Following on an article I wrote a while back called Feminism Got it Wrong, my sister Thea Mason and I examine and discuss the roles of women and men, parenting, children, Feminism’s impact on the fabric of society––and family camping and playing games as prescriptions for necessary healing.
Transcript below:
Anne: 00:00 Alright. So,.
Thea: 00:00 “Hey!”.
Anne: 00:01 Thea and I, my sister Thea and I, Anne, are going to start an experiment and start recording our conversations that we would otherwise have anyway. We find that we have been seeking some understanding as we examine what’s going on in the culture. Thea is a teacher in the Waldorf school in, in, in the Wa, in the private Waldorf schools. And I’m a homeschooling. Uh. Waldorf inspired homeschooling mother. Uh, we both had different experiences in our lives, which have led us to this point and we come at things differently, but find a lot of common, uh, perceptions about, I think the problem…
Thea: 01:06 State of things that we see.
Anne: 01:08 Yeah. The state of things.
Thea: 01:10 Fellow women in families… In what we observe in our little windows into the culture in the world.
Anne: 01:17 Yeah. And into…and the children. Right. Who are coming up to, you know, take over. Right?
Thea: 01:26 And very challenging times that they’re coming into.
Anne: 01:29 Yeah! And the challenging times, uh, includes, uh, w w well, the, the, my own issues, my own lament is, is seeing children all around me…
Thea: 01:44 Suffering?
Anne: 01:46 Suffering, and, and, and parents flailing.
Thea: 01:50 Parents are suffering, too.
Anne: 01:53 And, and parents…Thea…Let’s establish this right now. I think Thea is more compassionate in the lens she brings to this and I, I am not, probably just as a person in general.
Thea: 02:06 Well you’re the eldest and I’m the third of four daughters. So there are different roles. We’ve played our whole lives that we continue to work with. I would say.
Anne: 02:14 Exactly. Exactly. So it’s nice that we have each other to balance it out.
Thea: 02:19 It sure is.
Anne: 02:19 And, and so, you know, just just to, to bring it down to kind of more practical, material, uh, language. You know, children are medicated, uh, to high heaven. Parents are medicated. Children are addicted to video games. Social media. Children are diagnosed with every disorder under the sun.
Thea: 02:47 And diseases.
Anne: 02:49 And diseases. And women and men, mothers and fathers seem to be at a loss. I see… I live in..I live in a pretty wealthy county as, as do you in, in California. And I see people spending a load of money and giving that money to experts to help them figure out what’s going on with their kid and to help them get their kids back on track.
Thea: 03:26 I would say also in here, just in terms of that picture of parents struggling…suffering…there is a sense that they are disempowered to be the masters of their family, to be the shepherds of their children. And um, I think one of the things that we synthesized out of our last discussion that we shared––which we wanted to share but was so vast and varied that we’re working to bring it a little bit more to the point––is, you know, we hear a lot of this notion through the feminist movement and really through, I would say all movements of people right now, is this idea of being empowered. Empowered to choose your life, to choose your path, for your children to choose their path. And…I don’t know if I’m jumping the gun here, but this idea of: what does that mean? What does it mean to be empowered? Because what you’re laying out is this picture of a lot of people who are not empowered, a lot of people who are at the whim of the current science, at the whim of the current trends and disorders. And how do you function with your children or yourself when you’re not really in charge? I don’t know.
