She told us she wanted to create a stable home with a man with a solid career. She called herself sexist and selfish. Clearly she wasn't a goldigger looking for big bucks and a luxurious life style. What she wanted was a basically a solid life with traditional roles.
She wasn't spoiled! She wasn’t selfish! She wasn’t sexist! She was simply exhibiting basic animal instincts. Female mammals take care of their young and whether a human female has a paying job too, it is the basic animal condition to want a man to help provide for a child.
Now, we do live in a complex world and there are many forms a family can take. Role reversal, sharing both roles, gay marriage, etc are wonderful examples of it.
But to want a traditional life is just another acceptable form of family and nothing to be ashamed of. Susan and I made it ok for her to want this. I think the point came through when I told her that my friend, the performer Moby and I recently had a talk about this very same subject.
He said there is one main quality women find irresistible in men: Ambition. I saw a lightbulb go off ...what a revelation: after all she wasn't greedy, she was feeling her basic animal instinct to protect and provide for her future young by seeking an ambitious man. And it was ok to want this!
The next day I visited The Museum of Natural History with my son for a school project. We saw animals through the ages caring for their babies. We got to one exhibit of pre-historic humans hunting and gathering and females nursing babies...it certainly drove the point home.
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