[Other] "My Dream is to be a Wife"

[Galena]

Growing up I thought of lots of stuff I wanted to be (all kinds of NFy impractical stuff) - but they were just roles I associated with being able to use my strengths & fulfill my needs. In reality, they don't necessarily mean that though.

Like the role of "autonomous". The reality of autonomy is that the kind of autonomy most people desire requires at least some interdependence to support it, whether it is with a partner, friends, workers, or what have you.

 

[Thalassa]

That statement is so vague, how could it disturb me?

I thought this too. I mean if you'd already done other things, or had other dreams too, and one of them was to be a wife, okay well there's nothing wrong with wanting to be married.

I remember being in my teens and talking with one of my cousins, that if you had to be a wife with no kids or a mother with no husband, I was totally 100 percent sure even then that I'd rather be a wife.

In that context, it's not creepy to me at all.

I mean, I guess it's okay if that's what you want. But, like, I think my mind wants to add "and mother" to give the role a little more span, like JUST BEING A WIFE seems kind of...erm...like...my dream is to be a committed sex bot? I don't know.

I mean hey when I was 18 years old my dream was to be a topless dancer in Vegas. Of course it was also to be a writer and do a lot of other things, like live in California (I've accomplished all of the above and more, tyvm) ...but I guess if you took my 18 year old whim out of context you'd presume I was the uneducated child of crackheads and not raised in a two-parent conservative religious home and in possession of a high school diploma.

 

[Thalassa]

Yes. Wife as career. No career goals. No further education. Just to be a wife.

I think the idea here is that you want a house, you like yard and house work, you're a home body, you probably like children, maybe pets, maybe you live in a rural area where you'd actually have to help your husband a lot as a wife, like doing most of the stuff he needs because he works 10-12 hours a day on a farm or doing construction and you can't afford a maid and a dry cleaner and all that shit that accountants and lawyers wives' can pay for, which gives some upper middle class men this scornful image of a wife who does nothing, while my experience as a person from a working-to-lower-middle-class Southern background is that wives actually work quite hard in their own way.

Besides, you never know, she may want to do something else later on. Maybe she wants to be a wife because she actually wants to stay home and write or paint.

Or maybe she wants six kids. If she wants to be a mother to that many children, bless her for actually wanting to raise them instead of pushing them off on daycare.

Let's try to look at this objectively.

 

[Ivy]

Maybe it's not quite the same thing, but one of my dreams as a young person was to have a fulfilling marriage and family life with children of my own whom I raised with someone I loved. It wasn't my only dream, and I didn't assume that it would mean the end of all the other dreams. But I did feel that my life would be incomplete without it.

Pragmatically speaking, it does tend to be harder for a woman to combine that particular dream with career-oriented dreams, than it is for a man. Even in households where the parents share parenting, the mother tends to be the "default" parent. Of course it isn't necessarily the case, and I know lots and lots of involved dads who are the primary caregivers to young children and the top number on the emergency contact list at the kids' school. But it's a pretty undeniable trend and it's something I've noticed in relationships all across the socioeconomic and philosophical spectrums. Even my friend who is a women's studies professor reports that she is the "default" parent and her husband (a tax law professor)'s "important meetings" trump her "important meetings."

To me, this is a large part of what feminism is: removing those artificial societal obstacles that create this imbalance (of course there are some obstacles that are not artificial or societal, like the fact that we are the ones equipped to carry and birth and feed the babies- for example, my husband didn't have any physical barriers to returning to work after our kids were born, but my lady parts were pretty wrecked for a while and I needed to rest- that's not sexism, that's biology) so that women and men both get to choose how they work and parent. Allowing families to truly work out the arrangement that works best for them, whether that be mom at home, dad at home, a blend of the two, or some amount of high-quality childcare in the mix.

 

[ceecee]

Yes. Wife as career. No career goals. No further education. Just to be a wife.

Well, I think it's a fairly unwise choice, especially the no education part. Other than that, I don't care.

 

[Society]

Yes. Wife as career. No career goals. No further education. Just to be a wife.

the thing is that if that wife-job description includes mother, i would rather she be educated to be a better role model for potential daughters.

 

[Beorn]

the thing is that if that wife-job description includes mother, i would rather she be educated to be a better role model for potential daughters.

What should she be educated in and by whom should she be educated in order to be a good role model?

 

[Jaguar]

"My Dream is to be a Wife" ... does this quote disturb anyone else?

No.

 

[Il Morto Che Parla]

"My Dream is to be a Wife" ... does this quote disturb anyone else?

Me neither. Live and let live.

 

[Society]

What should she be educated in and by whom should she be educated in order to be a good role model?

oh, an applicant! beorn, if you want to be considered for my wife position all you need is to study the kama sutra and train in the the taken in hand doctrine, after you get a makeover in Stepford ofcourse. that's just for you though.

