Death to Donna Reed!

I really don't know how to begin. There are so many ways I've examined my reasons for this behavior, it's crazy, but one thing I know for certain: it's ingrained into my core to think that not just I, but all women, have moved beyond housewivery. 

Nobody watched for the story, er, completely.

As a child in the '80s I grew up with a very femicentric time where women took on strong roles in the media. There were shows like Cagney and Lacy w/ Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless, and the short-lived Partners In Crime w/ Loni Anderson and Linda Carter (okay, I watched for more than strong roles, though they provided them). There was Cover-Up, where models are actually uber-spies, and the operation is run by a woman.

Music came out with strong female leads like Pat Benatar, Annie Lennox of Eurythmics, and Ann Wilson of Heart. (I only learned later, when singing for a Heart tribute band, that 70s Heart was MUCH better.)

It wasn't just in the media. The zeitgeist had come home. As much as my mom didn't work, or clean, she was a "woman of the '80s". She cut her hair and went to work out in her leotards to the worst music of the time and tried to be a modern woman. 

She told me that the way dad was, if she cleaned, he'd mess it up, and she'd just have to clean again. ...and that is the way it always is. If you don't, though, when you do... you'll regret that you didn't. My GODS, you will. 

Ah, the life of drudgery.

The thing is, she always told me that women deserve better. She was upset that she had children and missed opportunities to go to school and be somebody. She hated that I was born and she was stuck in this life with my father. At the same time, she pushed me to be rich and famous. It was an obsession with her. She needed to make sure at least one of her kids took care of her in her old age. I know now neither of us will (reaping what one sows and all that).

Still, the concept that women should be more than a housekeeper had latched onto my gray matter and won't detach for anything. In fact, my Dad used to say, lovingly, "You'll make a great housewife someday", inciting a rage in me that was hard to repress. I did, because he was my Dad. 

I never wanted to marry a man; the thought gave me that same rage. I always saw myself settling down with the right young lady, and for a fleeting moment, I saw it happening. I did it, though. The first time around, he expected to cook and clean and that lasted a whole 10 months. This time everything is perfect except that. It's our hugest issue. Every time he brings up cleaning I feel like a baby girl being chided by Dad, and I'm furious all over again.  

I don't know exactly why I feel housewivery is such a degree of servitude, but I feel oppressed by it, and he gets mad at that description. He takes care of me and all of my needs, but I feel subservient - needy and weak. I don't want to. I want to provide for myself, like a real woman, so I'm not reliant. I suppose that's part of it - perhaps a big part: control. My whole life has been in the control of others. I want it in my hands. I want to feel safe because I hold reigns, and dammit, I want to be comfortably messy in my living space. (Not Lovecraftian-messy like my family, mind you. I don't want The Colour Out Of Space taking over my bathroom as it has theirs... though that might explain some.) I want to be an adult and have money that I earned and a business that makes what I say and runs on my hours. If I had this, heck, I could pay someone to clean. ...and from all I've seen, I can easily have this if I get my ducks in a row soon.
Stoopid Catch-22s.

"You might just make it after all."

Of course, this is all funny considering my favorite show of all time is "The Dick Van Dyke Show" & I often compare myself to Laura Petrie. Of course, I'd rather be Mary Richards.

~DC