In the 1980’s when I decided that I wanted kids, I never thought I would have to talk with them about the current topics/trends of the day. The Confederate Flag, racism, bleaching dark skin to look lighter, changing eye color, injecting butts to make them bigger, inserting artificial pecks to make the chest larger, same sex marriage, men changing into women, women changing into men, strippers becoming First Ladies, and the all the variations in between!
Whoa, slow down world! There's just too much happening! My daughters are now grown women and as we sit to talk about life ever so often, I am sometimes left to respond to their inquiries with an "I don't know" statement. What do I tell my daughters about what's happening in 2015? We no longer live in a world where the statement "that's the way it is" has quite the meaning it usually has! The world where my parents and grandparents said, “that’s just the way it is!’ and we believed them, no longer exists. Today all ‘envelopes” are not just being strategically opened, they are being ripped with evidence of scar tissue left in place.
Whoa, slow down world! There's just too much happening! My daughters are now grown women and as we sit to talk about life ever so often, I am sometimes left to respond to their inquiries with an "I don't know" statement. What do I tell my daughters about what's happening in 2015? We no longer live in a world where the statement "that's the way it is" has quite the meaning it usually has! The world where my parents and grandparents said, “that’s just the way it is!’ and we believed them, no longer exists. Today all ‘envelopes” are not just being strategically opened, they are being ripped with evidence of scar tissue left in place.
I paused for a moment the other day to reflect when one of my daughters said, "I probably should have been a stripper,” and found myself not having a response. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to say, I just had to take a moment to think about what I would say. If I am to be honest, for a moment there was a part of me feeling the same way. After all, the life and lifestyle we see today for most women is more appealing than the one we had carved out for ourselves. Today for example, most strippers as we see it, don't have to earn an advanced degree to make a lot of money, don’t have to use academic vocabulary, don't always display ladylike qualities, but are pursued by and marry the wealthiest men. Strippers have become wealthy themselves because of the assistance of their wealthy or hardworking men, live in beautiful homes and neighborhoods, don’t wear clothes from department stores, go on luxury vacations, and do not struggle to pay bills. They have the lives we were told we would have if we went to church, went to school, got an education and worked hard! We who live a life opposite to that of a stripper, are now on the inside looking out and being envious.
How things have changed. Everything I taught my girls about life and living seems to now be biting us in the butt. Going to church, being polite, acting like a lady, going to an institution of higher learning, working hard, etcetera, has not so far brought us the life we planned for. The struggle is real and we are in it!
We are educated and work hard at jobs we received training for that do not pay good salaries. After more than thirty years, I am certainly not financially secure and having a million dollars in the bank will never happen! We are beautiful, polite, women, who by most standards would be “snapped” up by the average man, but we find that we are no longer being chosen by our men as partners and can’t even be their arm candy.
To say we are at a loss trying to figure out what we did wrong is an understatement! Hence, the aspiration of my daughter to think even for a moment, that being a stripper would have been a better choice than the one she made. Were we wrong to make the choices we did?
Our lives seem to constantly be a challenge, always trying to hold our heads above the water. It does not exude the degree of comfort, success, prosperity, or notoriety like that of a stripper. We live a life of that which has become extinct, and I wonder if in the future I will be able to answer any questions about life because in 2015, I am no longer equipped to do so.
SN/BMR
How things have changed. Everything I taught my girls about life and living seems to now be biting us in the butt. Going to church, being polite, acting like a lady, going to an institution of higher learning, working hard, etcetera, has not so far brought us the life we planned for. The struggle is real and we are in it!
We are educated and work hard at jobs we received training for that do not pay good salaries. After more than thirty years, I am certainly not financially secure and having a million dollars in the bank will never happen! We are beautiful, polite, women, who by most standards would be “snapped” up by the average man, but we find that we are no longer being chosen by our men as partners and can’t even be their arm candy.
To say we are at a loss trying to figure out what we did wrong is an understatement! Hence, the aspiration of my daughter to think even for a moment, that being a stripper would have been a better choice than the one she made. Were we wrong to make the choices we did?
Our lives seem to constantly be a challenge, always trying to hold our heads above the water. It does not exude the degree of comfort, success, prosperity, or notoriety like that of a stripper. We live a life of that which has become extinct, and I wonder if in the future I will be able to answer any questions about life because in 2015, I am no longer equipped to do so.
SN/BMR
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