A Sister's Response to It's Hard to Be a Woman and Birthday Tribute
This post is from our sister Gretchen:
Wake’s blog about it being hard to be a woman and Kurt’s tribute to our father started me thinking. I was extremely fortunate to have grown up in a household with a father who didn’t think there was a limit to a woman’s world. (His girls were just as capable as his boys and it never occurred to him that we should be treated differently based on gender. The girls were just as capable of shoveling and pushing him out of a snowbank as the boys were capable of doing the dishes and sweeping the house.) He was raised by the original feminist - well, actually he was raised by his sister because his mother was too busy living her life and enjoying it to be tied down by children. But that’s another blessing to be discussed at another time.
Our father was an entrepreneur extraordinaire. Unfortunately, his ideas didn’t keep pace with his finances. He always wanted bigger and better. He was a genius who didn’t know how to channel his talents. (I think he may have suffered from a form of ADHD also as he was constantly moving from one idea to the other. A trait I seem to have inherited and have yet to master.) At one point he had a very successful machine shop but his impatience to move to bigger and better eventually caused this to collapse. He had more drive to succeed than any other person I know. Unfortunately, this was ultimately his downfall.
Our mother was the opposite. She was the very best Monday Morning Quarterback in history. She could tell you exactly how you should have done it or what you should have done, but never gave her opinion before you made the mistake. I’m fairly certain that was a result of her upbringing and general hatred of confrontation. Of course, my father probably wouldn’t have listened to her ideas as she tended to go at things too slowly for his taste. I assume one of the things that attracted them to each other was the very fact they were so opposite and she must have found him exciting until the little ones kept coming along and the paychecks didn’t. It’s hard to be supportive of bigger and better when you don’t know how you’re going to feed and clothe your children.
What amazes me most though is how they were able to meld such extremes and give us a sense of balance. I believe our mother grounded us and our father gave us the gift “to try”. For example, I’m now struggling with the concept of creating my own on-line store. I’ve done all the background studies (thank you Mom) and can see the vision of how this can happen (thank you Dad). What holds me back? A fear of failure? No. I’m not afraid to fail; God knows I’ve had enough practice in that department. I think I’m afraid of two things. That it will succeed and that I’ll grow tired of this new idea and want to move on to something else. My house is full of unfinished projects and I’m trying, in my old age, to stop and really decide if my new “desire” is something with staying power.
Being a woman who knows no bounds has it’s downside also but I’d rather have the opportunities to try anything I want than to live in a society who holds me back simply based on my gender, race, or any other reason they can think of.
Wake’s blog about it being hard to be a woman and Kurt’s tribute to our father started me thinking. I was extremely fortunate to have grown up in a household with a father who didn’t think there was a limit to a woman’s world. (His girls were just as capable as his boys and it never occurred to him that we should be treated differently based on gender. The girls were just as capable of shoveling and pushing him out of a snowbank as the boys were capable of doing the dishes and sweeping the house.) He was raised by the original feminist - well, actually he was raised by his sister because his mother was too busy living her life and enjoying it to be tied down by children. But that’s another blessing to be discussed at another time.
Our father was an entrepreneur extraordinaire. Unfortunately, his ideas didn’t keep pace with his finances. He always wanted bigger and better. He was a genius who didn’t know how to channel his talents. (I think he may have suffered from a form of ADHD also as he was constantly moving from one idea to the other. A trait I seem to have inherited and have yet to master.) At one point he had a very successful machine shop but his impatience to move to bigger and better eventually caused this to collapse. He had more drive to succeed than any other person I know. Unfortunately, this was ultimately his downfall.
Our mother was the opposite. She was the very best Monday Morning Quarterback in history. She could tell you exactly how you should have done it or what you should have done, but never gave her opinion before you made the mistake. I’m fairly certain that was a result of her upbringing and general hatred of confrontation. Of course, my father probably wouldn’t have listened to her ideas as she tended to go at things too slowly for his taste. I assume one of the things that attracted them to each other was the very fact they were so opposite and she must have found him exciting until the little ones kept coming along and the paychecks didn’t. It’s hard to be supportive of bigger and better when you don’t know how you’re going to feed and clothe your children.
What amazes me most though is how they were able to meld such extremes and give us a sense of balance. I believe our mother grounded us and our father gave us the gift “to try”. For example, I’m now struggling with the concept of creating my own on-line store. I’ve done all the background studies (thank you Mom) and can see the vision of how this can happen (thank you Dad). What holds me back? A fear of failure? No. I’m not afraid to fail; God knows I’ve had enough practice in that department. I think I’m afraid of two things. That it will succeed and that I’ll grow tired of this new idea and want to move on to something else. My house is full of unfinished projects and I’m trying, in my old age, to stop and really decide if my new “desire” is something with staying power.
Being a woman who knows no bounds has it’s downside also but I’d rather have the opportunities to try anything I want than to live in a society who holds me back simply based on my gender, race, or any other reason they can think of.
posted by Wake of the Flood at 7:28 PM
3 Comments:
thank you Gretchen. i loved your insight, and your story.
This is a beautiful self-searching post. Its hard to pick yourself apart in front of the world..I salute you for it Gretchen. You seem to know your best and worst attributes..I should be half a lucky.
i knew she had it in her.
hard and sweet.
tough and soft.
i love my older sister.
yay! for me to have been surrounded by such sensitive siblings growing up...
of course, they did relish making me be "it" during the twilight games of "kick the can" or hide-and-seek....there was no way to outrun them back to base. so once you were it, you were it - until you quit :-D
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