Does financial independence alone help us chart our own course?

Dear Ramya,
Thanks for a nice and detailed reply! Your last paragraph listing the strengths of us women, sums it all up. We should be proud of ourselves and remember to revisit these strengths often in our minds. Thanks for putting them so nicely.

I completely agree with your views on Feminist movements. Personally, I feel at times women’s liberation is taken to an unwanted extreme where the original intent of the movement is lost. It just becomes a fight for the heck of fighting. I think as mature individuals we women must take stock of what we really set out to achieve and if we are going in the right direction.

Sometimes we women unknowingly multiply our problems by letting ego and unreasonableness drive our battles without having the emotional strength to back up our actions. In my observation in most cases the unreasonable fighting is not intentional. It comes from being suppressed for too long or completely handing over our well being in some one else’s hands (spouse, in-laws etc). In both these cases, we women end up feeling helpless if things don’t go as per our expectations. So when we are suddenly given a chance to fight, we tend to overdo it.

That’s why I think as human beings, regardless of gender, we must all be taught to take responsibility for what happens to us in life. I think once we women realize that our life is our own making and that we have as much control over it as men do on their life, we will automatically feel more empowered without having to fight or argue. We will then be much more mindful of our thoughts and actions because we will know that anything that we do plays a huge role in how our life shapes up.

Thanks for enriching this thread with your views.
SS

 

Dear Malathi,

Thanks for the best wishes!

I can absolutely visualize the scenario you have mentioned. Isn’t it weird that inspite of education and financial stability, we tend to take a back seat when it comes to participating in decisions that affect our life?

One may question, what has attending a meeting or speaking up during the meeting got to do with how we handle our life? I think if we honestly reflect on it a little bit we will agree that this behavior is connected to how we generally handle things in life. Not necessarily always and in all situations, but probably most of the time. If we tend to be passive participants in most things that happen around us, we automatically tend to follow this passive nature in most of our dealings. Nothing wrong with this passive behavior as long as we don’t carry it everywhere and in every situation. Some situations are better handled being passive but others require our active participation.

That’s why we need to think and reflect hard on what we do and why we do it and whether this is really what we meant to do. All our actions have a consequence. For this reason we must pay great attention to our thought process because it is the thoughts that bring about actions.

Thanks Malathi for bringing to fore such an important facet of emotional independence with such a simple incident.
SS

 

Dear Aishu,
Thank you so much for the generous praise. It means a lot to me to know that my post appealed to you.

This is one of several topics I feel very passionately about because I believe that it is these early seeds of discrimination we sow that lead to so much discontent and unhappiness latter on in life. I think that it is extremely important to equip our kids with the right mindset; other good things will automatically follow.

Thank you for taking special time out for reflecting on something I feel so much for. You all have made this thread so rich by your FBs! Thanks my friend.

Dear Ramya,
I totally agree with you that time is of great essence. So why waste our time on something that is not worthwhile. Instead we must focus our energies on bettering ourselves.

Thanks once again for your generous praise for my posts! It is the FBs from all of you that make this thread and my posts interesting.

SS

 

Dear Shanthi,
Thanks for stepping in and penning down your views. You have added another wonderful dimension to this thread by bringing to light yet another angle - the self-starter angle!

Firstly, kudos to you for being ahead of your times, taking on challenges that girls would usually shy away from and overcoming them successfully! No wonder you are a role model for people around you.

I could not agree with you more about the fact that any kind of independence or any trait in our personality for that matter, has to come from within us. No questions about that. If we do not take it upon ourselves to change ourselves then no matter how much anyone tries to teach or influence us, it does not work.

Having agreed to that, I do believe that our upbringing and the environment around us play a huge role in our mental make up.

I don’t think that society makes or breaks a person. Because eventually we learn to break away from these shackles if the situation demands it. This is how we humans are. We do whatever it takes to survive.

But by giving our children a conducive environment, we are giving them a jump start and a solid foundation to build the much needed emotional independence. As parents that’s what we can do – to give them a platform to build their strengths.

In your case for example, being a girl only household and being scorned by relatives put that fire in you to prove them otherwise. It is a fact that circumstances propel people to excel in a lot of things and give them that extra push to develop that remarkable mental strength. Of course there are people who get wasted when they are faced with a challenge. But we are talking about reasonably strong people here. I come from an all girl household too with very liberal parents and I too have that fire in me to fight. I think our set-up and circumstances played a role in bringing about this fighting spirit in us.

Surely, we have to have it in us to surpass all of the challenges but it is also fortunate that we got an opportunity to prove our mettle by being posed with those tough situations early on in life.

On the other hand there are many households that don’t have to face extremely tough challenges early on in life. In these households the kids don’t get a platform to build that strength because they have never been posed with a situation that warrants it. This is where the environment at home becomes very crucial, especially, when there is a girl and a boy in the house.
I do not think any parent deliberately tries to instill dependency in their child. It just so happens that in some households the environment at home does not specifically emphasize on building the independent streak in the child’s personality. Again, this is not intentional in most cases but it just so happens that there are no attenuating circumstances that force them to pay great attention to these unsaid lessons that go a long way in building certain personality traits.

What you are doing at home in raising your son and daughter is exactly what is needed. Both genders should be given equal encouragement to explore and do everything in life without categorizing them into male and female domain. I feel this is the best gift any parent can give their kids. This will go a long way in making them the balanced individuals that we all like to have around us.

I am so happy to see so much thought going into this and so many views being expressed. It has added so much to my own thought process and given me so many more dimensions to mull over.

Thank you my friends!
SS

 

Dear Ramya,

I loved your last sentence "we are what we are"! I think this one sentence sums up all that we fight for. As soon as we are comfortable in our own skin, things will automatically start falling in place.

SS