Anne: 04:52 Absolutely. And to kind of circle back to even how we got to this. You know, I wrote an article a couple of years ago or whatever, or a year ago, whatever, where I said feminism got it wrong. Because I had begun becoming very disenchanted with, uh, with, with this movement that is…It was around the time of the, the pussy hats and the march and, and I felt like it was misguided. I felt that it was, uh, yeah, I felt it was misguided. And, and I started, you know, thinking a lot about, and, uh, reading a lot about…reflecting on my own experience in, in college, in, in taking women’s studies courses, learning about feminism and, you know, reflecting on the fact that I, I think that it’s, there’s an overemphasis on women outside the home, women as individuals where I, as I had identified in that article, I had identified that, you know, first and foremost, I think women’s role is to be mothers. I mean, otherwise humanity doesn’t keep going. Right? That’s, that’s our main, that’s the main thing. It doesn’t mean that needs to be a mother. Right? And not everyone will be. And we all bring in a different aspect of mothering, uh, and, and the female to mothering society, whether or not we are actually giving birth to children. But by and large, that is our role. And, and, and I to had also, uh, articulated that I believe women, women are the stewards of humanity. Since we are the mothers and we are the primary guides, uh––not to take away from the critical and equal significance of the father––but we are the nurturers. We bring in, uh, or, or rather, let’s just say together we bring in the life, we bring in the children and, but, but we deliver them into the world. And from the early, their early ages, we prepare them, we care for them. We, we transition them into the earth, into this earthly realm.
Thea: 07:51 Earthly existence…and what do we do here with them, and how do they become? And how do they harness the power to meet the tasks? Of life. Right?
Anne: 08:02 Yes.
Thea: 08:04 Something you said, what did it just trigger? Darn it. Women…
Anne: 08:14 Well, well, I, had also said, you know, pointed out that, you know, of, of equal incredible, monumental significance is the role of the father.
Thea: 08:26 Right.
Anne: 08:27 And we as mothers have experienced, uh, what becomes obvious to parents, which is that the early years that the child requires that nurture. As the child gets older, it requires much more of the father’s kind of, you know,.
Thea: 08:47 role. And dynamic.
Anne: 08:48 You know, the father brings the worldly in, right? And brings the worldly regard for that child as the child starts to be…to separate from the mother and to find his own, his or her own individuality. So, all right. So I’ll, I’ll stop there and return to what you were talking about, which is…
Thea: 09:11 So let me, let me interrupt real quick. So in talking about, you did mention what you had written a few years ago about feminism got It wrong. And I think one of the main points that you had made in that well-written article was that there’s been a devaluing of the work of the mother and that, that I think is where, if I’m not incorrect, that’s like the point, the main point of how feminism got it wrong. Because that, and I’ve spoken about this with you in terms of me as a mother and the provider, it’s like how did that, what did I gain? What did I gain by being able to do all of that, you know, and, and having to spread myself so thin because I would love to be the homemaker, the mother, to work in the domain… I like that work. And I know not everyone does. So it’s, so that’s in terms of what did feminism get wrong? What did we really gain? You know, that now we’re expected to, even in two parent homes, you’ve got fathers and mothers both working outside the home. And you know, anyone that knows about cooking real food, that’s like a full time job just to maintain feeding a family. I mean, that takes thinking, planning, prepping. So it’s like we’ve been robbed of all these faces to process and nurture because of time, right? So, so then, so then through that devaluing of motherhood and fatherhood essentially, I mean, they’re both, you know, they both are. And now they’re really mixed up and there’s a lack of clarity and, uh, help me out here because from that, that devaluing, we are less empowered to be who we are and to do the work we’re here to do. Is what I’ve been sitting with and thinking about.
Anne: 11:21 Yes, yes, yes. Uh, so in a way it’s like, so if the feminist movement, originally was born out of an impulse to shine light on the the value of the woman to society, what, what seems to have happened instead is it has discarded a critical core spirit of what a woman is and what a woman can bring to the world
Thea: 12:08 And what a woman does differently than a man, and what a man does differently than a woman. And feminism has been all about, “women can do what men do.” I personally don’t care to do that. Right? Like there are moments that women take the lead or are in charge. And both of us are pretty strong willed, fiery women, but I don’t see the world in the way a man does. I don’t look at things in the same way. So why are women trying to function like men?
Anne: 12:40 Right. Right. Um, I mean, I, I think I, I articulated this in the article too, but just you know, I, uh, that occurred to me a long, long time ago that this, this, you know, this striving to, uh, compete in a man’s world just by its very nature implies that the woman’s world is…
Thea: 13:10 Isn’t valuable.
