Entertaining, yes, but also instructive. Childs writes straight
from the gut. Her tale resonates with the wisdom women take years
to learn. The main message is that the gospel we should
have been preaching to our daughters for years is: Depend on
yourself. Only you can make yourself happy. Too often, women
look to others -- usually, the men in our lives -- to fill that
role.
Childs writes about her own life: ". . . behind her lived a
maiden believing the myth that she was nothing without a man;
a sort of damsel in distress."
Though feminism, careers and delayed motherhood have rewritten
parts of the myth, it remains a powerful undertow in many of our
lives. Childs writes that many of the figurative miles she logged
in her journey were simply detours -- until she found that "this
wasn't about them [men] but about me instead."
I talked to Childs after she wrote me a funny letter about her
experience as a published author. We discussed at what point in
their lives women come to terms with the realization of their
own independence -- and whether some ever do.
"I would like to think," she said, "that we have evolved as
self-reliant and independent, and that when we choose to be with
a man, it's as enrichment and not as dependency."
Surely, this is something we could teach our daughters, a definition
of themselves, a happiness and satisfaction separate from others.
'Age of enlightenment'
Childs, who has made the rounds of South Florida bookstores and
appeared on several national TV talk shows, agrees: "I'm hoping
this is an age of enlightenment, when our daughters can have an
identity as well as a husband."
Perhaps the most useful advice Childs offers was borrowed from
the author who served as an inspiration for her own writing --
Sam Keen, who wrote the 1991 book on manhood Fire in the Belly.
Everyone, Keen believes and Childs concurs, should ask themselves
two questions:
- Where am I going?
- Who will go with me?
"Never reverse the two, or you're in big trouble," writes Childs.
"I always had someone to go with me, but I never knew where the
hell I was going."
No male-bashing
The Myth of the Maiden is not a male-bashing book. And
it's certainly not a feminist libretto. In fact, if blame is placed
anywhere, Childs is happy to load it on herself. With wisdom and
self-deprecating humor, she is not afraid to take risks, to give
her opinion, to say what is politically incorrect. Women readers
probably will recognize in Childs' book conversations they have
had with their most intimated friends.
On intuition: "With me, it is a wavelength, an intuition, a
voice or feeling that resonates within me. Many times I don't
have any conscious control over these feelings. Thought I might
try to reason, in the end, my intuition prevails."
On the self-made woman: "The women's movement for me was a double-edged
sword. In leaving the hearth, I discovered myself, but I paid
a big price. The vote is not in yet, but in looking back, the
road was indeed a personal struggle."
On the search: "Discovering ourselves is a long, arduous journey
that requires a great deal of courage. Most people never take
the journey and consequently, they die never knowing who they
are."
How much space?
On relationships and questions we should ask but rarely
do: "How much space do we need? ... How much are we willing to
risk the relationship for autonomy? How much as we willing to
risk autonomy for the relationship? How much can you really trust
your partner ... and yourself?"
Though The Myth of the Maiden has some psycho-babble
and sometimes seems to wander off in tangents, the message remains
clear and powerful. During our conversation, Childs told me something
that I think eloquently sums up her book and her journey:
"I'm not defined by being a mother, by being a wife, by being
a psychotherapist. It's like this: The colors of a rainbow together
make a rainbow, but each, by itself, does not."
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