Give her a positive what?
Image!
Picture!
Context!
Template!
What on Earth am I on about?
Before I explain, I would like to say that I really like Stingray's blog (in addition to other ladies' blogs that I frequently read).
What I particularly like about Stingray' blog is that a practical, idiot-proof guide to how a woman should be, is effortlessly presented. This is great. I like that.
More of Stingray's blog later.
But first, I get back to the title of this post.
It is incredibly difficult to win Wimbledon without first imagining yourself to be holding the Wimbledon trophy on a Sunday or Saturday afternoon in July, on Centre Court in SW19, London...
The one thing that all super-athletes have in common is that they all imagined themselves capable of winning the big prize of their sport at some point in their lives, usually in childhood.
Often, in their winner's speech they would say something like 'When I was a little boy/girl I dreamed of winning X...'.
All of them have a positive image in their minds. And then they strive to get closer and closer to that image until one day, they wake up, and boom! they are there.
I remember that at last year's Wimbledon, poor old Andy Murray was defeated in yet another Grand Slam final. In tears, almost unable to speak, the British public empathising with their yet-again -defeated-hero, the first words he was able to muster were, "Getting closer..."!
A few short months later he won the US Open, his first Gland Slam win ever. :-)
How does all this relate to the SMP?
It used to be the case that most women (the few that don't are irrelevant to this discussion) had an image of marriage in their heads from toddlerhood.
This was by a process of osmosis...most little girls were surrounded by Mother, Aunts, Grandmother, maybe Big Sister, all of whom were married. So it was not hard for her to imagine herself married at some point too.
What has happened since sometime in the 60's is that the image that a girl has in her mind has been reduced to a wedding (if that). That's it.
Nothing beyond the fog post-wedding. I think we covered that in this post.
Often, the only picture available to her is a fractured family. Fractured families beget fractured families - unless someone makes a concerted effort to break the vicious cycle.
But can young women be blamed for this lack of marital ambition?
I believe not.
If you are not given a picture of what to expect by someone who is older than you, then you stumble through life until you find that picture accidentally/deliberately with great effort/not at all.
If you are never given a glimpse of something, how could you possibly live it?
In this regard, I feel incredibly sorry for the 'Millennials' an alarmingly large proportion of whom (if the statistics are to be believed) do not have a positive perception of what is meant by 'family life'.
If you have never lived it, you simply don't know it. It is a true 'unknown' à la Donald Rumsfeld*.
This is where Stingray's blog comes in.
She gives flashes of good family life, she regularly recommends films that depict family life, or show what men are supposed to be (masculine) and what women are supposed to be (feminine), good examples being films by John Wayne.
A positive picture to which one is exposed (the younger the better) goes a much longer way than a thousand words, as the saying goes.
A child from a broken home need not be a slave to his marital destiny.
It may be too simple to suggest that watching reruns of 'The Waltons' or 'Little House on the Prairie' will solve this person's problems, but I believe that one mustn't be too fussy with where one gets one's 'positive picture' from.
A holiday spent in Uncle Freddie's house where Uncle Freddie is a good husband to Auntie Sarah and a good Daddy to your cousins...
A sleep-over at your friend Joyce's home where Joyce's parents are happily married so you don't hear furniture being thrown about or angry voices coming from downstairs, for a whole night...
The brain is a funny organ.
Stored images convert to memories.
We are a product of our collective memories.
So a good database of good memories is ideal.
It helps...
If this post appears to be female-biased, this is fully intended.
If the MGTOW movement is an unintended consequence of women turning their backs on marriage and the men are just reacting accordingly, then it is women who need to turn once more towards marriage (and I really do mean marriage here, not weddings).
Men may or may not follow suit, but it remains to be seen.
Given that men do not need marriage, and women generally do, it is indeed women who need to form a healthy and positive view of marriage in their minds.
And then it is up to us to persuade the men :-), or at least those men who do want marriage, but still need a little ...um...encouragement :-).
Well at least we can make a start.
And Stingray is certainly doing her part.
Brava, Stingray :-)
Ahhhh, them good ol' days!
:-)
*Known knowns
Known unknowns
Unknown knowns
Unknown unknowns
:-)