Anne: 13:10 Less important. Right So that first part is what I feel got got screwed up. Um, I also, I had mentioned this before, but I had seen Ann Coulter’s, an interview with Ann Coulter where she, she said something that kind of startled me into an awareness that the suffragette movement may not have even gotten it right.
Thea: 13:41 Right.
Anne: 13:42 Again, I understand. Because, because possibilities for women, were limited for one reason or another. I don’t know. I don’t know why that happened. Um, because let’s, let’s, let’s be real here. I mean, women have sex, right? I mean, and men want to have sex, right? So I don’t understand. You know, there is a power in that. And speaking of…pause for one second, hold on. Yeah, exactly right. Well, all right, I guess I may not even go there.
Thea: 14:33 Right. That’s okay.
Anne: 14:34 But basically, you know, women and men need each other, right? Men have certain needs and women have certain needs, and there is an arrangement there. Marriage is the arrangement that is made. Women give men what they need, which is sex, um, nurturing love. Uh, they can, they can keep the home, they can, uh, advise and,.
Thea: 15:00 You’re frozen.
Anne: 15:00 Okay, so are you, we’ll wait until it’s not. You there? Oh, it says Theodora Mason, by the way.
Thea: 15:15 It does. It was frozen for a minute.
Anne: 15:06 I know. I stopped. I just stopped. So you were too. Okay. So, yes. So I don’t understand how it went wrong. I don’t understand how men, uh, abused their…
Thea: 15:12 Their role.
Anne: 15:14 Yeah. And so because they did, women had to do something, uh, to right it. And it doesn’t feel as if it has gotten righted because it feels as if they’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water.
Thea: 15:37 I would agree. And it seems, though, what we did also touch in on a little bit is that there is sometimes when, when there’s an impulse, it’s needed. To stretch the fabric, a little bit, of how we function and, and are in the world. And without the stretching and walking out the door and looking around at the world, the view stays so small if it’s locked in. So in terms of how… It’s like it had an impulse and it’s now gone astray. It’s sort of lost, its, uh, its place of being. And, and now it’s about how can it take what it’s learned through this journey and bring more intelligence and true empowerment to the roles in which women inhabit, whatever those are––you know, main ones being mothering, motherhood, family and caring for our young. Because we can see in our country at least there is a deep issue and imbalance in the way young people are growing up. So how do we take that learning and what do we do with that?
Anne: 16:53 Well, let’s, can we, can we, uh, touch on briefly––what is the learning, what is the learning been? What have we gained through this experiment of feminism and what have we gained from, uh, giving women, uh, ample opportunity to step outside their traditional roles in the home and get out into the world, the workforce and the world, politics, government. All that. What have they, what have they gained? You know, I might, I’ll, um, echo what I have talked to other women about in the past. Um, we as, as homeschoolers, we have, you know, we have a homeschool community and there are some very young women in this community as well. There’s also a lot of us older ones who are, I’m almost 49 years old. Right. I guess I understand what happens often, these days is that women wait. They go get educated, they go have a career of some sort and then when the, the clock starts ticking, they have children. That’s what I did. So a lot of us are older and we have had the experience in the world in various professions. Some of these younger women are being brought up. Uh, I, I’m thinking of one in particular, uh, who went to law school to be a lawyer. Um, but she and her husband started, uh, while she was in law school––they were both in law school––to have children. And I see her trying to do it all. She’s not working as a lawyer, but she’s, she’s using her degree in a number of very valuable ways in the world. But I also see that it’s a lot, right? And I say to her and I say to many, and I think I’ve said even to you like, you know what? The most valuable, the most by far the most rewarding work I have ever done is parenting, is homeschooling my kids. Is getting even back back in touch with I think something that maybe we never even had. Us growing up with the two working parent family, um, having order in my home, my home is not chaotic and filthy––sometimes it gets messy––like you said, cooking, uh, uh, doing hand work, ah, having a rhythm of a, a not a hectic pace. All of these things have been, have felt so healthy. And parenting and homeschooling is beyond language in terms of how fulfilling that is. Right? So, I bring this up to suggest that the one, the main thing I think I’ve learned is that I am so grateful for this opportunity to be a mother, to bring these children into the world, to be a part of their experience and to understand my own experience simply by witnessing their unfolding. And beyond and beyond and beyond. Right? But at the same time, maybe because of my experience and my career before that perhaps I have that confidence, to, uh, uh, to inhabit whatever realm I find myself in. I think. Perhaps I have the experience––I mean, as you know, I’ve, I got involved in, uh, a lot in, in Sacramento and basically fighting a lot of legislation. Year after year. Perhaps my experience, my career, has, uh, assisted me in doing that ’cause I’m going there and advocating on behalf of our, of the families and the children. Right? So! I mean, how about you and, and let’s talk about how you’ve done it differently.
