I remember when I first realized I wanted to be soft. I had just moved to Maryland from Atlanta. I had given up my apartment in Buckhead for my mother’s couch in Baltimore all in an effort to work things out with my college sweetheart (story for another blog). My bestie Neek and I made a trip to the local Walmart to get a futon. One of the guys in the store put the futon in the car for us and we went back to my mom’s apartment. We get to the apartment and geesh, we then had to take the futon up a flight of stairs and then I spent a sizable amount of time putting it together. I remember looking at Neek and saying, “Whoo I am so glad we can do this…but I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS!”
So now, 3 1/2 years later I am back in Atlanta, married with our first son on the way and I am embracing being soft. I’ve embraced it from the start of this relationship. As women in today’s society we’ve watched our moms have to be hard as single mothers, we’ve grown to be hard as single women and relinquishing the hard is a major challenge for a lot of women. We don’t want to let him open the door, pump the gas, take out our trash, pay for dinner, carry our bags etc. As if we have to show him how strong we are. As if our strength is shown by how much we can do on our own without his assistance. “INDEPENDENT WOMAN” is played out to me. Yelling that out is a set up. Independent means standing alone without aid. Yelling it out all the time implies you want to stay that way. There has to be a balance. Is chivalry dead or did we kill it? Did we kill it because we felt like we had to? Was it the chicken or the egg?
These days, if I can help it I don’t open new jars, take out trash, pump gas, bring in groceries, move boxes, furniture and the like. I am soft. Any manual labor that would cause me to break a nail or a sweat is now out of my scope. I made it clear to my man, “You are hard, I am soft.” I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I’ll feed him, home cooked or take out I make sure he eats. I’ll raise our children that’s a full-time job. Some may think it’s an outdated concept but you know how I do…food for thought! I like to get the people talking…stir up the pot…hear the opinions of the people, play devils advocate.
Every woman cannot be soft, her world doesn’t allow her to, I know this. But there is nothing wrong with aspiring to be soft. I hear by instate THE SOFT CAMPAIGN…who’s coming with me 😉
thisisdecade3 