The "Glass" ceiling.

Was reading up on Yahoo-I know, I know, not the most reliable thing to read-and I came across this article about a woman named Amy Glass whose blog post(s) seems to have created a huge backlash and a death threat and I went to work-I read up the relevant post and all the ones that I could get my hands on.
Taking a page out of Amy's "advice" on how women should live their lives, I am hereforth stating unequivocally that I LIKE Yahoo and will keep reading it up because it is my prerogative and popular opinion does not and should not sway me into capitulating under any circumstance!!Whew!!That makes me feel so much better!! Ms.Glass mentions in one of her posts that she loves herself-so do I lady, so do I-I mean I love myself, not you!!
But I digress. Ms.Glass apparently feels that a woman needs to realize her full potential which is the same as any man's and guess what stands in the way? Marriage, children, the whole shebang!
And thus, when you say ," I do" and then get "knocked up"(her expression, not mine),you are forever doomed to be useless. A non contributing member in society. A parasite using up the earth's resources.
This apparently extends to working moms too-the sheer fact that you balance career and family life makes you ineligible to be on her roster of successful people. That you have a husband and kids eliminates you from the race to be exceptional. One would think, that the fact that these women work and manage a family makes them exceptional in itself-but in Ms.Glass' world-they are actually deterrents to success.

So consider the stay at home mom-can you imagine where such a species will stand in Ms.Glass' estimation? Said species whining about housework is a cover for them not to have to justify their lack of real accomplishments! I know a business woman who managed a business which spanned two continents for years and gave that up when she had kids because her priorities had changed. So her occasional gripe about how shooing the kids out in time to school flusters her is actually her lame excuse for her  lack of accomplishments? I know another friend who is a doctor who went back to work part time because she wanted to be home when her kid walked in from school-she too is wasted on this earth right?
I know enough number of engineers, microbiologists, lawyers and doctors who chose to be home with their kids and thus have failed miserably in life. Ms.Glass seems pretty tight lipped about her educational qualifications in these posts(though I am sure she is not in the secretarial pool-she has so  much of sympathy for them!!),but I am sure she is reasonably qualified, which is why this utter lack of perspective stumps me. I am learning not to correlate education with common sense. Common sense is not acquired through education-lack of common sense however, can be gussied up using highfalutin language that a good education can provide. Exhibit A......

This measure of success-this definition of exceptional, seems to involve single women with no boyfriends, ergo no children(remember, even if you are married-getting pregnant is still being "knocked up"), hence no diaper duty, no cooking and cleaning, no homework, no little league, no choir recitals....the list goes on. Her life is hers to do whatever with and hence climbing the corporate ladder becomes the yardstick. In one of her posts, she does concede that raising kids, managing a household  and working are all equally important and even says, I am quoting her now, This means that as good feminists, we never judge the choices of other women, but then she backtracks and judges the heck out of ALL the other choices!!
One of her posts mentions mothers-and in a positive light-but wait a minute-it was Beyoncé-so if you want to be a successful career woman like her, then you need a bunch of nannies for your kids and maybe a housekeeper and cook while you are at it!!
Just because it is difficult, does not make it necessary or important-Sisyphus pushing that damn rock uphill and rearing kids-the same thing did you know? Both are thankless jobs-you end up with nothing to show for it-those successful, well behaved  kids you raised? Useless!! I have seen enough number of mothers of children with special needs who give up their time and career and money and sanity in the long trek to help their kids realize their full potential-all worthless? They would have been better off not having those kids in the first place-what an utter waste and drain on the mother-who could actually have done something mind boggling like become the CEO of some company-so very satisfying and gratifying.

Just out of curiosity, what about the husband-how do you keep him in place-what does Beyoncé do? It is killing me!!!I have to know!!A friend of mine was yelling at her doctor husband for not spending enough time at home-she did not want him to go grocery shopping with her, she just wanted him more at home-his presence-do you know what that means?The sheer feeling of being wanted, needed? Just to be there? Ms.Glass mentions her mom and sister and how they can't go a day without their husbands-that isn't dependency-that lady, is love!

Being alone by yourself is a great feeling-the minute my older kid walks out of the house to catch the bus, I have this sense of elation-I am home, I have the whole day ahead of me and I can do whatever I want. In my defense- lest it seem like as a stay at home mom I do nothing 'useful'-I am a whirlwind from 5.30 a.m to 8.30 a.m-getting everyone ready and out of the house in time for work and school. Most days I sit on the couch, turn on the TV, pick up my iPad and multitask-each task more inane that the other-but I love it. Some days I do something a little more useful like read a book or magazine, or even do something useful like type up a blog post, but most days I feel bored in a few hours-I check the time, count down the hours to when my kids will be home, I plan dinner and breakfast and lunch for the next day, because my evenings are crazy busy what with swimming and Kumon and homework and ...my life is full. I do get lonely-not because I do not love my life but because I do! I can be alone-but only for short periods of time-my life is not just mine-it is so intertwined with my husband's and kids' that I cannot imagine a life without them in it. I did not have kids so that I would not feel lonely in my dotage-I had kids because I wanted them. Though they do and say things once in a while that makes you regret that decision!!
You can live in a house full of people and still be lonely-lonely is a state of mind, not a physical state-and if you need to be alone to achieve that state I think you need to rethink the whole thing through. Ms.Glass seems to want to glamorize the word alone and pull it out of its negative connotations and hence the statements," I don't get lonely because I love myself" and "What is wrong with being alone with your thoughts?" Presuming that one fills a house with people just to keep the loneliness at bay is doing a huge disservice to sociable people the world over. There is so much to be gained from pleasant company other than yourself-most importantly-perspective-which being alone will never ever help you realize. Exhibit A ......
All that extraneous noise and distractions that a family seems to be-that pushes you more towards self realization that being alone ever will. As clichéd as it might sound, the adage 'No man can live as an island' makes a lot of sense when you read stuff written up by people who love being alone and thinking their thoughts without any dissent or clarification  or perspective that another human being can offer. At the least, being in the midst of a bunch of thirteen year olds will teach you never to come up with sweeping generalizations about everything that does not adhere to your perspective because you are spoiling it for them-teaching them that lack of empathy somehow can masquerade as forthrightness ,and being utterly insensitive to the ordinary human cycle of life  is somehow fruitful when it never is.

I am quoting Maugham from 'Of Human Bondage' here:

His ideals? He thought of his desire to make a design, intricate and beautiful, out of the myriad, meaningless facts of life: had he not seen also that the simplest pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was likewise the most perfect? It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.

I am all for that kind of victory-one that involves giving up a part of yourself, your ambitions, your likes, your dreams, even your yearnings for that simplest pattern in life-that defeat is definitely better than any victory you can score in the boardroom-any day, hands down.