I Think I Hate Men

I think I hate men.

No.  That’s not right.

I’m almost sure that I do… but not for the reasons that you might suppose.

I’m not heartbroken over the one that got away.  I’m not recovering from physical or emotional abuse at the hands of a domineering lout.  I’m not even dealing with the aftermath of infidelity.

In fact, there’s actually a lot I love about men.

You see, I love their physiques (obviously).  I love their attitude.  I love how quickly they get over conflicts.  I love how they can thrive in the midst of adversity.  I love how they smell and even how they laugh.

So what’s the problem, right?

The problem (and the reason I hate them)… is their unfair advantage over women.

What do I mean?

Simply stated, I hate how the world treats men differently from women.  I hate how, for some reason, they age differently from women even though they have just as many years under their belts.  An old woman is past her prime; used up.  An old man “still got it.”

I hate how happy they are with themselves even when they aren’t attractive.  Women spend thousands to look their best, fight off the ravages of time and cover any blemishes.  Men will walk around with their guts out, their hair askew and their faces pockmarked and misshapen, fully confident that they can attract a “perfect 10” with little to no effort on their parts.

I hate how they can reset their family/time/body clock by simply marrying someone half their age and having more children.

I know, I know, women can do that too!  However, even here, she is at a distinct disadvantage.  If her much younger man wants children, she may have to birth a baby at a late age even if she already has grown children.  Ignoring that grown children are another animal altogether, carrrying a child is a lot more intensive than watching someone else do it.

Even if the younger man agrees to adopt children, the older woman starts over in the worse way: Diapers, Kindergarten, PTAs, etc.

Again?

Who wants to do that unless you have money and can afford a nanny to help out?

And then there’s the issue of trust involved with that.  Compare the number of single fathers you know to the number of single mothers.  All too often, men have the option of simply walking out, leaving the mother to raise any children alone.

Men don’t even have that as an issue when they marry a young girl. Oftentimes, she hasn’t experienced these things yet and has the energy to keep up with the demands of young children, to say nothing of the novelty and newness of such a thing.

Is it just me or does this seem very unfair?

So, looking back at my previous statement, I guess I really hate men because they have more lives than women.

What does that mean?

It means that, like a cat, they get a seemingly endless number of do-overs.  They can stop and start and restart their body/life clock whenever they like.

Meanwhile, women are in a footrace against that same body/life clock to meet, marry and bear children before they end up as old maids…or raising children well into their fifties and, God forbid, their sixties!

I know, I know.

Women are having babies at older ages, and you always have women who want that life and embrace starting over.  But for the vast majority, getting through with childbearing and rearing and getting back to your own life is the goal.  And they can’t reset the clock whenever they please.  Once their time is up, they’ve essentially expired.

Can anybody hear me?

Mothers of Sons

The other day, a co-worker came running towards me shouting that she is about to become a grandmother for the first time.  Needless to say, I was excited for her  . . . that is . . . until she went on to say that she was glad that the baby would be going home with the girl and the girl’s mother since her son and the girl are not married.

That’s when I exploded.

I mean, aren’t we women first, and the mothers of sons second?  When did we lose our empathy for the women that we supposedly were teaching our sons to love and cherish?  When did we forget the treatment that we received at the hands of no account men and condone, if not outright encourage, that same behavior in our sons towards young women?  How did it happen?  When did it happen?  How/when did we become so uninterested, so uncaring, so maliciously unconcerned with regard to the girls that our sons mess over (during their learning/experimental phase) while simultaneously nursing our own bad relationship and abandonment wounds?

I confess… I am sorely disappointed by my sisters.  Not all of them, of course.  My disappointment lies solely on the women who have sons (not daughters) and allow their young “men” to devastate the lives of other females without repercussion.  This is particularly sad given the fact that more than a few of these same women are single parents themselves.  Whether abandoned, despised or just plain ignored, they have found themselves in the same position that various young women have been left in by their trifling sons.  These same women raise sons but somehow don’t get the message across to them that it isn’t okay to engage in casual sex with females, make a baby and then go on their merry way, leaving the mother of the child sidelined.

I know, I know, it is important that we make our daughters understand that it is they who are taking the majority of the risk during intercourse (most often, not even good intercourse but, that’s another blog).  Men can participate during the pregnancy; the rearing of the child; and the financial, spiritual, emotional, psychological and educational development of the child if they “choose” to.  Women, on the other hand, don’t have that same level of choice/flexibility.

This is not to say that women are saintly, innocent and/or don’t make mistakes.  Neither do I mean to imply that women are always good parents or bereft of responsibility when it comes to sex.  On the contrary, I mean to emphasize that women are the ones who end up pregnant, not men, so any decision she makes (be it to give birth, to give the baby up for adoption or to abort) will have a lifetime effect on her that it will not have on the man.

In this generation where females have more birth control options at their disposal than ever, there is really no excuse.  Yet, women continue to play Russian Roulette with their lives.  They continue to take unnecessary risk with their futures by depending on and believing in a male (yes, I said male, not man) who makes a lot of pre-sex promises but will fail to deliver. So, perhaps, the mothers of sons can take a different approach.  Perhaps, our sons can benefit from being forewarned that the reality of their momentary need for pleasure is the merging of two families, FOREVER.  I mean, is just any girl worthy of carrying on your family lineage?  Or maybe mothers can teach their sons that the bitterness they feel over the absence of their own father is the same as the child feels for their absence.  Is your absence somehow more reasonable and right than that of your own father?  Can anybody hear me?