Thank you Feminism… if only you knew

Who knows what “feminism” really is? We vilify the movement as the impetus for birth control and abortion, yet we benefit from the doors its pioneers busted down for us. We have fabulous college degrees and didn’t even have to consider gender when choosing our professions.

So, today I would like to thank feminism for what I see as a “professionalizing of the home front.” I am a better, more capable, more fulfilled mother and wife then I ever could have been in the pre-feminism days. I am getting better at what I do in our home because I have learned that it is seriously important work. The feminists who went before me and women like my mother who served 24 years as a Naval officer gave me all the options of which I could ever dream. And I have chosen this — to be a homemaker. A domestic engineer. An apron-wearing, crayon-using mommy. I wield my hunger for books and my Excel spreadsheets in the home: reading about faith and recipes and homeschooling and organizing my chores into manageable chunks on a pretty colored spreadsheet. I can maintain our home and our spirits in only this way. This “women’s work” is important and deserves the same professional management as I gave my work outside the home as an Army intelligence officer.

Nonetheless, I suspect that if I had been placed in this same role sixty years ago my struggle would have been much greater. Without the current professional options available to women today, I think I would fall prey to the temptation of self-pity and a feeling of being trapped. Maybe it sounds strange to say that I am grateful for the options of which I am choosing not to take advantage, or maybe you understand exactly what I mean. Whatever the case, I just can’t help but smile when I think of Gloria Steinham watching me now. What a blessing to be living in the age in which we were placed, truly!