 

[2XtremeENFP]

I think the idea here is that you want a house, you like yard and house work, you're a home body, you probably like children, maybe pets, maybe you live in a rural area where you'd actually have to help your husband a lot as a wife, like doing most of the stuff he needs because he works 10-12 hours a day on a farm or doing construction and you can't afford a maid and a dry cleaner and all that shit that accountants and lawyers wives' can pay for, which gives some upper middle class men this scornful image of a wife who does nothing, while my experience as a person from a working-to-lower-middle-class Southern background is that wives actually work quite hard in their own way.

Besides, you never know, she may want to do something else later on. Maybe she wants to be a wife because she actually wants to stay home and write or paint.

Or maybe she wants six kids. If she wants to be a mother to that many children, bless her for actually wanting to raise them instead of pushing them off on daycare.

Let's try to look at this objectively.

I'll buy it.

Seriously though, painting this picture for me helps me understand a lot more. Though, the girl who I'm referring to definitely doesn't fit this description all the way, I can see some similarities.

I think I was most disturbed because that life isn't where I would feel comfortable. I want externally challenged, i want to dream and create more goals, I don't want to stay at home. Perhaps I am projecting my fears onto this girl. I need to understand that my NF style isn't fit for everyone else. I often find myself wanting to pull people out of their shells and challenge them to try more at life. Maybe I should stop and let them be.

 

[LadyVioletBaudelaire]

As long as it is actually her dream, then I would commend her for it.

I think in the society I live in and was brought up in, that there are enough other options for a girl that she probably wouldn't want that just because (but this may be colored by my own experience).

I really think that some roles, while they are not us and some archetypes, while they are also not us, tend to resonate and act as a gateway to get our inner beings out into the world more so than others.

I know for instance, that I feel like there are living, pulsing entities that possess me like phantom lovers and allow me to birth little bits of my soul into the world. The wife and especially the mother aren't in my blood.

I am neutral, perhaps a bit wary, about the idea of marrying. I recognize that not all marriages are the same, but I fear that many would encroach upon me and my dreams. Even the most loving and happy of marriages could serve as something of a distraction from my “real mission”, which I am only waking up to, but still it is not to be a wife and not to be a mother, that much I can discern.

I don’t identify with the role of wife, it is not an expression of who I am. I think, even if I was a wife, it would (I am speculating) be the difference of I go golfing, yeah and I AM a golfer! (I don’t golf).

But some women, I think really are fulfilled by being a wife and/or a mother to the point that it is their dream and it is their bliss. I’m not going to knock that, just like I don’t want people knocking my goals and aspirations (which may not be right for them).

 

[Society]

i once knew a guy whose childhood dream was to be a lumberjack. true to form, he now owns a lumber company.

learning this, i was genuinely mind blown. i've never known anyone whose childhood life long dream was so incredibly attainable, practically within the reach of nearly anyone who'd want it. for the life of me, i couldn't imagine having such a dream, to fantasize about a completely common activity (in respect to his nationality).
and yet, somehow i know he isn't unique. their is somewhere in the world a child dreaming to one day work in an assembly line, and a girl hoping to one day fulfill her dream to be a waitress, etc... and i might never understand why, or how anyone would be self fulfilled by that sort of job... but that probably says more about me then it does about them.

maybe this wife thing... maybe it's sort of like that.

 

[skylights]

I really think that some roles, while they are not us and some archetypes, while they are also not us, tend to resonate and act as a gateway to get our inner beings out into the world more so than others.

I know for instance, that I feel like there are living, pulsing entities that possess me like phantom lovers and allow me to birth little bits of my soul into the world. The wife and especially the mother aren't in my blood.

That's a beautiful expression of it. I resonate with the wife archetype... one of pair bonding, nurturing, companionship, supporting, receiving, attraction, sexuality, security.

I want externally challenged, i want to dream and create more goals, I don't want to stay at home. Perhaps I am projecting my fears onto this girl. I need to understand that my NF style isn't fit for everyone else. I often find myself wanting to pull people out of their shells and challenge them to try more at life. Maybe I should stop and let them be.

I think pulling people from their shells and challenging them is a good thing... one thing I have learned in relationships has been that sometimes different people have very different ways of expressing things that an NF would express in NF terms. My SJ tends to express things in terms of "I should do this", "I need to do this", and to me that sounds more like a burden or duty than pleasure, but one time I expressed that to him, and he responded that I shouldn't worry about it because if it wasn't something he wanted to do, he wouldn't do it. He just structures things differently in his head, I think.

 

[Animal]

It feels alien to me but i recognize it as a valid life goal and need. Some people seem just born to that role, like a fish to water. I admire their skills and level of...well..professionalism in this area very much. Compared to them, I often feel like a hack

It is a legitimate career path, imho.

Lol, good point. Agreed.