Thea: 21:34 Yeah, right. I came at it, at the opposite angle. Um, I think uh, I mean, help me articulate it. I, you know, I, I came into adulthood becoming a parent. So I’ve been a parent for almost 20 years, you know, basically 20 years now. Um, and, and so that’s informed every part of me becoming a real adult. Um, and I, and I didn’t do a career. I didn’t go through the same cycle in that way. So I’ve found my voice in a different way though, in our reflection and sharing too. It’s like my voice was always there, uh, in a sense. And I always sort of, had a gut instinct that I’ve listened to, certainly regarding my children. Um, and, and so, you know, I know I’m not…
Anne: 22:12 No, no, let me jump in. Let me, because for anybody listening to this, it’s like, so Thea had her first child at 23. Right? You were 23, weren’t you? And I actually, I’m six years older than Thea, but I, I used…You were my model actually, thank God. Right? And, and it took, you know, I was, uh, not going as much with my instincts, I think in general as you did, you knew inherently to do. I kind of, I wonder if it’s because it got educated out of me, it or it got, you know, even through or through the experience of just being out there in the, in the world and having to play that game. Right.
Thea: 23:25 Totally.
Anne: 23:26 So I would suggest, and we’ve talked about this before, but like you just articulated, I mean, I don’t really think you grow up. I mean, you can grow up without having children, but it is a, um, baptism by fire into the world of adulthood. Right? At least if you’re doing it, even semi-consciously. So you have always been an adult. I don’t think I really was an adult, uh, until I went through the first few years of the trials and challenges and decisions and responsibility of parenting. Right? So, you know.
Thea: 24:12 Well, it’s curious that what it sparks in me, just even that reflection on your becoming a mother. My becoming a mother makes me think of our mother and our parents. Both. I would’ve called them feminists, you know, growing up. And I would say our mother was a different person in a large degree when she had me and brought me into the world than she was when she had you. She was much more empowered into herself, to a large degree. Through, you know, to, to, to in many regards. Um, and was beginning to trust her instinct a bit more. And I don’t know what those early years were like for our parents, you know, thinking people, but still very mainstream American people in a lot of regards in terms of family life. And, and um, through their trials and uh, struggles. They became something more unique in that time through dealing with our sister who was ill. So, so just in that, what that brings me to is just that when we’re talking about the role of the mother, it’s who you are, that that sets up your children for whatever their cycle, their ways of being, their ways of interacting and understanding themselves in the world. Um, and that’s a huge responsibility for parents, for women, for men. And we’re specifically speaking about women ’cause that’s what we are, you know. Um, so it’s kind of like, “Have courage, Women, for, for listening to your own self and discovering what that is and what that’s speaking because who knows better for our children than the parents, than the mothers? Than the people that have shepherded them into the world?” And when we look at the issues that we’re facing, I keep coming to our word “empowered” for today. It’s like, if each person truly were empowered to listen to themselves and to listen to their child and to listen to the rhythm of their life, that’s where change can happen.
