Just Read:

Gift From the SeaI knew a little about this author when I started. I knew she was a pilot, that her husband was the first man to fly across the ocean, that her oldest son, while still a baby, was kidnapped and murdered. But nothing else. I thought the book would be her reflections on those things but she barely mentions any of them.

The "story" is made up of stages. Each stage a different kind of sea shell symbolizing a different stage in life. It was written over 5o years ago; before the Internet, before cell phones, and during the first generation of "liberated women" yet she can already see what nobody realized would happen, that women would be so overworked trying to use all the "modern conveniences" AND measure up to a man that they no longer found joy in the simple things like a sea shell or spending time alone or nurturing her family, or that we would be ashamed if we did.

I really liked this book. It's short (I read it on one sitting in about and hour and a half) but what she has to say, even though it was written over 50 years ago, still seems true today. I'm all for being liberated, I think my opinions and choice are no less important than a man's. But I loved how she tried to say that "yes, let us be equal, but lets remember who we are. I am a women, I am supposed to nurture my children, husband, and those who are downtrodden, but just because I want to do those things don't think I can't be strong and smart."

In essence: Gender roles are important, we need them or we can get too caught up in "being equal." Who cares if my husband has never cleaned one of our toilets. That shouldn't make anyone mad. I've never mowed our lawn...