have this very loquacious dentist, who never seems to run out of thing to talk about. He has in me an equally talkative and opinionated patient, and we have been having these running discussions every time I go for an appointment every few months or so. My looking exceptionally run-down that day probably provided a sudden burst of inspiration for him. He relates that his wife, who is in her mid-forties, just had a reunion with her school chums. Since they haven't seen each other in such a long, long spell (and aha! -- through all those intervening years, no Internet!) they assessed with surprise that about one-third of their class members were either divorced or separated. And in almost all of those cases, the wife was a career woman, and doing much better than her husband, professionally and financially! As soon as I had all these dental instruments removed from my mouth, my dentist immediately had to attend to the next patient in line, so, okay, off with me! The lucky stiff -- he probably knew I was all poised to engage in aggressive debate!

I guess we have to admit that chauvinism is still alive and well, especially in trying-hard-to-be-progressive, but still conservative-at-heart societies. Maybe "husband ego management" will be passe by the time our daughters grow up, but for the present, we have to deal with it, unless some lucky ultra-successful and rabidly ambitious female out there has married an ultra-cooperative, totally humble and absolutely emotionless male android!

This is not so much a feminist, "male-bashing put-down" piece, as it is a "be-sensitive-to-their-plight" call. After all, in generations that have come before, the relationship between men and women was clear-cut. The men were the sole breadwinners, and the wife's role was to get by with what was given her, and please! banish all these "self-actualization-of-potential" nonsense. However, due to both financial considerations, and women's changing needs and roles in society, the functions of women as complimentary and supporting appendages to the conjugal relationship had certainly run askew.

So what we have before us, as our partners in this particular lifetime, is this whole generation of confused men. What they saw in their mothers, and were trained to respond to and expect in their own wives is not what they eventually got. They saw their fathers put their foot down and lay down the law, and as our men soon realized, they could not emulate this authoritarian mode and fully initiate family leadership. While their mothers always answered with "yes dear," their wives, on the other hand, yelled "equality!" They were raised to believe, figuratively speaking of course, that women followed one stride behind the men -- that couples did not walk "side-by-side."

However, if women are to succeed as "super-women," we will have to insist that the husband take on a more contemporary view and assume a participatory role in child-rearing tasks, and if possible, the other hundred-and-one things that have to be done in the household as well. Even as men, I suspect secretly envy the bonding that giving birth affords for mothers, they have by tradition relegated the child-care task almost entirely to the women.

So let's accept the fact that full emancipation from the "sacrificial motherhood image" is still far from reach. But know in your heart that relinquishing full and sole hands-on responsibility for child rearing and housework does not lessen your worth as a wife and mother. It may even open doors for a deeply nurturing father-child relationship. It may allow for marriage to henceforth thrive on an even higher realm, as a result of a comforting, greater appreciation and understanding in men for the things that women do around the house.

Furthermore, even as we struggle with this outdated motherhood ideal, let's be patient and be happy with even small steps in this direction, versus giant leaps and strides. Maybe, when all else fails, men were still meant to be able to count on our humility and spirituality as women. Maybe the words "strength is gentle" was meant to ring even louder in our ears now more than even before.

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Fall, 1999

Superwoman series
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