[RavenSong]

Janey,

Originally Posted by Janeytwo

My secret dream? To follow in the footsteps of one of my recent ancestors who wrote one of the world's great works of fiction. I would like to be able to honor her. Plus, she was a celebrated feminist in her time!

Okay, my friend, spill the beans. Who was your ancestor?? I am absolutely dying to know. I took a lot of women's studies courses in college, so I'm familiar with most of the suffragettes and radical feminists. That is so trippy...Jackie's grandmother was also a die-hard feminist and suffragette. You just have to tell me who she was!!!

Originally Posted by Janeytwo

P.S. We must get some others to join us here or we will be in danger of being the dreaded "liberals" on the forum!!!

Hate to tell you this, bud, but I think we've already been pegged as the dreaded liberals on the forum, lol. Hey, I wave my flag proudly...always have and always will. I'm lucky most days if people don't call me a socialist or a Marxist. Hey, whatever gets people through their day! If anyone wants to do any liberal bashing, take me on...I've been called a lot worse in my lifetime.

[Janeytwo]

Hey Raven,

Who was your ancestor?? I am absolutely dying to know.

Mary Shelley. Sigh....oh to be able to have vision like hers. And to be married to Percy Shelley? I wonder what that was like. I am certain he was a beatnick only stuck in the wrong century!! LOL!!

Oh and last night, I was talking to hubby about how I hoped that I didn't sound too liberal anymore. Sigh....lately, I'm starting to think people associate us with those guys in the bin who insist that Napolean is talking to them about a new campaign!!

Anyway, hubby said. "Baby, I hate to be the wun to tell yew this....but yew the one the lib-rals call when they lookin for an opinion".

I stuck out my tongue and went, Thpppttt! Then I asked him if it scared him being married to a liberal and he said, "Nope. It ain't the crazy ones yew gotta watch out for. It's them sane people that cause problems! So apparently we liberals are this in the eyes of at least one big white boy from Alabama..........

Good grief!!

They were all to me-the suns of my benighted soul-repose in my weariness-sl umber in my sleepless woe. Ill, most ill, with disjointed words, bare and weak, have I expressed the feeling with which I clung to them. Mary Shelley

The desire of the moth for the stars
Percy Shelley

[RavenSong]

Janey, ooh, I was soooo close in my guess! I immediately thought your ancestor might be Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I wrote a term paper on her in college, and she's one of my heroes. Since she was the mother of Mary Shelley, I was pretty close!

Gosh, kiddo, you come from some amazing ancestry. No wonder you're a natural-born writer. And no wonder you're a liberal, lol. Not only was Mary Wollstonecraft a radical, so was her husband, William Godwin. Godwin is considered one of the forefathers of the anarchist movement.

And then there's Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, who along with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, was pretty radical, too. I bought this giant tome of a book last year on Percy Shelley's life...boy, talk about scandals! These people were an absolute trip!!!

I've been hooked on Shelley and Keats almost all my life. I'm not overly fond of Lord Byron, though, for some reason. Their lives are as fascinating as their poetry and prose. I've always meant to read Mary Shelley's other books besides Frankenstein, but I haven't gotten around to it. I think I'll make a trip to my library this week!

[Janeytwo]

Hey Raven!

LOL! I'm laughing as I'm reading your response. My daughter loved Mary Wollstonecraft. She read A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in college. My poor SIL is always saying to her, "THAT's where you get it from!!"

I have often wondered what both Marys would have to say about adoption. I don't know what the feminist slant is on that, although Jackie has told me that CUB comes out of it. She once told me too that she thought adoption is a feminist issue. I was somewhat surprised to read that because abortion has always overshadowed the feminist movement. Adoption has ever been pushed into the corner, IMO.

It's interesting though, isn't it? I know some probably see it as an Atwood-ian scenario. Shrug. I dunno. That's a little black-and-white for me. No decision as monumental as adoption is without it's grey areas.

Though admittedly, before coming here, I had only seen it as a poverty issue but my mind is being opened.

I had seen as a stamp on the poor. Strange way of looking at it now.

It would be intesting to see what people think of it's role in feminism though because it is the one area where I have seen nothing but the majority of women turning on each other.

Can't say that I care for that.

Sigh....I am not sure what my beloved women ancestors would think today as they watch my younger sisters complain about how feminism ruined this country!!!