Anne: 26:33 Yes, I’d agree. And what I keep having going through my head is…and I just realized, you mainly, your first many, many years of parenting chose work that you could, that worked around your children.
Thea: 26:54 Yes. Well that was the thing I knew and though my child’s father and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, we didn’t want to um, out…farm out at my kids. I, it made, you know, we were, we were not wealthy and it never really made sense to put my child in childcare. Who’s going to care for my child better than me? I mean, and that was just like a basic.
Anne: 27:18 And that I feel like that’s, that’s somewhat at the crux of this whole thing here too. I mean that is a basic! No one is going to care for your child like you. Right? So..
Thea: 27:33 Especially let’s, I want to be specific about my own thinking there too. Especially the infant. You know, if I had grandma, grandpa, Auntie, uncle, I didn’t have that as a, as a young mother at all. I built community of people. I could depend on what I needed, but in those early, very, very early years, I can’t imagine. I can’t, I mean, and, and I, we made sacrifices that I didn’t consider really sacrifices to not put my kid in some system like that. Um, but as they get older, I mean, there’s that picture of the village, you know, it takes a village because you being an Auntie and, and good friends that are aunties and uncles to my kids, my kids need more than just me as an archetype. And just their father as an archetype, they need other people so they can round themselves out, you know, I think, and so however we build that community, and that’s sort of what I think that’s the natural impulse of what school would be. But our schools don’t work like that. Right. They don’t become part of the village. That’s its separate entity for the most part. Waldorf schools, a small Waldorf school does. It does take on this sense of a village. Um, yeah. It can ideally, um, depending on how it’s held. So I know I’m…
Anne: 28:57 No, it’s good! No, it’s all ’cause, this is important to…It’s all very important to recognize and, okay. So let’s recap. We see that there are some systemic problems. Uh, in the fabric of our society. School shootings have become a regular thing.
Thea: 29:29 Medication, mental health medication for young children, teenagers, adults. That’s the norm.
Anne: 29:41 Yes. That, that alone is a problem. Right? Um, so, so we need to fix it. I don’t think that this third, third wave feminism, I do not think that it’s, it’s serving us. What I see is, uh, is us moving away from the problems and the wholeness and the unity and becoming more and more segmented and shrill and divided and hateful. And we, we have and, and we, we can, we can flesh this out in another conversation, but we’ve, you identified the fact that, you know, for the woman to aspire to the archetype of woman, in, in, the archetypes full glory, she needs the man to be aspiring to the archetype of the man in his full glory. And feminism has been trying to do something in isolation, for some time and now almost in a combatant manner.
Thea: 31:05 Very much.
Anne: 31:05 Right. I find this Me Too movement, um, whacked.
Thea: 31:11 Whacked.
Anne: 31:13 It does not in any way suggest that, um, that, you know, abuse of one’s role or abuse of power is in any way, something I would condone. But I, I think that we are…movements like Me Too. And, and now…I frankly think the pussy hat march and this, what I find a kooky railing against president Trump, by virtue of him being a white man, it’s, it’s, it’s just driving us further away from what our strengths are, and our roles are. And it is…
Thea: 32:03 And what is…would bring health and happiness. And that’s, that there is a togetherness that breeds happiness and health.
Anne: 32:14 And we’re not victims. We are participants.
Thea: 32:18 So here’s where I want to go from the Me Too. When this whole thing, which you know, you’ve already qualified. It’s, “I AM” and “WE ARE” instead of Me Too to that.
Anne: 32:32 Yes. I want to, I want to just put some clarity on it for anybody listening ’cause no one else has been involved in our conversations. But Thea came up with this brilliant idea to, you know, when we were seeing what was happening with this Me Too movement and the witch hunting that it started to become, and also in fact, you know, I won’t, I won’t go into it too deeply, but to a start, uh, accusing men, uh, of…Instead of dealing with what I think were substantial situations in cases of men in power abusing their power and really disrespecting themselves and women, I think it started turning into, uh, it, um, it diminished the severity of the real situations where, and now men are afraid to even have interviews. Interview a woman alone in an office, always has to have a witness so that she doesn’t…
Thea: 33:45 Accuse him of sexual harassment or something else. I mean, I know so many good men who have, who have been a victim of this.
