Post by arietty on Jul 16, 2010 0:32:40 GMT -5
Confession Time
Cindy I would like to thank you for your very moving posts in this thread. They are painful for me to read because they bring back all the memories of how hard and judging I was during my Mary Pride phase. I want to apologize to you even though I don't know you and never personally wronged you
When I first read Pride I had 3 children and was 27. I was not homeschooling (kids were pre-school) but was already very isolated. I was in a very abusive marriage and could not pick my friends, I had to rely on getting along somewhat with the wives of the men my husband picked to be friends with. I had no family. I felt lost and scared a lot of the time, failing as a mother because we lived in poverty thanks to my husband. Being in an abusive marriage separated me from other women in the church in so many subtle and not so subtle ways. I was never going to take courses, work, devote myself to crafts, socialize, go to women's retreats, decorate the house.. this all sounds so weird writing it down, but that is what my peers in the church occupied themselves with and I couldn't do any of it because my abuser made it all so, so difficult. (I have touched on some of this in my blog posts).
So.. someone gave me The Way Home. And you know what it told me? That I, stuck at home being ordered around with limited options was actually BETTER than all these people I could not seem to connect with. I was doing GOD'S WILL in being a wife who let her husband be the CEO ("let" being a total fiction) and in making caring for children my entire life. They, those other people I could not find any way to be friends with, were living lives of selfishness. Yes it gave me arrogance, judgment, pride and IDENTITY. Which at that point I was utterly floundering to find. And of course more children and homeschooling gave me a subculture. I actually adored Mary Pride's harsh kick ass attitude. Her writing empowered me, the powerless. It gave me an enemy too, feminist ideas and lifestyles. Now I could be against all that stuff I actually suffered from not being allowed to do. I swallowed the whole thing.
Well.. you know how that turned out if you've read any of my posts. I deeply regret having passed on The Way Home to others, especially to my one friend who ran with it (also in an abusive marriage) and now has double digit kids and failing health.
Oh and 8 kids and decades of breastfeeding later I have several hairs on my chin I ruthlessly pluck out every week. So that bit is just crap!! As was a lot of her biology.
Cindy I would like to thank you for your very moving posts in this thread. They are painful for me to read because they bring back all the memories of how hard and judging I was during my Mary Pride phase. I want to apologize to you even though I don't know you and never personally wronged you
When I first read Pride I had 3 children and was 27. I was not homeschooling (kids were pre-school) but was already very isolated. I was in a very abusive marriage and could not pick my friends, I had to rely on getting along somewhat with the wives of the men my husband picked to be friends with. I had no family. I felt lost and scared a lot of the time, failing as a mother because we lived in poverty thanks to my husband. Being in an abusive marriage separated me from other women in the church in so many subtle and not so subtle ways. I was never going to take courses, work, devote myself to crafts, socialize, go to women's retreats, decorate the house.. this all sounds so weird writing it down, but that is what my peers in the church occupied themselves with and I couldn't do any of it because my abuser made it all so, so difficult. (I have touched on some of this in my blog posts).
So.. someone gave me The Way Home. And you know what it told me? That I, stuck at home being ordered around with limited options was actually BETTER than all these people I could not seem to connect with. I was doing GOD'S WILL in being a wife who let her husband be the CEO ("let" being a total fiction) and in making caring for children my entire life. They, those other people I could not find any way to be friends with, were living lives of selfishness. Yes it gave me arrogance, judgment, pride and IDENTITY. Which at that point I was utterly floundering to find. And of course more children and homeschooling gave me a subculture. I actually adored Mary Pride's harsh kick ass attitude. Her writing empowered me, the powerless. It gave me an enemy too, feminist ideas and lifestyles. Now I could be against all that stuff I actually suffered from not being allowed to do. I swallowed the whole thing.
Well.. you know how that turned out if you've read any of my posts. I deeply regret having passed on The Way Home to others, especially to my one friend who ran with it (also in an abusive marriage) and now has double digit kids and failing health.
Oh and 8 kids and decades of breastfeeding later I have several hairs on my chin I ruthlessly pluck out every week. So that bit is just crap!! As was a lot of her biology.