Thursday, May 7, 2015

Why Is Modern Woman So Neurotic?

Have you ever noticed it, dear reader, how so many women nowadays appear to be highly neurotic? Not only those who work, but also the homemakers? It's like they all lack inner peace and constantly doubt themselves. I could give you real life examples but it would go against my policy on privacy, though I tend to think that you are all familiar with what I'm talking about.

Here is my theory as to why. I think that modern women are constantly trying to pull the load not meant for them. If you are a Christian, there are some clear instructions in the Scriptures as to what God expects from you as a woman, yet so many religious women keep talking about their faith, take part in various church activities, organise prayer circles and stuff like that yet are nearly indistinguishable from unbelievers in their day-to-day behaviour.

I'm talking here about things like wearing modest and feminine clothes, being a keeper at home as opposed to running around the town for hours on end and letting your husband guide the family. Especially the latest two (though the first one is also important).

A couple of days ago I had a visitor. She told me about a movie she watched on a Christian TV channel. A woman leaves her husband and little boy behind to go find herself. Later he goes to church (they aren´t Christians) and there he meets her. She tells him that now she is a Christian, God told her to go save heathens in the foreign lands so she isn´t interested in getting back to him and actually raising her child. The movie ends with him winning her back, which I frankly found surprising since it captured the essence of what passes for modern Christianity so well.

Arrogance (God talking to her directly), check. Being supposedly a born-again Christian yet treating marriage as disposable, check.  No concept of  the husband´s headship, check. Motherhood treated as a hobby, check. The idea that people in far away countries are more important that your near family, check.

Modern churches go out of their way to praise women´s spirituality while promoting a thoroughly feminist version of it, yet did it make women happy? Traditional churches, on the other hand, are accused of promoting `double standard` since they restrict leadership positions for women. Yet, the whole talk of the double standard is highly nonsensical since men and women are different. It´s not a double standard to treat different things (or people) differently. It´s just common sense.

With authority always comes responsibility and that´s what I think is driving modern women crazy. Since they are family leaders by default nowadays they take the majority of the decisions, and yet they are constantly uncertain about it. The burden is just too heavy. When you let your husband lead, when you relinquish control, you also free yourself from carrying the heavy burden of responsibility if things go wrong.

If you restrict the amount of activities outside home, even church activities, and concentrate on making the domestic life a pleasant thing, you will experience more peace and rest. Another good thing to do is to avoid all stuff political. Women nowadays are pushed to participate in politics to the same degree that men do, with the only result being that many of them seem unable to stop worrying about things going south and growing progressively crazy, to the point that they are unable to talk of anything else.

Others will develop a saviour´s complex and will spend hours trying to save mankind while there is no one left to keep the home fires burning, so to say. I had a friend who used to say `give your job to a man`. I´d like to say, ladies, let the men slay the dragons. It´s what they were made for. You´ll be happier for this.

14 comments:

  1. Housewife from FinlandMay 7, 2015 at 5:18 AM

    I am propably perfect example of a neurotic modern woman. :) It has been a great relied to me to realize that I don't have to control everything, I don't have to have opinion about politics -and that it is ok to be silent in Church AND in society. I have finally realized that "women be silent" isn't disregarding women. It sets us free. We do not need to be part of all quarrells.

    I used to think that if I don't speak my mind if I disagree with something I am being dishonest. Now I have finally realized that silence really is golden and shutting your mouth is a virtue. :)

    I am still neurotic; though. I can take great stress about my domestic duties. I think that I take little too seriously everything I read in media and blogs. I think that everyone else is so perfect housekeeper, hard-working, tidy, feminine and gentle and I should be too. I know that is not true but I do not believe it, if you get my point.

    Anyway I am trying to think that as long as my hubby is happy, I must be doing something right. :)

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  2. I'm afraid we are all neurotic to some degree:) it's the modern life which drives us crazy. I'm planning to write a couple more posts on this very topic, not trying to be like someone else and being content with simple things.

    The more controlling the woman is, usually the more stressed.

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  3. Oh I love this post. I rarely read the news or do anything. I can't help but be upset sometimes though with what I see around me. It's harder on me of course because there is no one like me around here. I can't even get any mother to bring her kids over to let our kids play together they are always too consumed with their work and everything else. I feel like in order for my kid to socialize I have to go put her in one of these "after-school programs" or daycare or something. Of course I'm unwilling to do that...

