I wonder who planted this story? (Remember, "Jeffers Media Theory" states that no article or story makes its way into the media by accident... it is bought and paid for by special interests.) Whoever it was, me thinks they were making a different point than the one I received.... For every Oprah or Hillary there are 100 million women that are going to wind up like the subject of this article.
Read that article. Then read it again. And Again.
Please allow me to translate:
This 70-year-old, destitute woman, Susanna Wilson, no doubt influenced by the Women's Movement, twice divorced/rejected family - except when it suited her, as in when she inherited a debt free home from her non-feminist mother and "patriarch" father... something Susanna is only too willing to take advantage of with no thought for the future of HER own daughter. After all, Susanna is considering a "reverse mortgage", a financial instrument that will consume ALL of the equity in her home (given enough time), leaving her own daughter nothing.... despite the fact that the home was a family asset, not an asset that came about due to Ms. Wilson's efforts and belief system. In fact, it is Ms. Wilson's f*&^ed up belief system that is causing the family home to be removed from the family's resources. Way to go, Susanna!
Allow me to sum it up:
Susanna's traditional, non-college educated parents, lived within their means, sacrificed immediate gratification so that they could be able to provide some level of security for their issue (Susanna). Susanna, Berkley educated, feminist, artist, free spirit... made no compromises (divorced twice), made no sacrifices (moved around, played hard, and saved not). The article does not mention anything about the relationship between good ol' Susanna and her daughter, other than to say the daughter is "unable to help" Susanna financially. My bet is the relationship ain't so hot in any event.
Remember "Broke Ass Grouch"? (Please read the original because the links and quotes work better there than here where I simply copied and pasted). I had this to say in my January 28, 2011 Post about some of the nasty, unintended consequences of the Women's Movement:
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The story from Broke-Ass Grouch that I linked to recently has been rolling around my mind ever since I first read it. Broke-Ass ("BA") is intelligent, witty, insightful, and brutally honest... with a glaring exception: BA assigns blame to the wrong people.
To my mind, and stay with me a moment while I piss off a number of special interest groups, BA was the victim of the university/industrial complex and the Feminist Marriage/Divorce Industrial complex. Herewith, BA in her own words:
Now, to be fair, Broke-Ass Grouch is neither Mexican nor was she poor until three years ago. Like many of you good-doers, Broke-Ass was raised by middle-class intellectuals to be a middle-class intellectual, and graduated from a snooty liberal arts college. Also, like many of you, she spent her career working at high-status, low-paying, terminally insecure work.
To be fair, BA's first critical error - spending the present day value of $200k on a Liberal Arts college undergrad degree In English Literature - was made as a teenager. Having been a teenager myself I can sympathize endlessly. The family resources that went into an English Degree from Bennigton College could not have been more ill spent. Let's give BA a Mulligan for that critical error... and let us learn a lesson. If you are not rich, say liquid-after-tax net worth of $5mm+... don't let the University/Industrial complex extort a fortune for an education that could be had for a library card... $200k for an engineering degree from MIT might well be worth it; $100k for an engineering degree from Georgia Tech is most definitely worth it... knowing your Faust and Thoreau, et al? Not so much. Still, BA can turn a phrase. Somehow, I think she would have been better off with a mortgage free house and a State University degree than the Lit Degree from Bennington. Just saying.
More from BA:
Broke-Ass Grouch, like many in America, found herself abruptly cashless. Like many of the heretofore liberal elite, she had been trained exclusively in a non-essential trade (writing for a living), and thus had no marketable value in the general economy. Having lived a life of unexamined comfort and self-satisfaction, Broke-Ass now found herself with never more than $37.68 in the bank, and three little children to support (though she did count herself extravagantly lucky that her two older children's father sent them to private school, and that her 12-year-old used minivan hadn't collapsed in vapors -- yet). She began to see the primacy of McDonald's Dollar Meal and rifling through the bargain bins at Walmart, searching for tube socks and jeans made by 7-year-olds in Bangladesh for a dime a day.
Hmmm. Presumably BA had a husband or partner that was at some point supporting her and her children... but somehow her husband extracted himself from supporting her while still supporting his/her children. BA does not comment much on this. I wonder why? I can only speculate, but my sense is that BA had a good thing and did not do everything within her power to protect and nurture it. Maybe BA resented the Patriarchy aspects of marriage that exist when the man is the primary provider. Maybe BA was not the loving partner she could have been. Who knows? Maybe BA prefers lonely poverty to a middle class existence as somebody's "wife"? Look, for all I know the older children's father is a No-Goodnic... that just happens to send his children to private school. And maybe he left BA for some young Tart in spite of BA's tremendous efforts to welcome him home from work everyday with the warmth of a family dinner as well as the incredible warmth BA generated in the marriage bed.
Maybe a lot of things... but I smell Feminist ideology on her writings, background, and college experience... while correlation does not imply causation, that ideology DOES NOT CORRELATE with a happy family life and long term marriage, if I may make use of understatement.
Plus, she still wanted her children to know the virtues of the liberal arts phenomenology -- the unalloyed pleasures of reading, thinking, investigating, experimenting -- even though said phenomenology had dumped her by the side of the road in middle age and left her for dead.
BA seems to recognize where she is... I merely submit that BA blames the wrong forces that put her there. For mother's of young children, the disintegration of a marriage is usually an unmitigated disaster (to say nothing of its effects on the children). Why no emphasis on imploring mothers to protect themselves and their family other than by divorce court? Our society has defined the proper role of a husband... it is there for all to see in our literature and media reports... when was the last time you saw the Media present a mother's roll in the family? It is always one of "choice". Stay at home mom, working mom.... whatever (and BULLSH*T). None of us has much of a choice about most things, and the propaganda that we do has led many to a life of therapy and Prozak.
Happiness is self-inflicted. Unfortunately, all too often, so is misery. So much of the misery of people who never miss a warm meal and always sleep in warm, clean bed comes from the culture wars and propaganda efforts of the special interest groups. We ALLOW these groups to deceive us - or WE DO NOT. We make that choice. The University/Industrial complex is only too willing to leave you as an indentured servant for the rest of your life... the Marriage/Divorce Industrial complex is only too willing to suck up vast amounts of resources that would otherwise be available to the FAMILY. It is up to us as individuals.
So what's this got to do with energy? Nothing. This is a lesson in family financial planning... and a brutal one, at that. I daresay something along these lines should be part of a Liberal Arts education.
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Susanna Wilson's story and Broke-Ass Grouch's story are hardly unique. This is where the vast, vast majority of women who cannot hold their marriages and families together will wind up... only it will be much, much worse in an energy constrained future. Young women would be well served to steer clear, far and wide, of the "sisters" and their silly movements. Their movement is DEAD anyway.
How dare I say that? Simple. You can't win a multi generational political war/debate/argument by aborting babies or not having them (look, I did not write the rules of demographics... I merely point them out). Hispanics now number 1 in 6 Americans. They are Catholic!!! And Catholics just aren't big on abortion. And they are going to re-write feminist history, right out of the history books. Bye!
In the long-term battle between the Women's Movement and the Church... my money's on the Church.
And look, I am not terribly religious... though I am very much Pro-Life... I am just calling 'em like I see 'em.
Young ladies: Don't waste your lives joining the side of the slaughtered. Don't let what has happened to Broke-Ass Grouch and Susanna Wilson happen to you. You are NOT special. You are one link in a chain of family that has stretch back eons and should go on eons more. Take responsibility and you will reap the rewards of family, security, a sense of belonging among other things... OR... take Broke-Ass and Susanna Wilson's path to resentment, anger, and poverty.