Quick note: You’re getting this letter a bit earlier this week so we can join in the International Women’s Day - Daisy Chain Flower Crown. 🌼🌼🌼
Dear Lovely You,
all in all I had a pretty good childhood.
We knew we were loved. We had a home to live in and we always had a garden to play in. We had food and clothes. And we had a strong family community around. A bunch of related people who had each others backs.
My mum, the eldest of eight, had too much responsibility too soon but when she fell pregnant with me (also a tad too soon 😁) and birthed me into this world, she did the very best she could for me. My brothers followed in quick succession so there were three babies in two years. I am in awe of how she managed to run a home (before we had a fridge or washing machine) and always, she, the house and we looked immaculate. I can only imagine the drudgery of hand washing nappies for the three of us.
I watched her torn between caring for us and trying to work. Worrying that we were being looked after properly and having enough money. Her jobs never lasted long. Something always went wrong.
In later years she berates herself for not having had a proper career but I can only be grateful for the mother I had. How she tried to encourage us but lacked confidence herself. How she wanted more for us and would emphasise what teachers told her about our abilities to try to boost our confidence after she attended Parent's Evenings.
In celebration of male feminists
I watched my parents push and pull. My dad appeared to me to have all the power as he always worked and was the main earner. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to have my own money. But I also wanted to be beautiful, attractive and feminine like my mum.
My dad couldn’t be described as a feminist and always worked but he also helped out around the house. I remember him hoovering while mum put us to bed. He always grew a bit of veg and usually seemed to be in charge of cooking the Sunday roast with gravy and roast potatoes. My Mum, washing the cabbage from the garden would squeal when she found a slug in it. My dad would laugh and throw it all in salt water where the poor slugs shrivelled up and perished.
I think my dad just wanted her to be happy but she found it impossible to split herself in half and never found an equilibrium.
Celebrating Grandmothers
So many great female role models surrounded me growing up. Kind, practical, efficient women. My grannies were no exception. My heart swells for them.
I heard stories about how Granny Davies, my maternal Gran, would buy a whole roll of the same fabric and make dresses for all seven of her girls. She got by with very little by being frugal and was a terrible hoarder and somehow held everything together.
I don't remember ever seeing my grandad sober and I know there were arguments about this but my Gran was always there for her children as much as she could be.
Not perfect, no, but her life was hard. Going out and doing cleaning and cooking jobs that fitted in with raising a large family to make ends meet. Washing the local football team kit at weekends. Eugh, the smell! And getting electricuted by the warn out twin tub.
When she retired she took herself off to learn how to oil paint. She was also an accidental gardener. She could put a stick in the ground and it would grow.
Granny Waring was a different kettle of fish altogether. A talented knitter who could also sew, she worked in a light manufacturing factory for decades. She had helped bring up her own siblings after her father died quite young but only had two children of her own, two boys, which was unusual in those days. It was at her house where I stayed for weekends sometimes I started to learn how to bake. She let me lick out the bowl after mixing the ingredients. Does that count?
I lived with her for six months when I was seventeen and had my first proper job. She had a passion for good simple quality food and I would get home in the evening to smells wafting from the kitchen. Same things every week. Oven baked curry Wednesdays. Plaice in breadcrumbs Thursdays. Roast dinner Sundays. Tinned ham or salmon sandwiches followed by trifle, victoria sponge, and peaches in Ideal milk washed down by a cup of sweet tea for Sunday tea.
She was organised and ran a tight ship. Certain things happened at certain times (washing - Saturday mornings, shopping - Saturday afternoons, hoovering, polishing and baking - Sunday mornings). Rituals consistently carried out week after week. I never heard her complain about it and there was no clutter to be seen.
Once I saved up enough Green Sheild Stamps to get her an electric can opener. I never saw it again. It was obviously superfluous to her needs. She seemed to have an unspoken rule that if you could do something simply why make it more complicated?
