Some mornings, I hold my nose and see what commercial radio has to say for itself. I just skip from station to station as the commercials come on, until I get tired of it and retreat to Album 88. But a part of a segment caught my ear earlier this week.
One pair of chatterboxes was talking — I’m not sure if it was about someone who called in or how they heard about it — about a woman who was pretty sure her boyfriend planned to “pop the question” on Valentine’s Day. Amazingly enough, she had a problem with it: while she loves him, she wants to be a stay-at-home mom, and he earns about half what she does. The callers were predictably falling into the “marry him anyway” camp, even the one guy out of the five calls they aired. My own thoughts were rather uncharitable as well. But something one of the callers said stuck with me, and it came back to mind this morning: it’s good she has this dream, but could they not put off having kids until they got more financially secure and then she could do the full-time hausfrau career?
When I got out of college, I had a few dreams of my own — but as John Lennon said, “ Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” I wanted to be completely debt-free by now, and on track to retire by 50: I have a mortgage that might be paid off when I’m 73. I wanted a place that was as energy self-sufficient as possible: no money for as much as a single solar panel. I dreamed of being able to schedule work around my life: our lives revolve around four chicken houses that don’t belong to us.
Mrs. Fetched wondered why I didn’t tell her I had these dreams when I was objecting to the runaway psychotic episode that ended with us buying FAR Manor. I did, repeatedly, and not just then. She just wasn’t listening.
So after thinking about it, I’m not sure what the right thing is for the woman in question. It’s good to love someone. And yet, if things don’t work out and she has to scuttle her plans — especially if her potential husband is the reason — she could end up resenting him in the end. But if she marries someone else simply because he can support her dream, where’s the self-respect?
I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision for her.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
1 comment:
Comments are welcome, and they don't have to be complimentary. I delete spam on sight, but that's pretty much it for moderation. Long off-topic rants or unconstructive flamage are also candidates for deletion but I haven’t seen any of that so far.
I have comment moderation on for posts over a week old, but that’s so I’ll see them.
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Hi Farfetched
ReplyDeleteI can see what you're talking about, but I think that a lot of marriages are built upon the needs of one of the couple. It's sad to say but a lot of times marriages are made or broken because of money.