nary an contrary voice.
Yeah, it's nice to see balance...., not man bashing, simply balance.
[Yeah, it's nice to see balance...., not man bashing, simply balance.]
To be honest, I think at this point in a thread, most men just refresh their screens and click on an Iraq related theme or an "MSM is nuts" theme. Any "chauvinist" who posts now will be like a straggler in a dark forest that the brigade passed through an hour ago on the way to the castle to watch the jousting tournament.
Leftism, strident or otherwise is not exclusive to women. One does wonder why anyone would not get over any youthful ideology and see that life is full of certain complexities, trade-offs and such. Some do see it and are honest, but then when backed into a corner, they fall back on old, tired knee-jerk slogans. It is a sign to me that there was something in their youth that they've not gotten over. To see the folly of ideology is a sign of maturity, IMHO. Although, I recognize the complexities of life I still acknowkedge that there are moral absolutes, and one of them is honoring the vows that one has made.
Yeah,
but I've seen threads to up into the quad digits too....granted, they get hijacked and meander, but there's always the newbie who starts the fracas up all over again ;)
It's hypocritical. As long as things are going well that's fine. Then something goes wrong and oh the books come out. I wouldn't read it.
Well even if you plan on being a wife and mother full time, you definately should get some sort of skills or training to provide if you need to. As this article says, way down near the bottom... its not only if your husband should leave.. but he could also die.
I know I would want my daughters to have skills that allowed them earn income.. even if they planned on becoming a full time housewife.
Who's going to hire her?
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
Neither did mine. BFD.
b. Women wounded by divorce.
to that, you can add:
c. Younger men who have seen their fair share of crap marriages (liberal and conservative, secular and christian, etc) and won't be going anywhere near that particular trainwreck, thankyouverymuch.
Well I fall into
D. have see the damage divorce not only does to women and men, but to the children who get cought in the middle of their parents determination to retrograde to 2 year olds at a time when their kids need them most first hand... and have decided unabashedly and without apology, that not only will we marry, we will not have the marriages our parents did, and we will raise our children and never put them through that.
"For her life did not turn out as she planned,
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
Neither did mine. BFD.
If it has already crossed your mind, then all I can say is "forewarned is forearmed". :[
The only thing this shows is that we need to quit listening to people who haven't put in the experience that tests their suppositions.
The only people we should listen to on how to stay married are those that do...like the couple that were married for 70+years.
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