Anne: 33:52 Yes, me too.
Thea: 33:52 And it’s, you know, it devalues the moments where it really is a truly abhorrent situation. Because learning, I mean, part of what I think we also discussed in that is like, learning how to navigate in the world as a woman, as a man is learning how to uh, deal with unwanted, uh, advances. I mean, that’s part of learning how to be in the world.
Anne: 34:24 That is absolutely part of learning how to be a woman. And to put, put even a kind of a broader language on it. It is the responsibility, equal responsibility of the woman, and the man to, uh, to keep the balance of power between them.
Thea: 34:43 Absolutely. Absolutely.
Anne: 34:45 And we’ve never had, uh, more, more physical strength than men. Right? But throughout times in history, women have managed somehow to exert their authority in this dynamic, very successfully. So we need to help women come back to that, both with their men. And then also with their children.
Thea: 35:03 Absolutely.
Anne: 35:25 And stop acting like children and victims. Right?
Thea: 35:28 Victims. Yeah. Because we are then, you know, if a woman is only going to carry that victim role, which it’s like, I want to qualify once more. That doesn’t mean there aren’t situations where a woman is not a victim or a man is not a victim, you know, there are real moments where it is atrocious. And that is not, that is not what it is to be human, to have the, the beautiful transformative power of sex be distorted in such a way that it becomes harmful. That’s not being, that’s not humanity. That’s not true humanity. Right?
Anne: 35:53 Exactly. Because that, that beautiful union between a man and a woman should be empowering and glorious, not debasing and degrading right. That’s accepted as a given. Right?
Thea: 35:06 And when that goes wrong, that is wrong and should be addressed. When there is the playful space. I mean, I could take all of this really back to what my…I’m so fortunate to have this work of learning about play and games and work with children and learning how to teach play because that’s something that has, you know, slowly become less available to young children in the world. Due to so many things. Um, but play, learning how to play.
That’s really what this comes down to, too. People that haven’t learned how to play, which Jaiman McMillan, when we talk about––who’s my teacher, Spacial Dynamics, great stuff. He, um, play is making connections and knowing how to remain separate, making connections and remaining separate. And when that play experience doesn’t happen, then when you have come into this budding sexuality, if you don’t know how to interact and then separate how to interact and read, “oh, that’s not what the situation calls for now.” When you aren’t listening, that’s when violence happens. Right? When those, those feelers that sense and perceive the situation, if they’re not working, if they haven’t been trained to work properly, that’s when we screw up. And you know, I mean obviously there’s, because I think what happens…I have a lot of compassion for the young man. It’s a scary world to come into having these feelings for a woman. How do you put yourself out there? How do you not be too forceful but not be too cowardly? That’s a fine balance to come into and it’s play. That’s what flirtation is. That’s what that banter is. That’s what’s so fun. When it’s engaged in properly. And so that’s part of the work of being a mother too, is to not be a victim. To have clear boundaries with your children and to be able to engage and let them feel where they are and how they relate to you as the archetype of woman for them. I’m talking about sons and daughters, you know.
Anne: 38:26 Exactly. Let me, hold on one sec. So let’s, let’s conclude with touching on some prescription toward healing this right toward, and we’ll, we’ll get into it in further conversations about, about more of this. We’ll flesh it all out, but I, I love what you identified, which is in a way, let’s get first back in touch with that, that unspoken, a lot of the unspoken understandings between men and women, maybe? Because you, you can’t reduce it all down to language. And I think that’s part of what we’ve been trying to do. And so how do we begin to heal this, this divide between men and women? Because let’s face it, our, the survival of our humanity depends on that union, that healthy union, my door has just opened….So how do we simultaneously, um, fulfill each other’s needs, right?
