I blogged about Leslie Bennett's The Feminine Mistake a few weeks ago, promising to re-read it and blog about it. I'm still trying to finish Madame Bovary (reading it again because I just read Tom Perrotta's Little Children and it's part of the plot of that book and I decided I needed a refresher) and a few other books but I promise I will get to The Feminine Mistake soon. In the meantime, check out the thoughtful comments to that post. I was going to respond in the comment section but figured I may as well just post it here so people will see it.
The book is very black and white, which is why it inspired such strong feelings in me—as much as I wanted to think she was too much of a hard-liner, the stories she told—while extreme—were too close to home for me to ignore. Granted, I was never destitute—far from it—but I was dependent on a man and trapped in a horrible marriage because of it. I never want to be in that position again.
If nothing else the book points out that as much as people like to think that something could NEVER happen to them, there are no guarantees in life. Women who would swear on their lives that their marriages were perfect are blindsided by their husband announcing one day out of the blue that he wants a divorce. Husbands who seemed healthy as horses drop dead with no warning, or sustain debilitating injuries or illnesses that render them unable to work again. Yes, it’s melodramatic to think about it but it happens. I have witnessed it happening, in fact—and too many times to insist that it could never happen to me.
I know a woman whose husband had an accident and is now—and will forever be—a child, cognitively-speaking. Actually, I personally know two women to whom this exact thing happened—what are the odds of that? But it happened. And divorce horror stories? Each one I hear is worse than the last—women with autistic children whose husbands divorce them and leave them without a home or money and then sue for custody of the kids even though he’s unable to care for them; women who hadn’t had a care in the world for 15, 20 or even 25 years suddenly penniless and without health insurance or a car; women who spent the past 20+ years living in huge houses and hanging out at the country club being reduced to having to stay with friends because she can’t even afford an apartment. I’m not exaggerating one bit, either—these are real people who I know, and I’m just one person who lives in a small-ish community. If I can tick off these stories of women whose lives have been totally shattered because they assumed they would never have to worry about supporting themselves, you know there are thousands—millions—more just like them.
But there’s child support, you say—if my husband left he’d have to pay child support and alimony and I’d get to keep my house. Nope—not always the case—not even close. Or life insurance, if, god forbid, he died. Again, not necessarily true.
The part that freaks me out is that you just never know—for all anyone knows, any given woman will never have to deal with any of this stuff and not being able to support herself would never impact her at all. The thing is that if something does happen, once it’s happened there’s no going back and re-writing history. It’s the same as insurance—if you don’t have it and end up needing it, you’re basically screwed.
The bottom line is that, while the book wouldn’t have made it any easier for me to have worked and put my kids in daycare, I don’t know that I could have read it and still been a SAHM for 8 years. And trust me, I was—and still am, to a large degree—a “Don’t have them if you won’t raise them” kind of person.
No comments:
Post a Comment