    I'd rather be silent I don't mind. I think that it is very uplifting to women because it shows that men are taking charge and taking responsibility. I always feel special and very precious because my husband is in charge. Others think my husband is a royal a**hole. He'll grab me and tell me what to do but he takes very good care of me and I've never once been in the workforce. Other women's husbands don't even care to be responsible for them. I feel like I'm one with him and I can just relax.

    We women are not meant to lead. We were made to be taken care of. If you are a Christian the Bible, both OT and NT is pretty clear on that. But I see everyday even Christian websites saying it's ok for wife to be the breadwinner and have careers, etc.. etc... I also never understood why women feel they have to volunteer so much. My grandmother is always gone volunteering at church and everything even though my grandfather has been in poor health and I wish my grandmother was home more often as I never get to see her... A woman's presence in the home is like a shining light even after the kids are long gone.

    I mean what's wrong with staying home and relaxing? I work out everyday and do all the house chores, pick the little one up from school and take care of our child and cook and in between I do things I like. I was sitting on the porch yesterday playing the guitar and I was thinking that people used to sit around and relax like that but now it seems like nobody ever does and if they do relax its only to be couch potatoes in front of a blasting TV with non-stop crudity and obscenity.

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  4. I'm glad you liked it! The point is, many Christians will downright criticise a woman who simply stays home and minds her own business. You aren't supposed just to stay home and relax, you must be busy doing something, anything, no matter what. It's just crazy. Gone are the days when the women would just spend afternoon hours chatting with the neighbours and knitting, or reading a book.

    We are also supposed to spend 24 hours a day constantly worrying about things happening in other countries which we frankly can't do anything about, yet we are expected to feel guilty about it. Nobody ever thinks that it's probably not the Western people's job to babysit the whole world and it's denigrating to the people of these countries to treat them as less than adults.

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  5. Not that it started now:
    https://bonald.wordpress.com/2015/04/27/chesterton-we-have-abolished-their-parents/

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  6. Excellent! I am saving this to share with others and remind my own heart when I feel such thoughts. Please keep writing and sharing such thoughts, I am encouraged and others will be also.
    Shirley in Virginia

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  7. Thanks, Shirley and welcome to the blog!

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  8. I too am glad you chose this as our subject. I used over think things my husband did or said. Now in reality if he did something the wrong way it would be him that took the brunt of it but I kept harping into it,. Even if it was only in my mind and not said out loud. Now I sit back and realize it is none of my business to tell him what to do or think. Why get upset over something I should not? Yes it is freeing ..SO freeing to let the husband lead. At times I know too I could carry very heavy things but he loves to do it for me so why not? He feels manly and it makes me feel cared for. So many thing are easier if you just relax and be yourself...a women. Only a women. Not a man or a work buddy or a pal in the working sense etc. :-) He wanted the difference when he married so why could we want to change? Let's face it, God made us different. He knows exactly what He was doing. Exactly. :-))))
    I really enjoyed all good comments too. Sarah

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  9. Bravo Sanne!!! Very well said!

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  10. Ladies, I'm glad you enjoyed the post. I think the instinct of mothering is strong in us girls but it's never a good idea to mother your husband:)

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  11. Housewife from FinlandMay 8, 2015 at 5:39 AM

    About just relaxing and being: here in Finland we remember how Luther said: "Pray and Work". But we remember it in a form "Work and Work and Work little bit more". Being concidered lazy is propably the worst sin here, even among non-believers. And relaxing=being lazy.

    I have always found great comfort from Luke 10:38-42, when Jesus said to Martha:"Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." People quote that very rarely nowadays. I think that is the Bible verse I love most, since I have always been more Mary than Martha. I mean I am not bad housekeeper, but my inner life has always been the most important thing to me.

    Nowadays it seems to me that people hardly have any inner life. If they have a chance to sit still, they immediately start playing with their smartphone. They cannot entertain themselves with their thoughts.

    Allowing yourself to rest is very important.

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  12. Thank you for writing this. In our Church I and another women have been away from Church activities because we both just had babies. My absence was met with gossip and criticism. My return by coldness. All by older women of the Church who have never had children and were enraged that I was not there for every activity. Thank God for the older women who actually were married and had children and were kind.

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  13. Housewife, imo, the most important thing is to find some form of balance. For instance, i have an approximate work plan in my mind, if not on paper. I adjust it according to circumstances. When I've done all the necessary stuff, then I feel free to engage in more frivolous pursuits.

    Anon, you welcome and I´m sorry about your situation. Please, pick a handle. Anonymous comments aren´t allowed on this blog.

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  14. Beautifully said Sanne!

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