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I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

sevanoland.com

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Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#11

Post by noduerme »

skeptical1884 wrote: post #3

In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given. But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living. I want to be a father so I can raise a kid…

hm.

I don't know why you couldn't be a great father. In the sense you're talking about. I know it would come with the physical baggage (or not, if you adopt?)

A friend I love dearly is raising a 3 year old little girl... she never expected to get pregnant at 42... and she is as much a father as a mother. She lets the girl play in mud puddles while other parents stare, and collect bugs, and go look at art in museums. Absolutely unconcerned with how the world thinks a mom with a 3 year old should behave.

[edit] it did slow my friend's career over the past few years, but, didn't kill it. And she's back to it now. But more importantly... I've never seen anyone love anything as much, even when she says she's frustrated out of her mind. And me, not having kids, I'm a little jealous of that feeling.

[edit2] I'm an uncle, so maybe that's more my speed ... just jumping in for the easy fun parts and teaching the kids new things and being the visiting fireman. But that's not what being a father is, at least as far as my brother's day to day driving them to and from school and taking care of them.

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#12

Post by phyzix5761 »

skeptical1884 wrote: post #3

In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given. But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living. I want to be a father so I can raise a kid…

This belittles men, especially those who are single fathers and have similar career struggles as single mothers. Our perceptions create our reality and if we constantly think we've been given the short end of the stick then we'll look for evidence around us to prove this perception. There's a whole other side to motherhood that comes with fulfillment, meaning, and growth.

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#13

Post by rc1 »

skeptical1884 wrote: post #3

In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given. But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living. I want to be a father so I can raise a kid…

Where I live, no Dad is being praised for changing a diaper. And golf clubs suffer.

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#14

Post by disdegeneration »

hypfer wrote: post #9
skeptical1884 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of confrontational approach do you mean?

The essay there weaponizes sarcasm + the emotional experience of that reality to hit the reader over the head with, in an attempt to break their script and force them to a change in perspective. This - evidently - worked and works, but there are trade-offs to it. Specifically, it is zero-sum, which eventually led to the gender war we have now. Since the defenses have been (for the most part) broken down, a modern piv…

The social mechanics to decouple woman permanently from reproduction are already in the making. Incubators and AI educators and people can have children with a company, the rest of the social problems (the social network harem effect) then go out the window. If you need to be a millionaire to have a conventional family, tradition is out, corporate cloning is in. The working alternative to religious fundamentalism.

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#15

Post by DiggyJohnson »

skeptical1884 wrote: post #3

In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given. But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living. I want to be a father so I can raise a kid…

What an interesting comment. Do you feel that the aspects of fatherhood that you are most jealous of are relatively lower expectations of time commitment directly watching after the kid and encouragement of professional success?

And if it’s not too prying to ask what are your ideal expectations for your partner? How important is their career? What is their ideal role in childrearing?

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#16

Post by abenga »

skeptical1884 wrote: post #3

In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given. But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living. I want to be a father so I can raise a kid…

Get a surrogate maybe? Should tick many of the boxes you have listed.

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#17

Post by resonious »

skeptical1884 wrote: post #3

In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given. But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living. I want to be a father so I can raise a kid…

You can hire a nanny. I know there's stigma there, too, but I know some "career women" who do this and it works fine. If you're that motivated (and your interests are lucrative enough), you can pull it off.

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#18

Post by hypfer »

disdegeneration wrote: post #14
hypfer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The essay there weaponizes sarcasm + the emotional experience of that reality to hit the reader over the head with, in an attempt to break their script and force them to a change in perspective. This - evidently - worked and works, but there are trade-offs to it. Specifically, it is zero-sum, which eventually led to the gender war we have now. Since the defenses have been (for the most part) broken down, a modern piv…

The social mechanics to decouple woman permanently from reproduction are already in the making. Incubators and AI educators and people can have children with a company, the rest of the social problems (the social network harem effect) then go out the window. If you need to be a millionaire to have a conventional family, tradition is out, corporate cloning is in. The working alternative to religious fundamentalism.

This comment was dead on arrival, but I've vouched for it, because I believe it's interesting.

I do not believe the conspiracy part, but I do also believe that this decoupling will happen eventually. It seems like the logical conclusion of the trajectory we're on. Leaving biological reality behind in the pursuit of individualism.

It might be a good thing, but we might also find that we were not ready for the total freedom from said biological reality. But that is to be said about a lot of things, SV is pushing towards.

But maybe we will also see stuff crashing down in the near-ish future, and then, pondering about the "end of biological reality" will seem like unreal hallucinations.

___

Hmm. The LLM I've been feeding this comment section pointed me at the Universe 25 Experiment. I've never heard of that before.

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#19

Post by DiggyJohnson »

noduerme wrote: post #7

As a guy who was never married, has no kids, works from home, and does all the cooking and cleaning while my girlfriend on her days off sleeps and scrolls reddit endlessly on the couch, I'm fairly tired of being underappreciated as well. Marriage and kids aren't the only form of emotional responsibility. But I think that everyone's free to make their own decisions, and I'm pretty sure we make a positive decision to s…

If this resentment has persisted for a long time and communication hasn’t improved the situation why stay in the relationship? It seems like your advise applies to you as well as GP.

Re: I Want a Wife (1971) [pdf]

#20

Post by globular-toast »

skeptical1884 wrote: post #3

In a similar vein to this essay, I want to be a father so badly. I love being a woman, and am satisfied with the machinery I have been given. But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living. I want to be a father so I can raise a kid…

I'd like to have my cake and eat it too. It's your choice whether you want to spend your life being envious about cherry-picked parts of other people's lives, or whether you learn to appreciate and enjoy the things you do have. This cherry picking is the exact poison that social media delivers, making people depressed the world over. I guess men and women have always felt it about each other. The big difference is that men cannot have what women have, but women can have at least some of what men have.
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