Pax wrote:
Quote:
I hate this meme on a personal level, and utterly reject it for myself. MY life would be worth defending even if I never had children. My life was worth defending on the day I was born, it was worth defending on the day before I wed, it was worth defending the day before my first child was born, and it continues to be worth defending even as my children grow up and leave the home, not needing me as the primary caregiver anymore. My life is worth defending!
And so is yours.
So that meme, "it's for the children..." just simply does not resonate with me. I seem to be missing whatever-it-is that's hardwired into a lot of women, to refuse to claim her own worth & value unless and until it is tied to childbearing in some way.
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I don't think of it as a meme.
But I don't know how to directly address this. So let me indirectly address it.
I don't think I really had any self-preservation instinct until recently.
It had nothing to do with self-value or self-worth.
I don't even have kids. I'm not a mom. But if someone would have asked me if I'd die fighting to save a child, I'd have answered, "yes."
So, why would I fight for a child, but not myself?
It has nothing to do with whose life is more valuable. It has nothing to do with self-esteem.
The best I can explain is that my self preservation instinct was broken.
I have no explanation of why.But if attacked, I'd go helpless instead of going into self-preservation.
I have to imagine that my experience is not unique, though I have no clue if it's common.
But i8f someone had said to me, "would you fight to defend a child?"
My answer would have been, "of course!"
And if I had then been asked, "why would you not fight for yourself then?"
My head would have exploded and I'd envision a positive outcome.
I don't think I'm explaining too well because I don't have a lot of words to wrap around it and I'm not sure I have much internal understanding of it.
This has shifted for me.
So meme or no meme, it just would have resonated for me and maybe made a difference earlier.