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LETTER: The Joy of Self-Realization

Ruth Renwick says it’s good to balance career and family
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Email letters to adam.louis@hopestandard.com and we will publish online and in print.

This letter is in response to the letter “The world would be better if more women were housewives,” appearing in the Feb. 12 edition of the Hope Standard.

Editor:

I read B. MacKinnon’s letter about how we women should all stay home and raise our children. It sounded good as I am a mother and loved being at home with my child. However, I was also a career person who traded with my husband for childcare as I worked in the evenings. I was lucky. I am now long divorced and have a pension that I worked hard to attain.

My divorce was the result of a partner who didn’t do his fair share. It is probably at this juncture where B. MacKinnon and I disagree. I should have towed the line and let him have his interests outside of the family as well.

In Sweden, they have a national system of sharing with their partners. In Caanda, women still bear the majority of housework hours in a heterosexual family. The males as well have more time for bonding. A B.C. career Indigenous father was on CBC recently on “Cross Country” talking about his online group of now more than 10,0000 males who want to change their historical aggression. His daughter made him realize we need more help for males in learning to share and raise children.

My mother was responsible but not fun. She wasn’t the happy, idyllic mom that B. MacKinnon had. If women succumb to the family hearth as the end all, be all, they are persons with feelings and desires to succeed, and they lose something personal – the innate desire of all humans to perform well at something they love to do apart from raising their family.

Those who find success in something of their own will share with their children the joy of self-realization. Many documentaries and true stories in movies now showcase the many women who have historically been shunned by history books as were the various non-white ethnic groups in our great land.

I’m amazed and delighted at the growing number of young women reaching for the stars. I wish them luck. As for the abortion topic, that is a whole book in itself. This world of almost eight billion now, which is destroying the planet, will not miss a needed abortion if a young female need have one and, by the way, its a fetus under five months not a ‘baby.’

Ruth Renwick