Nurturing side

Proms are right around the corner. Victoria mentioned that she will be going next year and of course, I started making mental preparations; we need a dress, mani & pedi, hair appointment, maybe a few tanning sessions, not that she needs it, and then tickets.

I stopped for a moment and I asked her, who pays for the ticket?

I had been to prom twice. Once to Luis’ prom and mine, in both occasions we had been each others date. I can’t remember who paid for what, so I was curious to find out how the Millenials handled this issue.

She said she really wasn’t sure, but if it was such an issue, she would pay for her own ticket. Thank you very much.

That’s my girl! Strong, independent and she makes her own way! (Two snaps up in a circle!!)

She left for school and I got ready to write on an entirely different subject and I couldn’t concentrate, finally I let my mind wander, not too long mind you, lest it wanders away forever.
I kept going back to the conversation with Victoria. I told myself that she was independent and strong and able to stand on her own two feet and needed nothing and no one to make it in this world.

The voice in my head began suddenly took on another tone and I was startled.
Honestly, I was more than startled, I was horrified; I sound just like my mother.

Not that there is anything wrong with being like my mother. I didn’t think that I was like that.
My mom is the quintessential Rosie the riveter. She is strong and she is a hard worker and she does not need a man to give her anything. Shove your home life idea because she will be out there, every day working hard and providing for her home. Remember that song, “that little frail girl can do more than a man can do”. That is my mother.

She pushed away anything that was domestic, hiring a maid for the household and enrolled us in the best schools. When my dad could not decide what he loved more if her or the bottle, she paid him off for his time in the marriage and escorted him to the door and never looked back. There was a lot more to her story with him, but suffice it to say she felt she had been able to buy her freedom.
Like my mom, my aunts are all very strong women. They knew how to work hard, how to achieve and how to be successful. They worked two and three jobs and they have even changed their brain circuitry away from the usual circles of women, to become problem solvers and linear thinkers.

Ask any of us. You have a problem? Let me help you fix it…. PLEASE!!!!!! I know so many things, I am so well trained to deal with these things, I can solve this problem for you…

We don’t actually come out and say that, but we might as well. We take over the problem and get involved , too involved.

As the next generation from the Rosies, we are out to proof ourselves just as hard workers as the previous generations and as good providers, problem solvers and go getters. We are hard.
But hold on a minute, I don’t want to be hard.

I can be all of those things without being hard. I can be strong and not hard. I can be resilient and not tough. I can be warm and loving and independent and not isolated, bitchy and cold.

Somewhere in our brains, we got it all mixed up.

The strength of a woman doesn’t come from doing everything a man can do. It comes from knowing the things that only she can do.

Yes, men and women can do anything that the opposite sex can do. Absolutely, very true, I will not refute it.

But that is if your personality is suited for it.

There is nothing worse than a man trying to be nurturing when he is not feeling it. Or a woman trying to come off as a hard-ass, when you know, that she is crying inside.

Because of the lessons that the women in my life had learnt, I was not around very nurturing women while growing up. So I had no idea how much strength derives from a woman’s love and a woman’s tenderness. How her quiet ways and indomitable faith makes her as powerful as the most impressive show of brute strength.

We thought that by being tough and strong we showed men we could be just like them. Yea!!!!
Power and strength manifest itself in different ways. Just like a tornado can rip off a tree from the roots, so can the soft wind germinate the next season’s flowers. The ten foot wave that swallows the shore is the same water that slowly erodes the rock.

Point? Fine, I will draw you a picture.

There is beauty and power in being soft, resilient and nurturing.

Women nowadays have a hard time dealing with that. Women, who still want to be cared for and loved, feel uneasy about showing these needs because they feel vulnerable. We chastise ourselves for feeling any weakness and beat our daughters when they do not show themselves as completely self assured.

We make it a point to make our boys tough, don’t cry, boys don’t cry. And girls cry but they also get up and kick the boy’s butt, don’t let him do that to you.

Being a bitch is marketed as a commendable trait and more and more you see marriages and relationships deteriorate when women take on this attitude . “Be a bitch and he will love you more”. Skinny bitch, pretty bitch, apparently being a bitch is something desirable.

As with every good thing that was taken to an extreme, a woman’s rejection of her innate nurturing side has had devastating consequences.

It is not uncommon for a mother to leave her child with a grandparent, to not feel a bond with it, to not nurture it and sometimes even mistreat it.

Don’t fly off the handle, I am not saying that this is the reason why these things happen, but follow me for just a moment.
If my mother left the house to go to work in the morning and didn’t return until late in the afternoon and I came home to an empty house and no one was there, or looked at my homework or even ate with me or showed that they cared one bean about me. Chances are that when I grow up, I will be the same way.

In relationships, in parenting, in everything.

Then this becomes ok to you, because, well your parents did this to you, and you are still here, so it must be ok, right? WRONG. Just because your parents made the mistake they did, it doesn’t mean that it’s ok for you to make it as well. Just because your parents were not aware of the consequences of their actions it doesn’t not mean that you are allowed to perpetuate them.

All of the problems that did not exist back then, can find a root at this hardening of women and their decision to walk out of their home in search of real power.

Obesity, well the kid is not buying his or her own food, and when he or she comes home there is no dinner made, what exactly do you want the kid to do?

Early sexual activity: where are they going? Not all of them are under the bleachers. Why be here in this park honey, when your parents and mine are gone to work until six.

Teenage pregnancy: Ask any teen parent and they will tell you, they just wanted to feel love and to feel wanted. Think it’s hooey? Look it up there is over 200 studies showing that most teenage kids who end up being parents were seeking love in either the sex or the child.

Drugs: If someone is at home watching what you do, they will notice the change. Whether they choose to do something about it is a different story.

ADD, ADHD: More than half of these diagnoses are not based on biology, only on behavior deviations. Whatever is causing these changes in the behavior of children, it can be handled by parents who are involved. Involved? Yes, put your drama aside, put your work aside. Focus on the child. No wonder the child can’t focus on what he needs to do, as parents, we haven’t been able to focus either.

Will it solve all of the problems in the world if women suddenly walked out of their jobs and came home and became June Beavers? Probably not. We are in too deep. We are too committed to this new life, to this new culture that has sprung from that movement that started back in WWII.

Can we make changes? Of course.

Don’t reject your nurturing side. No, don’t sit there and coddle and become a helicopter parent or spouse. But show your love, your care, your concern, freely.

Children blossom under the direct light of love and men stand a bit taller, a bit prouder when they know they are loved and appreciated.

Don’t be afraid to be weak. Don’t be afraid to fall. It is part of our nature, of our humanity. Physically we are different from men; it stands to reason that we are also emotionally and spiritually different. Being able to show emotion is part of our strength, being able to love intensely is part of our strength.

As my mother quickly enters the third age, it becomes more and more of a struggle for our role reversal to survive, she cannot be cared for, she cannot be provided for despite the fact that she doesn’t have the same stamina as before. She does not know how to be vulnerable. So until now, she gets up and goes to work, she gets out there every day and makes things happen. But if you ask her, what she wants more than anything, it s to be around her grandkids. As you age, your hard shell disintegrates and you realize that what is really important, what really matters are the moments where you were loved, where you were soft, where you were nurtured.

I don’t know if one day she will allow herself to be soft, to be loved and be vulnerable. I have to believe she will, if there is a chance for her, then there is still a chance for all of us.