I am an introvert. This is something I know, acknowledge and accept. Do I want to be an introvert? No I think that everyone who struggles with an introverted personality is envious of the people who are not introverted. The ones who go to a party without 3 panic attacks and 5 pep talks to themselves. I am not that person. I wish I was that person, but I have accepted that I will never be that person. I push past my introversion enough to get things done and I've gotten better at it but it is the most exhausting thing on the damn planet.
My horrifying social anxiety is why I was so excited when I stumbled across Glennon Doyle's "Love Warrior". In some underlying way I think she might actually be partially responsible for me being so honest in this blog. Thank you Glennon.
To anyone with massive social anxiety, anxiety of any kind, marital problems etc that read "Love Warrior" you would understand why I was so excited when I found out she had written another book. To be honest at the end of "Love Warrior" I thought Glennon and her husband were going to make it. I had no idea she was still struggling so much with her marriage, though I completely understand why she would be and that struggle does not make her any less of a warrior in my mind.
Listening to "Untamed" the past couple weeks has reminded me again why I love Glennon's writing. We are warriors. Women are this amazing often unseen force. Watching the news on the pandemic recently I couldn't help but smile and pump my fist in the air when I saw a picture of the leaders of 5 or 6 countries that have the pandemic most under control (I did not check sources so I don't know how accurate that is). The post asked what all these countries had in common...Their leaders were women.
Why do we put people in a box? I loved Glennon bringing up the fact not only that we put women and girls in a box at a certain age, but that we put men and boys in boxes too….
Why is it that when we meet a woman of a certain age our first question is about whether or not she has kids. Why is our first question to men what they do for a living?
I know we like to think of ourselves as progressive and that men and women’s roles can be interchanged...but my question to you is. How many women do you know that have openly admitted they don’t want children, how many stay at home fathers do you know?
I will never forget a comment one client made to me and my FEMALE boss. “Oh you should be home making dinner every night”....I will never forget that comment. Simply because I am female, that means I should be cooking, cleaning and raising babies right?
I do cook, I do clean, I do raise my baby...but so does my husband. I am successful, I have a career, I am able to have my dream job….because my husband stays home with our son. I have a little boy that will be raised knowing that men do not have one set role and I am eternally grateful for that. My son has played with dolls, being “daddy” the way his daddy is with him. I am raising a future amazing father if that is what he chooses, or an amazing uncle because he knows what it’s like to have an amazing man in his life.
To be honest I think my son benefits immensely from having his father around constantly instead of me, they wrestle, they run, they build things together. His dad teaches him the video games he plays, and as a result, my four year old son has logic and puzzle solving skills that sometimes are greater than my own. He is loved, he is cared for, he is raised.
Glennon is right, we put people in boxes and it’s harmful. Not every girl will be girly. I was the opposite of girly for a long time, I didn’t like brushing my hair, I hated wearing skirts, it wasn’t my thing. I have grown out of that but I was given the space to grow out of that. My mom told me to brush my hair and made me wear a skirt to church but other than that she let me be me. She bought me sweatpants because that’s what I wanted to wear. Said nothing snarky when I still wanted my room painted pink. I grew up playing with leggos and lincoln logs, and dolls. I was raised as a girl, but I was never told that I had to stay home and raise the babies, I was told I could be anything I wanted to be.
I am fortunate, I was raised in an atmosphere allowing for me to be any version of myself I wanted to be. Whether my attitude was I want 21 kids or when I was a teenager and said I wanted none. All my mom said was you’ll probably change your mind. But she never said me not having kids wasn’t okay and for that I am forever grateful. I have a kid, and I 100% do not regret that, in fact I want another one. Sometimes I feel like my mom is hinting that she wants another grandchild to play with because she loves being grandma and she’s amazing at it, but she has never and I mean never, brought it up, or asked me when I plan to have another child. She does not judge me based solely on my children. She asks me how things are, how work is, how my husband and son are and lets me take it from there. For a few months after my husband was laid off she or my father would occasionally ask or make small comments about him not working, but they stopped, they see that I am fine, that I may be the one making the money, but he still takes care of me. They see it in the way he asks my dad if they can stop and get me coffee after running an errand when we are visiting because I didn’t sleep well. They see it in the way he rubs my back and always asks if he can get me anything when he goes to the kitchen for himself.
My point in all of this is, we need to be extremely conscious of how we raise our babies. What we teach them about themselves. I was taught that I could be anything, I watched my dad make dinner every night because he loves cooking and my mom hates it. I watched my mom and sister and I clean the house because my dad was working, but you know what I also saw, I saw my dad sneakily do chores when my mom was out to take the burden off her. I saw him buy her flowers at the grocery store just for the hell of it and leave her love notes on her computer every morning. I saw him do all of these things because he was raised to be kind and loving and caring.
My husband does the things he does because he was raised to be kind and loving and caring.
That is what we need to be teaching our kids. Not that boys don’t cry or that girls should stay home. Who cares about that. Boys and girls can cook and clean and raise babies and work and love and live. Each family decides how that balance works for themselves. Our job as parents is to raise kids who know that, kids who don’t put anyone in a box regardless of their gender, their race, their anything. Kids who are kind and loving and caring.
“Untamed” by Glennon Doyle Melton
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Untamed/rQumDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
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