The thing I am most grateful for from these women is that they cared, they never made me feel like a nuisance and showed their love in such simple ways.
The expectations I let go of to honour my own needs
I strove for a long time to be more like my dad and have my own income but the reality is, it's hard to be a good employee and a good mother. I now believe children - especially in the early years - need that parental attachment to feel safe and grow into healthy happy humans. Dr Gabor Mate agrees and has research to prove it.
It was a big decision to leave my nursing career and the financial independence that that gave me but it was the right thing to do. I have never regretted it. However, I do have a supportive, loving, respectful and exceedingly domesticated husband. Letting go of my career meant letting go of my independent income, building a pension and a sense of doing something meaningful in the world. At least that was my perception.
But isn’t raising a child THE most meaningful thing a person could do if they’ve chosen to have children? A healthy, resilient, well balanced, kind and considerate child. A child who can contribute and make the world a better place.
What I really let go of was fear. I let go of not being able to trust that someone else would provide for me. I let go of needing to be in control of everything. I let go of a stressful career with which I was not aligned. I let go of the jaded feeling that I had to do it. I let go of being pulled in all directions and never doing anything well.
It's not ideal and leaves me vulnerable of course. What happens if something happens to my husband? But with regards to bringing up a family and ensuring everyone gets their needs met as much as possible, to me, it was a no brainer.
My confusion at being a woman in a man’s world
So I am all for equal rights as long as it doesn’t mean women have to be like men and can bring their feminine energy to the table and be just as valid.
I am all for equal pay. Same job. Same pay.
I am all for having my opinions heard, considered and taken seriously.
I am all for women having control over their own bodies. Absolutely!
I am all for workplaces that allow women to work flexibly to make the most of their time around childcare and their monthly cycles.
I am all for men having flexible working conditions so they too can take part in the important role of raising children.
I am all for women having as much choice as men over how they live their lives, dress, express and have places of power in society.
I am all for women (and men) staying at home and making their children their priority if that’s what they choose.
And… I can see there’s huge potential for women to lead the way by changing how we live, love and work.
But I can also see how societal priorities are skewed to ensure economic growth over health, happiness and wellbeing.
And these questions come to mind…
Women work harder, academically achieve more but do they believe they deserve it?
Do they really believe they deserve to be successful?
Do they believe they deserve to earn lots of money?
Do they believe they deserve to have as much power as men?
And they’re held back by an invisible force that has infused society for decades. The Patriarchy.
And it’s not even the ordinary man’s fault because they are as much blindfolded by it as women. So let’s stop bloke bashing please.
Where are the female role models who aren’t afraid to use their feminine power?
I am trying to think if I know any female role models who are successful in a balanced way. I mean not trying to be like a man but honouring their feminine side as well. Allowing the feminine parts of their persona to shine through proudly and authentically.
Do you know any?
I would love to know who yours are.
The dilemma of being a modern woman
I have worked and raised four children and two step children, run a household and supported my husband in his business working from home whilst juggling, at one time, the commute to two different schools and nursery as well as trips to extra curricular activites. This could be the definition of insanity!
For the last twenty years I have been part-time self-employed on and off, focused on our children and supporting my husband in his busy practice as an osteopath. I’ve had flexibilty and have eventually learned to stop pushing (mostly).
I have lived through periods of time where women got angry and burned their bras while men were striking at coal pits.
My generation of women were told we could 'have it all' and mostly just ended up burnt out, ill and doing it all.
I've seen women fighting for the same pay as men for decades and yet there is still inequality.
And I have seen career women struggle to continue to work through peri-menopause having worked really hard to gain the same status as men and then have to quit at the height of their careers due to inflexibilty in the workplace leading to the loss of valuable, experienced talent from the workforce.
I know women who have comfortable lives often because their partners have well paid jobs. Some are happy, some not so, missing using their grey matter.
