Not satisfied your lot in life. Rename your position.

Hey, it works for business. If you own a greasy spoon and want one of your underpaid slaves to work really hard and keep your other slaves in line, what do you do? Give them a few cents more per hour and a tag that says “MANAGER”.

One of the most amazing examples of this, for me, is the housewife to homemaker to soccer mom to stay-at-home mom. I’m sure I’ve missed a few steps. The thing is, I find it a prime example of how easy it is to be sold a bill of goods. If we can be convinced that we’re somehow superior to those who have gone before us, or even those who surround us, we will remain in an adversarial mindset. Co-operation is the enemy of big business.

If we start caring, really caring, about each other, we’ll all be elevated. It may be harder for manufacturer’s to sell the latest shiny model washing machine for a while, but sooner or later we’ll need a new washing machine and it will even out. In the meantime, life will get better for ordinary people. It’s alright to be an ordinary person. 

Amazing how we carry our ancestors crapola . . .

I don't know if this is so obvious as to be inane but anyone who follows this knows that's not going to stop me going on and on. Here's the thing. We are so, make that SOOO, influenced by the way our families of origin felt about all kinds of basic stuff.

 I have to tell you about a conversation my friend and I had yesterday. We're both old enough to have squealed over the Beatles. We each have made our own way in the world quite competently. Neither of us give ourselves much credit.

We started talking about the experiences we've had with past partners, well, husband and husbandishes. Both of us have either worked and contributed to the 'marriage', or been the sole breadwinner. And we have both found that even when we're the only contributor, money wise, there's been an underlying opinion that the money we make is somehow trivial. Inconsequential. It's sometimes subtle, sometimes not. So, what the heck, we're wondering now, was that all about. Neither of us, at this point in our lives, would put up with that shit for a minute.

So, why did we put up with it then. When we got further into that, it became obvious we'd carried the tendency to put up with that shit from our very beginnings. Not only put up with, but carry, or carried, the very attitudes that drove us up the wall. In my case, we lived on a farm. My father farmed. My mother farmed right along with him. She worked as hard and as long as he did, day in and day out. But, she didn't work. That was the myth. He worked, she didn't.

In my friends case, I can't remember what her father did but he 'worked hard' at whatever. My friend said her mother had 'done a bit of teaching.' Whoa. I could not let that pass. And, bless her, she heard me, when I pointed out what she'd said. There's a whole lot of difference between saying, 'Mom did a bit of teaching,' and saying 'Mom was a teacher.'  Or 'did a bit of teaching', and 'taught school'. Whatever, the attitude was picked up decades ago and brought forward by us, with us, and to our detriment. And we have to acknowledge, I feel, the root of this stuff before we can really change it. Oh, yeah, blame the parents. NO. That's not the point at all. If we carry that stuff it's our own stuff and we have to deal with it. But we have to recognize it, admit to it, and then change it.