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My Family
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Straight Female / 45
This is just a repository for 25 years of frustrated feelings.
I met my husband at college and he took me and got me pregnant at 19. He refused to consider an abortion. He didn't marry me. He paraded me around to his friends when my belly stuck out. When the baby was born he did a little bit of work, very little. He demanded sex soon after I gave birth, three weeks. I was pregnant two months after giving birth. He was the only guy in his group who had a 'woman'. He invited his friends over for dinner because they didn't have a woman to cook for them. He moved me into a house near campus, at least it had two bedrooms. He worked at the Ag Center and he gave me his paycheck. He was totally dependent, clothes, food, everything, I had to manage with two babies who were eleven months apart and a grown man/boy who refused to grow up.
One night, he wanted sex, he always wanted sex, he announced that we were going all natural. No pills. Nothing. He wanted to see how long I would last before I got pregnant again. I lasted a month. The fourth baby was the same thing, just get pregnant. I turned 25 and I had four kids, two sets eleven months apart and one year between the 2nd and third. We lived in this house downtown, an old house from the thirties, with one bathroom. All our neighbors were older people. When I became pregnant with my fifth child I got a permanent solution after I gave birth.
Those years were financially very difficult. I got his paycheck every month, but a graduate assistant does not make much money. When he got his Phd we moved to Iowa where he became a professor. When we moved he decided that we should get married, after five kids.
I raised five kids on a professor's salary. All my kids are college graduates or college bound. They have their dad's brains. The girls are incredibly resourceful and mature. The two boys are no different than their father, totally dependent on their sisters or me. Why do anything, if there is a woman around to do it for them. My older boy's girlfriend is in love with our lifestyle and she is so anxious to start her family, even though my son is only 20 and she is 18. If we could do it, they can do it. Today's costs won't allow that. She cites all these Midwest families with large families. It doesn't register that those are farm girls, not little girls from the suburbs.
Once upon a time I wanted to be a teacher. I ran a daycare instead. When I complained my grandmother's answer was always the same, "a woman's job is never done". I worry that my son's girlfriend is going to bring a baby home and I am going to be the grandmother telling her that a woman's job is never done.
I met my husband at college and he took me and got me pregnant at 19. He refused to consider an abortion. He didn't marry me. He paraded me around to his friends when my belly stuck out. When the baby was born he did a little bit of work, very little. He demanded sex soon after I gave birth, three weeks. I was pregnant two months after giving birth. He was the only guy in his group who had a 'woman'. He invited his friends over for dinner because they didn't have a woman to cook for them. He moved me into a house near campus, at least it had two bedrooms. He worked at the Ag Center and he gave me his paycheck. He was totally dependent, clothes, food, everything, I had to manage with two babies who were eleven months apart and a grown man/boy who refused to grow up.
One night, he wanted sex, he always wanted sex, he announced that we were going all natural. No pills. Nothing. He wanted to see how long I would last before I got pregnant again. I lasted a month. The fourth baby was the same thing, just get pregnant. I turned 25 and I had four kids, two sets eleven months apart and one year between the 2nd and third. We lived in this house downtown, an old house from the thirties, with one bathroom. All our neighbors were older people. When I became pregnant with my fifth child I got a permanent solution after I gave birth.
Those years were financially very difficult. I got his paycheck every month, but a graduate assistant does not make much money. When he got his Phd we moved to Iowa where he became a professor. When we moved he decided that we should get married, after five kids.
I raised five kids on a professor's salary. All my kids are college graduates or college bound. They have their dad's brains. The girls are incredibly resourceful and mature. The two boys are no different than their father, totally dependent on their sisters or me. Why do anything, if there is a woman around to do it for them. My older boy's girlfriend is in love with our lifestyle and she is so anxious to start her family, even though my son is only 20 and she is 18. If we could do it, they can do it. Today's costs won't allow that. She cites all these Midwest families with large families. It doesn't register that those are farm girls, not little girls from the suburbs.
Once upon a time I wanted to be a teacher. I ran a daycare instead. When I complained my grandmother's answer was always the same, "a woman's job is never done". I worry that my son's girlfriend is going to bring a baby home and I am going to be the grandmother telling her that a woman's job is never done.
