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Optimistic complaints | page 1, 2
Another of my complaints is that I work at home in a nice residential neighborhood, and I am surrounded by empty houses. It is me, lonely dogs and old people all day long. A few days ago, a man complained to me (see, it goes both ways) that feminism had made a mistake in trying to make women exactly like men. He meant to say, I think, that there are fundamental differences between the genders and these are significant things. Leaving aside the fact that feminism was never about making women and men the same, I agree. Many times while rearing children I wanted to believe that boys and girls were exactly alike, predictably alike, but it isn't true. I think we're all marked by a lot of things by the time we're born -- physical, psychic and elusively mystical things -- and gender is one. It makes for certain predictions. Boys like to carry around long, stiff objects and poke, stab and pretend to shoot projectiles at people with them. Girls hide things in dark places, like drawers and boxes and mother's purse. Sallie Tisdale Sallie Tisdale's column appears on the Mothers Who Think site every other Thursday.
Love Sallie Tisdale? Read more at BARNES & NOBLE
For the most part, though, boys and girls are a lot alike, especially to parents. Given time and space, they will all run wildly without purpose and suddenly fall down in a heap. They will climb, trip over and crawl under things before they go around. Kids all eat large quantities of food, sleep vast lengths of time in filthy bedrooms while surrounded by stuffed animals, avoid brushing their teeth, stink and refuse to bathe, then stand under a shower and use up all the hot water. They will run across the street without looking. They keep some secrets and spill others, kiss you when you least expect it, are afraid of the dark and ghosts, listen to music you don't like, wonder about God. Kids break bones, windows and good china plates, steal something at least once, and fight with their siblings sometimes. One of the great secrets of rearing children is that the long years that sometimes seem to be composed solely of nights without sleep and that seem to go on forever and ever are over very quickly. Rearing children is a time-limited commitment, while childlessness does last forever. After more than 21 years, I am coming around that last bend in the twisting tunnel and getting a glimpse of light -- lots of light, space, time. Lots of opportunity for travel, recreation, anything I want. I find I don't want it any more than I did before; my years with children have marked me as much as I've marked them. I've learned to appreciate stuffed animals, ghosts, plastic plates and hot water more than I thought I could. Plain, ordinary child-rearing has been a gift to me. It is a day-to-day struggle with uncivilized beauty, filled with dirty floors and uncouth noise. Why would anyone choose to do this? There are no words.
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