Women subsumed into their children

[Xenia]

We certainly must guard against woman as only mother and nothing else

www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0bf95f3c-f234-11e1-bba3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz25Ieiea9E

A million if you and DH own your business equally etc then I think you have set up reasonable financial security.

"Indeed there is a new US book about how we are moving into an age where men are not needed at all."

Ha ha ha has. Men are needed to provide a counterbalance to women bitching.

Ive realised Xenia is about justifying everything in her life.
So,her kids went to private school,hence lots of posts and links about the benefits of private schools.
She breastfed all her babies,and went back to work after 2 weeks. Cue lots of posts about breastfeeding,and the career benefits of being back to work right away.
Only likes being with her kids x number of hours per day.Needs justifying ,so lots of posts about how boring it is to be with them a lot.
.She is divorced,so has tried her best to get round that one by finding stuff about how men will not be needed in the future.
etc etc

Rather sexist to suggest women do something called bitching. Even the use of the word - to suggest a female dog is abusive or nasty is sexist in itself, even if it were a proper verb in English which of course it's not.

if one thinks women bitch
it's indicative of company one keeps
get a better class of friends

LOL, don't you rise to the bait

Having a husband that loves you and a your dad living in your house when your growing up and being a good dad is more important that 100k, holidays and anything else.

Same goes for wives and mums.I know everyone cant have that but that is what all children want over money as the ideal.

I'm very lazy and I'm not that bright. Plus, I have terrible issues with authority and never liked having a boss before I left work to be a SAHM.
I'm never going to own my own island. Sob.

BUT, all my profile pictures on Facebook are of myself, because I'm super vain and I think I look gorgeous.

Do I pass the test?

bait?oh i see it was a clever ploy
awaiting a riposte
thanks for that clarification.else i wouldnt have known

Going back a bit, but: it is blowing my mind that some posters are saying, "oh no, it is not a feminist issue at all, I use my child's photo as my profile picture because (s)he is gorgeous and I don't look nice enough to publish a photo of me." Seriously? It is not a feminist issue that you don't think you look nice enough to look at because you are not as unlined and sylph-like as your 4-year-old?

playing devils advocate,if you were definitely ugly looking by other peoples standards vezzie,would you put your picture up?

Oh sorry, have realised that this very obvious point has been made.

Bonsoir, your 19:51 post made me sad. If you were really rising above all the career = personal value stuff then you wouldn't have said something so silly. And I don't want to believe that career = personal value so I would prefer it if those making that case were serene, secure and gracious, thank you ;)

amillionyears, I do hate publishing my photo (not because I am all that ugly, I hope, but because I just hate it) so I use things like cropped photos or treated or stylised photos. I hope that people who know me will recognise my eye or blurred profile or whatever, but people who don't, won't learn what I look like. Yes I am weird.

I hardly go on facebook.The picture I have up is my own,actually on reflection,I think I may have left it blank.But it didnt occur to me to put anything other than my photo on it.
But so what.
The only thing I would say about the photos is about the lady who keeps putting bare pictures of her child on there,obviously without the childs permission.
And Xenia I ave to congratulate you that you changed your stance on something after your read the posts on your own thread.
You now realise that some people put pictures of their children on FB instead of themselves,not because of being subsumed,but beacuse they dont like the look of themselves.Thurs 11.40am

amillionyears, I can't speak for Xenia, but I think the two are not that different. The subconscious thought process might be something like "oh here is where you put a photo of yourself, well I'm not doing that because I am two stone overweight, need a hair cut and every photo I have is in the same ratty old fleece. Why is this? - why do I never look good any more? It's hard to look good when you are always wrangling toddlers, once I have wrestled x into his clothes and to the breakfast table I have completely lost interest in what I am going to wear - but x is gorgeous - and he is the centre of my life, even more so than me - so why not put up a pic of x instead?"

Who are these mums? I know mums (myself included) who sometimes use a photi of their children, but on their profiles have literally 100s of photos of themselves. I think thats more common than the other way.

lol what a silly article.
I don't think it's healthy to be consumed by anything, but if there's a choice between being consumed by work or children, I'd choose my children. They're a much bigger part of my life than work ever was, or will be. And I include my time as a working Mum. And most working Fathers I know feel exactly the same.
I take anything Xenia posts with a large dose of salt cos she's got divorce issues, which cloud everything.
It's a bollocks argument that, in order to be a good feminist, and propel women forward, we should work 60 hours a week and outsource all domestic work to a poor unfortunate minimum wage slave. That's sponsoring oppression so you can go off and buy islands etc.
It's hypocritical bollocks. A load of hairy bollocks.

Ha Ha autumnlights - very eloquent.

To be honest I have had to work to not be subsumed into my children. Having had 18 years at home with 4 of them, either full time or studying part-time, there have been points where my identity has been lost for a while. I think it's really important if you are going to be a SAHP for long periods to make sure you have other interests/motivations just for your own mental health. I think most women do manage a balance but sometimes SN and illness in the family can make striking a balance impossible and this is often where mothers do lose out more than fathers.

The FB photo issue could possibly be seen as a symptom of the subsumed woman but I don't really think it's anything as deep as that. Most parents have a million great photos of their kids to every one decent photo of themselves - it's probably more likely vanity or laziness, (well it would be with me anyway.)

I think anyone who feels that their only role in life is being a parent is selling themselves short but then so are those who define themselves solely by their career. I think we are all more than this.

"Most parents have a million great photos of their kids to every one decent photo of themselves - it's probably more likely vanity or laziness"

I think that is actually as simple as most parents find looking at photos of their kids far more interesting than photos of themselves.

My DS is a darn sight more photogenic than I am! Whenever I get a good photo of me, I'm happy for it to go on FB - but since that's about 5% of the time, if I'm lucky, then it's a rarity. And also, I'm usually the one behind the camera...

if you don't want a picture of yourself up (for anonymity say) is a picture of your child worse than a picture of a flower or generic silhouette etc? People choose an image they like and more often than not it's going to be a sentimental image of their DC.

I'm usually the one behind the camera...

YES.

I always wanted to be a SAHM and wife as well. And now I am.

I've done other things, but I'm happy at this.

I don't think I'm particularly subsumed into my kid, either.

Brass - I just meant that I have an abundance of great photos of the kids, less so ones of me, as you are right - I'm the one taking them. It's more effort to find one I like of me - the kids always look great so I might use theirs if I had a FB account because it's easy. I thought others might do this too.

So I'm a bit lazy and a bit vain rather than being subsumed in them which is what the original article was implying - but I agree it's all a bit daft.