Life with Wanda

Let the man take the lead

This piece of advice often confused me… mostly because it was followed with percentages like “let the man have 60% and you take 40%”. Forty percent? Who was this woman? Was Sybil playing a trick on me? Did she create a new personality and decided to skip the introductions?

This couldn’t be “Wanda”. Wanda would never allow herself to say such a thing. This is the “personality” that told me that I didn’t need a man to take care of me and that I should always be in a position to take care of myself. She’s the person who urged me to be independent, self sufficient and a modern woman in every sense of the word. So how is she now advising me to play the role of the little woman? Huh!!?? Didn’t she and her peers burn their bras in protest of the image of the 1950′s homemaker? Didn’t she raise me to put myself and my education first and that babies and a husband should follow later in life? I never saw her make a difference between me and my two brothers when we were growing up. There was no difference in our chores or her expectations of our duties around the house… so why the sudden change?

What my 20-something year old self didn’t realize was that she wasn’t confused, but rather trying to teach me another lesson from the “book of life… according to Wanda”. She was teaching me that being a woman wasn’t something that every girl was born with knowing how to do. But instead it was an artform that only a select few actually knew how to master. She was giving me my first lesson in the fragility of the male ego and the art of female seduction. It took me a many trials and errors and a few occassions of watching the master at work to realize that giving him the power did not deminish my own power. In fact, the opposite was true. By showing him that I was confident and secure enough to follow his lead, I in fact, gained the most power. The power of watching a man grow with pride that he had achieved such a marvelous feat… and then do everything in his power to show that he deserved to continue to be the recipient of this most special gift.

Wanda taught me that men aren’t complicated, but rather simple creatures who, when rewarded, will “work” and “earn” the right to keep their new found treasure.

Bravo Wanda!

July 18, 2009 Posted by The daughter | advice, family, Mothers and Daughters | advice, family, male/female relationships, relationships | 2 Comments