I'm sorry, Victoria, but where did you see contempt??
Now my other daughter -- we always called her Practical Patty -- probably will have children someday. I've kind of given Patty short shrift in talking about all this. She was the sort of daughter who never gave any trouble and was more interested in doing well in band and glee club than in thinking about all the *heavy* things. Her big dreams were just of having a nice little job someday, then getting married to a decent sort of guy, having a nice house and, yeah, children. So all this won't affect Patty as much as it will Edyie, or as much as it would have affected me if I'd have lived to see it all come to fruition. To Patty's mind, it isn't "sensible" to worry about things like this.
So Patty will have children, and I can only hope that at least their lives will be comfortable, if they can't be free. Maybe they'll be well-fed, well-cared-for little citizens. And maybe I should hope they turn out to be the kind of people who don't think or question too much. Because if they're the other kind -- like me or Edyie -- their lives will be miserable.
There is no contempt in this. She is making a point in this letter. Okay, that point was not about staying home and raising children. But it also was not against it.
Your post:But Pat will have children… and oh my God! Let's hope they are at least like their aunt Edyie please Lord, don't let them be like their mother. ". . . I hope they'll be as stubborn and freethinking as their Aunt Edyie. Let their lives be worth something deep and true, not just the 'worth' of good livestock or laborers."
The underlined are your words, not hers.
But damnit, if there are grandbabies, I hope they'll be as stubborn and freethinking as their Aunt Edyie, and that they'll find a better way of fighting for freedom than their Grandma Deb ever could. Let their lives be worth something deep and true, not just the "worth" of good livestock or laborers. If they fight, maybe they won't live happily or long. But if they have to live at all, I hope those little kids live bravely, in spite of all the odds against them.
Being stubborn and freethinking does not exclude being a nurturing mother and wife.
I read this, then re-read it. Yes, she is feeling some defeat, in her politics. She is about to die. She did not see the freedom that we should have in this country today draw any closer despite working faithfully to be true to that goal.
She wishes for others to not give up or give in, and if we do, then the picture of slavery she paint WILL be a reality.
The comments she makes concerning our freedoms are true. It is not whining, Saber,it is fact. The average person works the first four months of his life to pay taxes. How is that not slavery? The government is not getting smaller and is not planning to. The very opposite is true. Every day citizens are breaking laws without even realizing it. Heaven forbid you drive through some area's without buckling your seat belt or without your 8 year old in a carseat because she is under a certain weight.
Teachers and doctors ask intrusive questions of children on the incentive of government. Schools teach lies and lower standards not accidentally, but with strong intents and definite goals in mind.
I'm 53 years old. That isn't old. I might have had another 30 years, if one little cell hadn't decided to start mutating out of control a while back. But 53 is old enough to have lived a good life. It's long enough to have become a full person, without all those "who am I's" and "what do I want to do with my life's" that make youth so over-rated.
It's enough time to have loved -- both in the frantic, desperate way of being young, and in the comfortable way of being an adult. That's been an amazing, and a very happy, transition.
But I don't want to talk about love. I want to talk about freedom.
Yes, we are very blessed to live in a country that is better than any other in the world. But it is no longer all it could be or should be. If we no longer care about that, then we are defeated. But not for long. Even if this generation, and the next, continues to enslave "we, the people", I have no doubt that others will rebel again, when they've had enough. Bodies die and decay, and sometimes the passion for true freedom gets clouded and dull, but it will always burst back into flames in men's hearts, when they've finally had enough. Freedom can not be defeated.
The underlined are your words, not hers.
That's correct. Only the ones under quotation marks are hers. If you notice carefully the quotation mark starts, here:
". . . I hope they'll be as stubborn and freethinking as their Aunt Edyie. Let their lives be worth something deep and true, not just the 'worth' of good livestock or laborers."
So the statement before that, is mine:
But Pat will have children… and oh my God! Let's hope they are at least like their aunt Edyie please Lord, don't let them be like their mother.
Yes, IMO there is an underlying contempt against her daughter Pat. Pat is mentioned half way down the article as opposed to Edyie "I have two daughters, you know. They're both in their early 20s right now. The youngest one, Edyie, was always a dreamer." From that moment on, she only talks about Edyie and her dreams and aspirations. As I was reading the article I asked myself… how about the other daughter, didn't she say she had two daughters?
Later in the article half way down to the end, she mentioned Pat in this context:
Now my other daughter -- we always called her Practical Patty -- probably will have children someday. I've kind of given Patty short shrift in talking about all this. She was the sort of daughter who never gave any trouble and was more interested in doing well in band and glee club than in thinking about all the *heavy* things. Her big dreams were just of having a nice little job someday, then getting married to a decent sort of guy, having a nice house and, yeah, children. So all this won't affect Patty as much as it will Edyie, or as much as it would have affected me if I'd have lived to see it all come to fruition. To Patty's mind, it isn't "sensible" to worry about things like this.
This is where we differ… I see not only a condescending attitude toward the one who wants an ordinary life, but I also see sarcasm as well.
So Patty will have children, and I can only hope that at least their lives will be comfortable, if they can't be free. Maybe they'll be well-fed, well-cared-for little citizens. And maybe I should hope they turn out to be the kind of people who don't think or question too much. Because if they're the other kind -- like me or Edyie -- their lives will be miserable.
Again there is sarcasm and condescension in that statement. We are Free, there hasn't been slavery in this country since the time of Abraham Lincoln. Who is she referring to when she said that, maybe they'd be well fed, well cared-for little citizens? Does she mean the government? I thought she wanted "freedom" from THEM.
Being stubborn and freethinking does not exclude being a nurturing mother and wife.
From Deb's words:
But I don't want to talk about love. I want to talk about freedom.
Well, I guess that means I *do* want to talk about love. Because I love freedom more than I love anything. Really, more than I ever loved my husband. Even more than I love my kids
I have to say it again. I love freedom more than I love anything. More than I ever loved anything. And that's what makes the thought of dying so bitter, and at the same time, so welcome.
In this Country we have the freedom to do what we want and to become what we want, ask Rush Limbaugh, Bill Gates, the commie Ted Turner and his commie wife Jane Fonda, ask anyone who made it, and they will tell you so.
Yes, I don't agree with all those government programs and all their rules and regulations and the PC impositions that go along with it. However, to say that we are slaves is not a fact.
I respect your opinion and I just hope you respect mine.