And I know women (often single parents) who have worked really hard all their lives and have very little to show for it. No home of their own. A measly pension to look forward to and having to scrape by week to week.
What does it mean to be an empowered woman in 2024?
Is it yet possible to work in a fulfilling job, run a home, have a loving relationship and nurture healthy, happy children and flourish and thrive ourselves?
I won't pretend to have the answers but I know some shifts in perception can help.
Questioning what is actually normal rather than following the same old tired narrative.
In his book, The Myth of Normal, Dr Gabor Mate explores this very topic in detail. It’s good to educate ourselves on such matters.
Prioritising wellbeing above material gain and money, obviously once all basic needs for food and shelter are fulfilled.
Coming back to our nature and nurturing the young ones, not on our own, but alongside the men and in community.
And trusting our intuition. If only I had been able to do that as a young woman!
Privilege & Reality
As a white western woman I know I have a lot of privilege even to be able to express my thoughts and opinions.
I know I can make choices that many others can’t but also I have dragged myself up economically, I guess because I made an unconscious choice to do so at some point.
Things are changing slowly. It really doesn’t have to be that slow but while society continues to strive to stay the same, controlled by a few numpties at the top who want all the power and money and none of the responsibility, that’s how it will be.
And I’m tired. I am tired of fighting for what should be a no brainer.
Happy, healthy women means happy, healthy relationships and happy, healthy children and happy, healthy workers and business owners. And all this adds up to happy, healthy societies. Communities who work together for the good of all.
Change is happening as women take back their power and do things more their way
Women empowered to make their own decisions (perhaps running their own businesses) about how to spend their precious hours on earth are creating happy, healthy collaborative communities.
Women are empowering women by writing truthfully about motherhood, all its pains and pleasures. Women are supporting each other in a quiet revolution to make their lives work better for them rather than working more and harder for external validation.
Women are growing their self-worth and quietly and consistently standing up for themselves.
Like the women that prompted this post. Claire Venus, Lauren Barber and others and you can read more about this Daisy Chain HERE.
Celebrating all the women in my life
I can’t leave this letter without showing my gratitude for my mum. She gave me life and did the very best she could with what was available to her. With little support or education about sex, contraception or being encouraged to find a better life for herself, she found herself with three children by the age of twenty. And she did a grand job, even if I do say so myself. Ha ha…
I am grateful for my Grannies and my aunties who showed me how to be kind and caring. I am grateful for my step mum who always has my back. It’s quite something to have not one but two supportive mother figures. And I am so so grateful to have wonderful friends in my life that accept me just as I am.
The men play a big part in this
And I am grateful for my husband and the men I see who are respectful, kind, caring and supportive of their partners in a world that is just as confusing to them as it is to women.
As the mother of three remaining sons, I believe we have shown them what it means to have respectful relationships. But more than that, I think they are way beyond us in this respect when listening to their conversations with friends and the conversations we have with each other. Our generations have had to learn about equality and respect, to them it’s second nature.
I want to be heard, respected, empowered, healthy and wealthy.
I want a balanced life that nurtures my relationships, is connected to nature and allows me to express my wholehearted self.
I want to work in a way that supports and honours my energy.
And I suspect we each have to find this in ourselves by getting back in touch with our sense of self-worth and deservedness.
With Love
from my True Self to Yours
Karen xx
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Wow Karen this was such a beautiful and thought-provoking read. I loved learning about the women (and men) in your family, you describe them so well, I really got a feel for them! You also explore the depths, intricacies and layers of what it is to be a woman/mother and everything surrounding the role and the wider societal pressures. I love Gabor Mate’s work and I too have felt the necessity to spend my time away from formal employment to be with my children in their early years (which is the hardest/most brilliant/undervalued work I have ever done). I am continuing to unpick what it means and how it feels, I will return and refer to this post regularly! xx
Beautiful read, so much value and powerful messaging that packs its punch. We are waking up. Slowly, slowly.