I often quote the same story of the tiny Hispanic woman who made the front page of The Detroit News when she became a patrolman in Detroit proper.

I ask my sisters which job they would've rather had without the influence of feminism; if they would've rather been a nurse, a teacher or that glam-job-of-glam-jobs....stewardess.

And I say, there's nothing wrong with those jobs either but to have a choice to be something else; an engineer, a body-shop mechanic, a CEO....that's the thing.

At least now we HAVE a choice.

They always come back with...feminism forced us to have to work for a living.

Hmmmmm....me thinketh me just opened a canneth of wormseth!!

[RavenSong]

Janey, adoption is a feminist issue. I've been telling everybody that since the late 1970s. As I told Jackie once, I got thrown out of the chairperson's office in the Department of Women's Studies at the university I attended in the early 1980s when I brought up adoption issues in terms of feminism.

The founders of CUB were all feminists, but they fought tooth-and-nail with the founders of NOW about this issue. NOW never would give adoption, especially relinquishment, the time of day, which made absolutely no sense to me. I've been told that the leadership didn't want to go there because, at the time, many of our more affluent sisters had adopted children. I still think it was a giant cop-out on NOW's part.

LOL, as far as Margaret Atwood goes? I think she's a futuristic genius. And I'm really afraid that one day...well, you know what I'm gonna say on that one. Often, science fiction comes to be reality in our world.

I get frustrated when I hear young women disparage feminism. Where in the world do they think they'd be if it wasn't for the early feminists, the generations of women who came before them, some laying down their lives for the cause? You've got it right, Janey...teacher, nurse, or flight attendant. Both my grandmothers were bank tellers, but they both were required by the banks to stop working when they became pregnant in the 1930s. Talk about maternity leave! You used to have to go on an "unpaid" maternity leave of sorts for at least 18 years, or until your youngest child left for college. Unless, of course, you became one of those women like my grandmothers...divorced.

Women are still only earning 75 cents on the dollar in comparison to men in this country, even the "professionals".

What would Mary Shelley say about adoption and the plight of women? I have a fairly good idea... Are you aware that she and Percy left England for Italy so they wouldn't lose their children? When his first wife died, the courts ruled against them, and awarded custody of his first two children to non-relatives, a clergyman's family. There was talk of the court doing the same thing again to Mary and Percy's kids, so they split.

I think Mary Shelley would have hated the whole idea...

[quantum]

My take on feminism was that it's all about choice.
I guess I've gotten jumped on a bit since I chose to stay home with my children for the first few years and not put them into daycare the first opportunity I got!
But that's my choice!

I'm proud to have grown up in a world where I was told that I could be anything I wanted to be. No one squashed my ideas of being an astronaut (of course my chronic motion sickness put the kabash on that).

I can totally see that adoption is a feminist issue as well. It's another choice...

[quantum]

So I'm making a quilt right now and having all those insecurities and monsters jumping out at me! I KNOW that a huge part of it is that I'm making it for my parents.
I have shown them the fabrics which I have chosen. The know the basic pattern that I'm using,but they don't know how it's all going to work together. Heck I'm not even 100% sure, I'm just working by instinct mostly with a bit of a game plan.
Anyhoo I keep sewing and hearing my inner critics saying 'your dad is not going to like how this works' 'it's not perfect do it again' 'are you SURE about these choices'

It's making me CRAZY! And I KNOW what it's about, but I'm having problems silencing these voices (now I sound crazy!). I guess there is a part of me that wants my parents to love it. I'm sure my mom will, but I'm afraid my dad is going to be critical. ARGH!

[RavenSong]

Oh, my dear Quantum, I am so sorry you're struggling with the "inner voices" of your father's criticism. I wish Jackie was here to help you with this, since she had a lot of trouble pleasing her mom artistically. As you probably remember, her mother was an artist, the same as Jackie.

Your post made me think back to childhood...specifically grade school. I was in Girl Scouts, and we had to learn how to sew by hand in 3rd grade. I remember first making a sampler, and when I presented it to my mother for inspection, she gave me one of those looks. At Christmas, I gave her a set of hand-sewn placemats for the dining room table...she never once used them and threw them away when she sold the house. I didn't think they were "that" bad...they were actually kind of cute for an 8-year-old kid; they were dark blue with candy canes sewn on. Sigh...

