During my junior year of high school, I somewhat became aware of Women’s Right Issue. I have made an effort to evaluate majority of the culture standard that I had previously taken in as it just being “the untaught order of items. ” One of the directions that I took to enlarge my knowledge of the female soul involved in women’s creative writing. That is one reason why I spent some time of my life crying, laughing, feeling puzzled, and often, feeling livid and worried. It all started when I decided to pick up a book called “The Women’s Room” and read the book.
Marilyn French who is the author of the book “The Women’s Room” illustrates the lives of a couple women from the time period of the 1950’s also known as the baby boom and the time period goes on until this present day. These women are not out of the ordinary. These women they either go off to college and then they decide to get married, or they decide to get married in the absence of even caring about the display of college, and after all, they do know that college is the only way to find economical promising husband’s.
Mira, who is the main character her lifestyle is discovered in parts of the book, roughly ponders why she is not happy cooking pot roast, changing dirty diapers of her two children Normie and Clark when they were babies, and picking up the dry cleaning for her husband Norm. The only comfort she has is the community of women who all have the same concerns over coffee during the afternoon. The women wonder why Katherine, who is a Catholic woman that has nine children and also an alcoholic husband, who decided to commit suicide.
She had an ordinary life, they all opinionated, she should have just talked her husband into using birth control. ” As for all of the women, also including Mira, their lives, trepidations, disappointments and their craves, were much finer drawn, yet fairly suicidal in their quiet misery. Countless years down the road, Mira’s life finally changes. Mira’s husband has “made it,” their children have grown and life was made economically easy. Mira has had nervous breakdowns.
Once Mira recovered, she divorces her husband Norm and later became a graduate student from Harvard University to study for a Phd in English literature. Although it was unpleasant and laborious, Mira comes to the point with herself and notices her future, and masters to live with herself not surly happy, but honestly. After I finished the story of how Mira lived, I woke up during the middle of the night crying with no control from an awful nightmare. Even though I cannot remember the dream even until this day, however, I had an epiphany. The life, Mira had lived was the life my mother has also lived.
My entire life I have respected and admired my father for completing all of his college work, for being brilliant and sophisticated, having potential and direction. These were some short qualities of what made my father a man. Although, I do not necessarily agree with some life choices my father has made, I still saw him as a powerful man who I looked up to as a role model. My mother has always been strong, a dependent woman, a diligent worker and also was a very wise person. No one could fool my mother or even lie to her because she would always have a way of knowing or finding out.
However, somehow she first chose the lifestyle of becoming a housewife and also a mother to two children. Later my mother decided to get a degree and make a career out of it and truly see what it is like to actually work. I always feared of leading the footprints of my mother, thinking I will not make much out of myself if I first decide to become a housewife and a mother and dreading every moment of it from all of the hard work that has to be put in to have everything well maintained. Fortunately, I am striving to be like my father by following his footsteps.
After reading and finishing this book, I never really put much thought of how much bravery it takes for someone to live this lifestyle, and find happiness by living through other people. When I found myself crying, I finally understood my mother for the first time. I respect my mother for her positive self image, her love and her kindness. I can honestly say after reading the book, my relationship with my mother has developed even more, and I have also created a much stronger relationship with my mother bringing me much closer than I ever thought.
I may not choose the road that my mother had decided to take, but I now truly respect my mother for her life and even the reasons why she decided to make these choices. Reading how Mira was and how her lifestyle and choices were made as a female has truly changed the way I perceive about myself, my emotions and the love for my mother, and it has also given me a much more fragile perspective regarding the lives of numerous women in our society until this day.