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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She should have used the word amenable, not amiable.
It is, and I will lead it as I want and can do it without any input from her.
As I've said, my life is my choice and I completely agree it isn't for everyone. I look at my parents marriage and my sisters marriage and I am very happy for both of them. But I can't put myself in their place and pretend that it would be what I want.
You found what you wanted, perhaps later in life than you would have preferred but the important thing is that you found it. That's the ideal outcome for everyone. It has made your life complete and given you happiness and contentment and I'm very happy for you. I realize that your advice is based on your hope that I find something like that myself. And I truly appreciate your sentiment. But your dreams aren't mine.
Some married women are just complainers. When they’re not griping about their husbands, they’re griping about their friends, or their siblings, or life in general.
When I was younger, I used to have coffee with a group of ladies once a month. Our children were all pre-school aged. These women took turns complaining about their husbands and their lives. I thought my husband was a great guy and still do. So I had little to say, because I didn’t think like them. It became less fun to hang around these women month after month, Soon I stopped attending their bitching sessions. I was a lot happier!
I suspect that if you start to pay closer attention to your married friends, you’ll find that they are types that enjoy complaining. I also suspect that not ALL of your married friends do this, but the loudest ones are the only ones you’re hearing.
That is Taliban thinking.
That is a straw man.
Got it. I just hate these kinds of threads where men blame all their relationship problems on women because the women they date are educated.
Except to a close confident (everyone needs to vent once in a while), married people should never bad mouth their spouses.
When a marriage goes sour it's usually because one or both members went into the marriage focused on him/herself, or thinking that he/she will be fulfilled in the marriage.
It is.
I disagree. Even 1 Corinthians, Chapter 7 allows for men and women who are not drawn to marriage and having children.
Actual statistics show the opposite.
I didn't get that at all from the article or the comments. What I read was an article by a woman of a certain age expressing regrets at having chosen career over family, with Freepers agreeing and disagreeing with her.
I come from a line of strong women. Women who make sure they are taken care of financially in their future on their own. You just never know what life is going to throw at you.
That’s smart. I would caution, however, against making work the focus of your life. I give this advice to women AND men.
No one looks back at his life from the perspective of old age and wishes he had spent more time at the office.
It’s also important to keep a clear head, realizing that in all those years in college you will not gain one bit of wisdom. Acquire the knowledge and the degrees, but steel yourself against the constant leftist brainwashing that is now inherent in higher education.
Not necessarily work, financial security.
This female bought into the “I can have everything” mantra.
I am female. 79 years old. I have a good high school education & SOME college courses, which I got in night school over 10 years after high school.
I started working in a real job when I was 17, at the Kroger Divisional offices in Madison, Wis. I was RECRUITED by their managers from high school ‘business machines classes’. I could use a calculator quite well, and also a Comptometer, a manual machine which has been replaced by computers. We checked & double checked incoming invoices before paying them.
In later jobs, I checked & verified invoices both incoming & outgoing, as an accounting function normal in those days. One boss told me in the late 60’s that “IF I didn’t get into college accounting classes, he would fire me”. He knew that computers were going to erase ‘comp operators’ & he saw some sort of potential in me.
I attended night classes, 2 nights a week for 4 years. I did not get an accounting degree, but I got enough accounting knowledge to be a good bookkeeper.
While still working full time in major companies, I worked nights, doing bookkeeping for small, often one-man businesses, and honed my skills. I charged ONLY for the hours I worked, NEVER have charged a minimum, and started out at $5 an hour in my billing. Some jobs called for weekly attention—most for monthly.
After one employer, (on the clock with a W-2), accused me of mailing a check for which there were no funds, I walked out. That was the last job I had with a W-2. I had $69 in the bank, and all my monthly bills & mortgage were paid. I owned my own house. I actually knew the vendor he was lying to & I got into the phone call & denied that mailing the check was MY idea. That was the summer of 1980.
I got the word out FAST that I was going to try & be SELF-Employed, and that I needed more clients. Word of mouth only. Wasn’t easy, and I worked many a night into the wee hours. Especially in January, closing books, doing all W-2’s & 1099’s, and end of year payroll reports & sales tax reports. I found work with many SMALL businesses. Largest one had 18 employees on the books. Most were single owners or just one employee. BUT-—ALL businesses need their bookkeeping done. ALL of them.
However, I did build a decent business with as many as 19 clients at one time. I did books in paper ledgers until Nov
of 1991. I bought a computer, software & printer & a friend who understood computers trained me on that Dac East accounting system. I STILL AM USING THAT SYSTEM. To learn the system, I spent days & nights being tutored, and I re-did ALL the paper ledgers for my clients (at NO CHARGE TO THEM) as a learning process. That was 11 months of bookkeeping for I don’t remember how many clients . But I learned that system.
I owned my house, my car, and eventually was able to buy horses, a truck, trailer & compete in a sport called endurance racing. During 1988 season, I was asked to race for National Points in that sport on another person’s horse. I put over 30,000 miles on the truck & trailer & was quite successful. I was out of the county where I lived 61 days that year, but still billed over $63,000 at $18 an hour. That averaged out to about 78 HOURS a week when I was IN TOWN. The rest of that time, I was either driving or riding or camped out at base camps.
I bought another house in a different part of the state & moved there in 1993. I was able to keep 2 clients, who mailed me their data & I mailed data back. One of those clients just retired, and I did work for his company for OVER 45 years. I am still doing work for the other guy & I have done so for over 48 years. I am still using the same DOS computer & accounting system & printer & monitor.
I now live in rural N Nevada on property I own free & clear with my horses & dogs. I have been married 2 times for a total of less than 50 months. I have lived alone, but I have many friends & have riding partners. I have some riders I have competed with for over 33 years.
I have had a decent life, and have seen alot of the USA on horseback.
I never was part of the generations that were told ‘You Can Do It ALL’. I was taught to work hard & do my best.
I did just that. I cannot think of much I would change—except the 2nd marriage. I claim temporary insanity over that. That’s my story & I’m sticking to it.!!
This woman made her choices. Seems she has put herself into a funk. She can find hobbies or other things outside of work to do, but she is not seeming to do so.
It’s been my experience that men are relieved that women have an education and a well paying job. It takes the pressure off of them to be the sole breadwinner. The man I’m speaking of was born in the early 60’s too-long before “soy-boys” were around.
She was brave stepping forward...
When families were larger, it was common (at least among Catholics) for there to be a son desiring to be a Priest or a “spinster” daughter or two. I think this modern phenomenon of never marrying gets more attention because fewer children are being born now, people are living longer, and they’re complaining more.
Really? At the age of 48, I met a great guy who wanted much more from me than I from him, and he was younger.
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