I'm sure whatever you do, your parents will appreciate it. If your dad gives you any problem about it, tell me...and I'll go slap him upside the head, lol.

[Janeytwo]

((( Quantum )))

I'm sure my mom will, but I'm afraid my dad is going to be critical. ARGH!

It is so hard to face critisism from our fathers - at least it was that way for me - so I understand your fear.

Anyhoo....I'm looking at the sentence of yours in quotes and the word that peeps out at me is "afraid"....."I'm afraid my dad is going to be critical".

I have an odd suggestion - something that popped out at me. What if you changed the verb "afraid" in that part of the sentence?

Like instead of I'm "afraid" my dad is going to be critical.........what if you changed it to "I'm sure my dad is going to be critical". Or even better, "I'm confident my dad is going to be critical".

When you take the verb "afraid" out of the mix and replace it with strong, declaratory verbs like "sure" and "confident", that not only changes the entire tenor of the sentence, but your place in it too.

Does that make sense?

Changing the wording a bit inside your own head would maybe help you accept that your dad is critical without owning his criticism. And perhaps then you can take away some of it's power.

Instead of getting yourself tied up in knots wondering what awful thing he'll say. Now you can roll your eyes and say, "Yep! I'm confident he's going to have some comment! Oh well! That's a hole in the ground!"


You know you're fabulous at quilting. Heck you teach classes!

Hang in there sweetie! Go to the mirror and say "I'm fabulous!" Because you are!!

[quantum]

Thanks Janey! That's an interesting and good piece of advice.
I've 'owned' a lot when dealing with my dad in the past few years, and it's helped immensely.

It's probably best if I don't look in the mirror when I need to say "I'm fabulous" because I'll start picking myself apart ;-) I'll look at DH instead! hahaha

Thanks toots!

[kakuehl]

And quantum, if you can't follow Janey's advice

Hang in there sweetie Go to the mirror and say "I'm fabulous!"

Look at one of your quilts and say they're fabulous. Because they are!

[shadow riderer]

Quantum, Has your dad ever made a quilt? Better yet, can you just imagine your dad even making a quilt?
I know it's not much in the way of advice to help you, but I hope it might at least make you smile at the thought and image?

[quantum]

It made me smile shadow, thanks :-)
I have seen him doing underwater basketweaving though! hahahahahahaha

[SoniaRose]

Excuse me (the adoptee) for butting in again, but I was initially "drawn" to this post because I dabble in art (pun intended). Quantum, I saw the optical illusion quilts you posted earlier, and I think they are gorgeous! I can't imagine having the patience and discipline to do such exacting work!

I have only read parts of the Artist's Way -- I tend to read books like I paint a picture -- I'm all over the place. I was recently reading sections from the sequel Walking in this World (included in the complete AW) where we're told to "just do it" -- do art as an act of faith. The author talks about how we overthink and worry too much about what we are doing. She writes: "Think of your project as the arrow of desire. Imagine yourself eyeing the bull's-eye, pulling back the bow -- and then thinking about it. Worrying about it. Considering whether you are aiming exactly right or whether you should be a smidgen higher or lower. Your arm begins to get tired. Then your arm begins to get shaky. If you finally manage to shoot the arrow, it does not sail with confidence and strength..."

I don't think I could ever do any artwork if I worried about how it would be perceived. I do art for myself, and if someone else likes it, fine; if not, that's too bad for them. Creativity is stifled if we concentrate on pleasing other people. And if it turns out that I am less than pleased with my own finished product, then I just consider it a learning experience.

The author also writes that self-doubt is like the first drink for a recovering alcoholic. She also gives this quote in the Perfectionism chapter: "Do not fear mistakes -- there are none."

I have not been following any of the exercises from these books; I didn't keep up with my morning pages. Instead I bought myself a little sketchbook and now sit to draw something everyday. I am drawing in ink -- there can be no corrections -- what goes on the paper stays on the paper -- I have to trust in my abilities -- all I can erase is my fear. It's a process.

[quantum]

Welcome here, this isn't a birthmother only place
THANKS so much for your words here! It's just what I needed to hear as well. It is something I've been thinking about. I just need to place the blocks how I feel works and not worry about it. There will be some randomness involved in this quilt, and that's just how I like it!

And Sonia, check out my whole website when you get a chance (finally something up!)

Tam-a-rama