"Being happy is not a feminist issue"

I find housework fulfilling and therapeutic but it's a novelty that might wear off again, years seem to elapse between bouts of it.

(I was paraphrasing, mind. I cannot bear to return to read News from Nowhere. It appalled me when I was 18, and that was 30 years ago.)

Care and maintenance of personal property is fulfilling. I don't think a throwaway, careless attitude to personal property is fulfilling.

mother - I can't read that without having the video from Amish Paradise in my head, where he's, ahem, 'churning butter' rather vigorously ...

I do wonder what your quotation says about WM and sex.

Housework is in no way fulfilling. You can feel a sense of achievement if you get on top of it for a few fleeting moments, but it does not complete me. It's a necessary evil, like a lot of things in life. Now gardening I find fulfilling. Because I'm working to my own plan, and creating something, hopefully, beautiful. No one has ever looked at a clean bog and described it as 'beautiful' have they?

Nothing is preventing you, as an adult, from learning something for yourself - you ought, as an adult, to be an independent learner who doesn't require a teacher for everything (though many advanced skills are learned much more easily from contact with an expert in addition to book learning and personal research). Children require other humans to learn nearly all skills. It is quite right to delight in passing on skills, as well as acquiring them for yourself. How selfish not to be able to delight in sharing your own expertise!

'there's some Dutch scientist who says women find housework fulfilling. A male scientist.'

Why, what a surprise.

My dad still is adamant that he could never have 'coped' with being a SAHP because he just 'can't' multitask like that ... never mind my mum ended up with severe depression, you know: obviously that doesn't count as a sign of her not 'coping'.

Once again, it seems happiness is just taken out of the equation.

"'There are more suicides in males than females. In 2009 there were 4,304 male suicides (17.5 per 100,000 population) and 1,371 female suicides (5.2 per 100,000)'"

women attempt suicide more often (less violent means)

William Morris is similarly unenlightened about how we should all stand around being beautiful, contemplative and domestic, freed by the revolution from the concerns about childrearing that provoked the outburst of late 19th century feminism; once we know our babies will be cared for in a post-revolutionary Utopia we can just churn them out while we churn the butter.

Spoons, I wonder if said Dutch scientist has ever read Ann Oakley? I bet not.

Takver thank you for the quote.

Although I am now incandescant with rage.

And sadly the quote would still resonate with lots of people, not least our current government. Although their ideas go a bit haywire when it comes to single mothers where they seem to want them in 2 places at once.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I don't look to be 'happy' in a vague way, but 'purposive'. I don't think a lot of women feel purposive, because their talents are massively underused in all those part-time positions, and once the initial whirlwind of early childrearing dies back, they look about and think 'is this it?' And, I think looking at your child's achievements as your sole achievements is very misguided: if your own parents do the same, how does that make you feel?

Slightly different topic, but HerBex, I also noticed the unpleasant mysogenistic streak in topics on the BBC last week in relation to the riots. On Sunday morning we were treated to the BBC earnestly discussing 'should women stay at home and look after the children?' It was like the last forty years never happened (and of course, no-one talked about the political and structural situation of needing both parents to work for economic reasons, or the consequences of taking 50% of the talent out of the pool, or why dissatisfaction with the housewife experience was related to feminist thinking in the first place or whether these 'women' were expected to stay home for 45 years). I felt like banging my head on the telly (and asking for my license fee back).

LRD, I definitely agree with you - unfortunately there are an awful lot of women who try to take their sense of self from their children's achievements, with unhappy results for all parties.

Quite, spoons. I love learning.

Truck I think that the prevalence of mental health problems in society is an interesting conversation and one that has been done before on MN I seem to remember taking part in a very detailed discussion.

However this is the feminist section, and the question of how much women's mental health problems are bound up in their position in society is a feminist question and while it intersects with possible causes of men's mental health problems, I think it deserves its own discussion.

Truckrelented, I think it would definitely be interesting to discuss mental health from a feminist perspective, but perhaps it would be better to start a different thread.

Mmm. Not being a parent I hesitate to say this, but I do not like the idea of living through your children/taking credit for their achievements. My mum does it. Yes, it's great she did all these wonderful things to help and yes, I'm sure I wouldn't be where I am today without her ... but I wish she'd done something for herself instead. She is not a happy woman and now her children are grown up, she does not feel she has 'done anything with my life'.

Not only Byron - I remember absolutely fuming when I read 'Small is Beautiful' years back - at one point Schumacher talks about how men are effectively dehumanised by the atomisation of production, but of course it is all ok for us women because we are fullfilled by having children and caring for our families . . .

In fact, it annoys me so much, I've found the quote so that you can all be annoyed by it too
"Women, on the whole, do not need an 'outside' job, and the
large-scale ·employment of women in offices or factories would be
considered a sign of serious economic failure. In particular, to let mothers of
young children work in factories while the children run wild would be as
uneconomic in the eyes of a Buddhist economist as the employment of a
skilled worker as a soldier in the eyes of a modern economist"

i would of thought as a lot of people have sons and daughters discussing male and female mental health issues was important-even if this is a feminist section.

Yes, spoons. I take pride in my childrens achievements, but they're not mine. And the thing is, eventually children grow up and leave home. So it's in everyones best interests to have a focus outside the home, otherwise you turn in to one of the scary MIL's I'm always reading about in AIBU

Your achievement is the teaching; their achievement is the acquisition of the skill. And you can delight in both!