Avoiding a Grim Fairy-tale Ending

So many of the subjects I post about here are removed from my everyday life, that I was somewhat surprised when this topic emerged over the last few weeks. Since tales of stay-at-home moms are everywhere, it seemed appropriate to for this one to throw in her two cents. In case you've missed them, Slate's Jack Schafer, economist Heather Boushey, Linda Hirshman of American Prospect and David Brooks in the NYTimes have all weighed in on different sides of the issue. Ellen Goodman's piece in today's Chronicle sealed the deal for me. Note - I do not link the Brooks article because the Times is restricted, not because I think he is a misogynistic loser.

All of the sited articles relate to the question of women in and out of the workforce. Are they opting out of the professional world to marry and raise children, or are rumors to that effect just a result of bad statistics? Are women who stay home forsaking the hard-fought-for rights their feminist sisters bequeathed to them, or are they happier at home and more empowered by choosing to stay there?

Goodman's article relates the story of Terry Hekker, wife and mother of 40 years who wrote in the Times, circa 1978, of the joys of being a housewife, only to be given divorce papers on the occasion of her 40th anniversary. She shares now the hardships endured by a sixty-something woman facing the world alone and unprepared. Her first column became a book entitled Ever Since Adam and Eve; she jokes her next title will be Disregard First Book.

Hekker worries about women who choose to forgo work in deference to home and family. In an age where 50% of all marriages end in divorce, how many will be prepared to face the hardships that lie ahead? Goodman echoes and encourages this argument, calling Hekker's a cautionary tale. As much as I enjoy Goodman's writing and normally agree with her, this time I plead a different case.

What our fore-sisters laid down for us, from voting rights to reproductive rights, educational equity and employment protections, is the ability to choose. Rather than being the submissive hausfraus of Hekker's generation, we are women empowered to make decisions based on what is best for our individual situation and if circumstances change, as they so often do, to change, adapt, grow and move on.

Education and clear-thinking are key. Knowing your options, knowing you have options, makes my generation of women better prepared for life's eventualities. Women, as breadwinner or bread butterer, should know how to look after themselves; how to find a job, balance the books, look after their credit and their family, with or without a significant other. Men, other women or children are not the problem, passivity is. Be able and willing to create and recreate life, no matter what obstacle is thrown your way.

No one is promised a fairytale ending, and maybe the dream of one is the biggest hurdle we all have to face. Modern America tries to promises a kind of never-ending Disneyland, and real life is a little bit more like...the life we lead every day. Aim more for reality and less for make-believe. Success can be found on Wall Street and on Main Street and everywhere in between. The trick is knowing once you've found it.

A Father's Words

A Life, Wasted
Let's Stop This War Before More Heroes Are Killed

By Paul E. Schroeder (Copied from Washington Post, Tuesday, January 3, 2006; Page A17)

Early on Aug. 3, 2005, we heard that 14 Marines had been killed in Haditha, Iraq. Our son, Lance Cpl. Edward "Augie" Schroeder II, was stationed there. At 10:45 a.m. two Marines showed up at our door. After collecting himself for what was clearly painful duty, the lieutenant colonel said, "Your son is a true American hero." Since then, two reactions to Augie's death have compounded the sadness.

At times like this, people say, "He died a hero." I know this is meant with great sincerity. We appreciate the many condolences we have received and how helpful they have been. But when heard repeatedly, the phrases "he died a hero" or "he died a patriot" or "he died for his country" rub raw.

"People think that if they say that, somehow it makes it okay that he died," our daughter, Amanda, has said. "He was a hero before he died, not just because he went to Iraq. I was proud of him before, and being a patriot doesn't make his death okay. I'm glad he got so much respect at his funeral, but that didn't make it okay either."

The words "hero" and "patriot" focus on the death, not the life. They are a flag-draped mask covering the truth that few want to acknowledge openly: Death in battle is tragic no matter what the reasons for the war. The tragedy is the life that was lost, not the manner of death. Families of dead soldiers on both sides of the battle line know this. Those without family in the war don't appreciate the difference.

This leads to the second reaction. Since August we have witnessed growing opposition to the Iraq war, but it is often whispered, hands covering mouths, as if it is dangerous to speak too loudly. Others discuss the never-ending cycle of death in places such as Haditha in academic and sometimes clinical fashion, as in "the increasing lethality of improvised explosive devices."

Listen to the kinds of things that most Americans don't have to experience: The day Augie's unit returned from Iraq to Camp Lejeune, we received a box with his notebooks, DVDs and clothes from his locker in Iraq. The day his unit returned home to waiting families, we received the second urn of ashes. This lad of promise, of easy charm and readiness to help, whose highest high was saving someone using CPR as a first aid squad volunteer, came home in one coffin and two urns. We buried him in three places that he loved, a fitting irony, I suppose, but just as rough each time.

I am outraged at what I see as the cause of his death. For nearly three years, the Bush administration has pursued a policy that makes our troops sitting ducks. While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that our policy is to "clear, hold and build" Iraqi towns, there aren't enough troops to do that.

In our last conversation, Augie complained that the cost in lives to clear insurgents was "less and less worth it," because Marines have to keep coming back to clear the same places. Marine commanders in the field say the same thing. Without sufficient troops, they can't hold the towns. Augie was killed on his fifth mission to clear Haditha.

At Augie's grave, the lieutenant colonel knelt in front of my wife and, with tears in his eyes, handed her the folded flag. He said the only thing he could say openly: "Your son was a true American hero." Perhaps. But I felt no glory, no honor. Doing your duty when you don't know whether you will see the end of the day is certainly heroic. But even more, being a hero comes from respecting your parents and all others, from helping your neighbors and strangers, from loving your spouse, your children, your neighbors and your enemies, from honesty and integrity, from knowing when to fight and when to walk away, and from understanding and respecting the differences among the people of the world.

Two painful questions remain for all of us. Are the lives of Americans being killed in Iraq wasted? Are they dying in vain? President Bush says those who criticize staying the course are not honoring the dead. That is twisted logic: honor the fallen by killing another 2,000 troops in a broken policy?

I choose to honor our fallen hero by remembering who he was in life, not how he died. A picture of a smiling Augie in Iraq, sunglasses turned upside down, shows his essence -- a joyous kid who could use any prop to make others feel the same way.

Though it hurts, I believe that his death -- and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq -- was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator -- a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting occupation -- a careless disregard for professional military counsel.

But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.

This is very painful to acknowledge, and I have to live with it. So does President Bush.

The writer is managing director of a trade development firm in Cleveland.