I'm Michelle. YOu can find my ramblings at http://musingsofacatholiclady.blogspot.com
I have been married to my husband, Craig, for 10.5 years. We have four children: three daughters, ages 8, 6, almost-4 and my son will be 1 on the 16th of January.
I am a cradle Catholic, although my parents divorced when I was 8 and my mother wasn't well-versed in the faith and didn't really work that hard to make sure we learned it. My oldest daughter's baptism was a turning point for my husband and me and we decided to really learn the faith we vowed to raise our children in.
I am a serious soul. I like to laugh and all that, but I usually see to the heart of the matter.
As for feminism...I often have a knee-jerk reaction to it. I have often viewed it as a negative that sprang forth seemingly necessary double-income families, explosive use of contraception and abortion. However, I acknowledge that without the advancements in things like meaningful work for women and striving to provide opportunities, I wouldn't be able to support my family as I do. HOwever, my mind always plays the circle-game that if they hadn't pushed for those opportunities, perhaps I would not live in a time where it was necessary for me to work to help sustain our family's socio-economic status. Does that make sense?
With that said, I am all for recognizing the dignity of women. I believe women should be allowed to own property and also vote...so I hope my last paragraph didn't completely disparage me to some of you. I just often see a lot of the negative that seems to have come from the "feminist movement".
I am looking forward to reading this book to help me sort my feelings on the topic and understand other women's attitudes and reactions to feminism.
I am very excited to participate in this book club. Thank you so much to Sarah and Elizabeth for organizing!
Dust it off
5 years ago
I'm really interested to hear your opinions on this book given your distress with modern feminism; though, as I said before, I consider myself a feminist I agree that it's initial purpose has been distorted and not for better in many cases! I could write more on this now, but I have a feeling it'll get brought up in more detail as we move on!
ReplyDeleteLately I've been playing that same circle game too!
ReplyDeleteYay Michelle! Thanks for your post. As (I think) the woman with the most children in our group (congrats!), and as a working mom, I'm especially excited to hear your thoughts on the book! :)
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting circle-game, and I agree, I can't wait to get into the book and hope that it addresses it some more!
ReplyDeleteOur son was baptised a couple weekends ago and I feel the same way. I'd like to have a more thorough understanding of the faith myself in order to be able to answer his questions (which admittedly I have several years to study up for!).
ReplyDeleteI am also a serious soul who likes a good laugh...I look forward to discussing the book with you. :)
ReplyDeleteDitto to Sarah - I'm really looking forward to hearing your perspective as a working mom and as a mother of four! (Tiny tangent: I think it's almost more impressive when a working mother uses NFP... though I'm not exactly sure why, since I think we all know it works.)
ReplyDeleteThe circle is a struggle, isn't it? It's a chicken or the egg type thing. I guess to me the important thing is that we do recognize the correlation, even if we can't assign causation, as opposed to just rejecting that a relationship exists.
I think that we'll all agree that feminism has influenced us in both beneficial and not-so-beneficial ways. It is really a challenge when people want to be full time parents, but still have to work outside the home due to economic necessity.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree with the other commenters that it is great that you have four children.