Thea: 39:42 That is the thing. There it is.
Anne: 39:45 So, yeah. So how do we, so, so we need to focus on healing that. Perhaps a conversation needs to begin between men and women, right? A new conversation. That fosters renewed respect for each other’s strengths and what they bring to the party. Right? Once we do that, we can start focusing on our roles as parents to these new human beings coming in who are going to take our place and, uh, keep steering this ship. And I guess this is not any great epiphany or great answers to it all. But in our last conversation, I had mentioned that, uh, you know, someone, a friend of ours had been talking about, you know, maybe like a, a woman’s conference to kind of to heal, to heal the traumas. Right? We haven’t even touched on to traumas that, and we’ll do that in another one. And my reaction was resistant because I feel as if it may draw, uh, the type of person who wants to have more me time, be coddled, uh, and try to do this work in isolation, which can’t be done. Right? And then you said, you pointed out, well, let’s bring the men, too. Right?
Thea: 41:26 It’d be more fun!
Anne: 41:28 And, and, and then, and I was saying, well, and the children, right? Let’s bring the children. And so let’s make it a family conference. Right? And you said, “It’s called camping!” And there’s something to that because when you’re camping, you’re out there. You’re together. And unless you’re gonna go run away into the wilderness, you’re stuck together and you gotta make it work.
Thea: 41:56 And you gotta make it work and it, and it simplifies. I mean, why do we all like to go? I mean, those that like to go camping? It simplifies our, what we do, eat, sleep, clean up, leisure time. And that’s about it, right?
Anne: 42:15 Yes. And, and spending all that time together without distractions of television.
Thea: 42:22 And, and phones, and everything else that is so accessible and prevalent everywhere.
Anne: 42:27 Yes. Forces us to respectfully figure out how to inhabit our space together.
Thea: 42:38 And so, and, and, and to have conflict that you then can learn how to create your own boundaries and respect other’s boundaries for solutions.
Anne: 42:50 Gosh, that’s so true. Even without lots of rooms in a house or you know, uh, a job to go off to. Right? So…
Thea: 43:01 Because you’re in it.
Anne: 43:28 Yes. Cause you’re in it and you and you, you can’t go anywhere. So we’re going to hold that thought for our next conversation.
Thea: 43:37 Let’s go camping.
Anne: 43:14 That, you know, maybe what the world needs, the Western world needs is families going camping.
Thea: 43:19 Families going camping!
Anne: 43:21 And they may be able to work it all out,.
Thea: 43:25 It’s true though! Because then your, your problems present. Your issues present when you cannot isolate in the way that the world is becoming more and more accustomed to. So…
Anne: 43:39 Yes, yes! And you don’t have your shrink there to go talk about it with either.
Thea: 43:43 And you don’t have anyone to complain to. I mean, honestly, families going camping is like step one, you know, your own nuclear family. Step two is do it with another family. Step three, add another family. And then it’s like that’s how you build culture. Because then you’re going to have conflicts. You and I, even when I, when I come up with my kids and the things that come up for our kids, how they have a different family culture that they have to interact with and work through and meet and find a dynamic together. So that’s our, our remedy. Play games, interact in real ways. Do real things.
Anne: 44:28 Yes. And let’s start talking about putting it into language that what we’re trying to do is heal the dynamic between men and women. Not, and that is the empowerment. That is empowering. To, to continue dividing and uh, vilifying…
Thea: 44:50 Blaming.
Anne: 44:50 Right. Blaming will get us nowhere. So let’s, let’s shift these movements. Let’s figure out some new movements for the next conversation.
Thea: 45:02 Absolutely. Wonderful. Thank you, Anne.
Anne: 45:05 Okay. All right. I’m going to stop the recording and hang on. Looks Right. Stop. Can we want to stop it? Yes. If you, yes.
