Broadening the Conversation

Over the past several months, I’ve been deeply concerned how the economic crisis is falling onto the shoulders of women, the shoulders of women I know. Actually, it's gotten pretty heavy on my own shoulders! The women I know are carrying more responsibility than ever -- for family, for finances, navigating career transitions due to family demands, and new responsibilities for their parents.

I've tried to be very frank about my own family's struggles with friends, because, right now, what good can it do for any of us to be pretending it's all going smoothly. Through some honest and candid discussions, I've realized that many of us don’t feel “safe” in the midst of our new economic reality. We are working really hard to feel “safe” and at the same time feeling uncertain as to whether "safety" is even something that we, who were set into the world in the early 80's, is even something we are supposed to expect from our partners. On top of it all, what really saddens me is seeing so many women that I know, admire, and love who are just so hard on themselves. As if we are standing alone in a room full of successfully safe women.

I truly believe that we are in a sea-change as a culture. In the years since you and I first met in our freshman dormitory (remember Page Hall?), it is as if the American Dream has become a toxic mixture of insatiable consumerism and prosperity-based Christianity. It is a paradigm that has left people lost, bereft, broke, fat, lonely, exhausted, sick.

The other thing that has been going through my mind is, "What is worth fighting for? What should I protecting in my life?" When I boil it down, the thing to fight for in this world for me right now is the shelter and peace of my family.

I want to speak to that in this blog, speak for and with the women we know how are Sort of a “stop the madness”, let’s quit talking about how we are going to balance it all and, instead, start fighting for, protecting, that which is truly precious, letting the rest of the balls fall. Fighting for our families, our sanity, peace, health, love, connections between people we love. Our souls.

I think of us at 19 sitting in our dorm rooms trying to make sense of where were going to fit into the world. It was all so “out there”, so much to discover. I wanted so much, wanted to ‘break out’, connect, find a home. We thought that we had such a better handle on the world than our mothers did, than our parents. Over the years, you and I have been through explorations of love, materialism and asceticism, desire, disappointment, pregnancies, parents, siblings, children, success, failure, faith, weight highs and lows (more highs for me!), moving, setting out in new directions because it was “going to be good”. We are now the age that our mothers were when we met. I am fascinated by all that has happened from there to here. I'm so curious as to where “here” leads to.

We came of age in the Reagan era. I think I bought so completely into the Lady Diana, big shoulder, Nordstrom, dress-for-success, IBM, big city, movie celebrity, upwardly mobile, Martha Stewart, executive, do-it-all, buy more, Pottery Barn homes and Baby Gap maternity thing. (You haven’t seemed so vulnerable to all that.) I scoffed at the values of my grandparents and parents who were cheap, bargain, low-aspiration, humble. Scoffed at the “granolas” who preferred Birkenstocks to Ferragamos. Bought the SUV, etc., etc., etc. Now I look at how our generation has wasted two decades in which we could have made a difference. Now I look at our children: What world are they headed into? How do we prepare them? What world do we try and shape for them? What is worth fighting for for them?

So, are you interested in expanding our conversation beyond obesity? I’m not sure if all the above is just a distraction from “the real issue” of healthy weight for my children, or a way to get to the real issues that manifest themselves in extra weight. But I'm interested in exploring it.

What about you? Are you willing to join me in "Page Hall" once again to continue the discussion on how we fit into the world?