I like to be in charge.\u00a0 I plan our meals and vacations.\u00a0 I pick out new furniture, new wall colors, and decide where things should go.\u00a0 I pay the bills, teach the children, and make hundreds of small decisions every day without even thinking of asking for help.\u00a0 I\u2019m a girl child of the 1970\u2019s and am a product of my upbringing.<\/p>\n
My father was a Naval officer; my mom was his loving bride.\u00a0 He went to sea; she ran everything.\u00a0 He showed up in our family, that was his job.\u00a0 She planned it all, and he was there to smile in the pictures.\u00a0 It was not their family, but her family in which he was included.\u00a0 It is the family pattern I have unconsciously followed for the whole of my married life.<\/p>\n
I have complained to myself and out loud about the fatigue of being the person in charge of it all.\u00a0 The shear volume of decisions turns my brain to mush, but I keep running down this road, determined that I really can (as the feminists promise) do it all.<\/p>\n
It is my family.\u00a0 I am here for the whole of the day, myself and the children.\u00a0 Our lives go on while he works.\u00a0 We play at the park, go to the zoo, visit friends and family, and lead a very enjoyable life because of all he provides.\u00a0 When my husband at last drags through the door at 7:00PM or later, we rush to greet him not as the head of us all, but as an exotic visitor to the island of us.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
He deserves better than this.\u00a0 He deserves to be given all of the authority which I have taken for my own, to be placed firmly in the center of us all.\u00a0 He is not an extension of all of us.\u00a0 We are a family because of him.\u00a0 Without him, I would not be a wife or a mother and these children simply would not be.<\/p>\n
I need to re-read my Shakespeare: <\/p>\n
\n\n\nThy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,<\/span>
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee, <\/span>
And for thy maintenance commits his body<\/span>
To painful labour both by sea and land,<\/span>
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,<\/span>
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;<\/span>
And craves no other tribute at thy hands<\/span>
But love, fair looks, and true obedience-<\/span>
Too little payment for so great a debt. <\/span>-from The Taming of the Shrew <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I like to be in charge.\u00a0 I plan our meals and vacations.\u00a0 I pick out new furniture, new wall colors, and decide where things should go.\u00a0 I pay the bills, teach the children, and make hundreds of small decisions every day without even thinking of asking for help.\u00a0 I\u2019m a girl child of the 1970\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Taming<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I like to be in charge. I plan our meals and vacations. I pick out new furniture, new wall colors, and decide where things should go. I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/2010\/05\/taming.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taming\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I like to be in charge. I plan our meals and vacations. I pick out new furniture, new wall colors, and decide where things should go. 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