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 ...
In fact, if anyone out there in FReeperland is dating, it goes without saying that everyone store their baggage right here in the FR Baggage Room first. :-)
Die, thread, die! DIE DIE DIE!!!! *LOL*
If a FReeper man chooses to marry someone like Cindy Sheehan in the first place, that guy has to suck it up and do the best he can. He picked her.
If politics wasn't an issue when they were 'courting,' it's the responsibility of each of the parties in a marriage not to let it be an issue after the wedding.
...initiated by the wife, in many cases, because it's come to her attention that she is married to a jerk and she has to find a way out.
True enough.
I find it amazing how many people seem to feel an urge to protest the statement that the husband is often the injured party in a divorce.
Somehow we always try to find it a way to make it his fault. If he files, it's because he's an asshole and dumping her for a trophy bimbo. If she files, it's because he drove her to it.
Apparently, it is not possible for him to file because she drove him to it.
Though a self-proclaimed liberal, she believes easier divorce has played largely to the advantage of men. 'Socially, it is acceptable for men to divorce these days. They still get invited to everything. If my father had left my mother the way my husband left me, no one would ever have spoken to him again. Divorce has become a licence for men to behave badly,' she said.There is a good point somewhere in the above statement.
Unfortunately, she seems too consumed with her own little life to look at the bigger picture.
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