Parenting, Marriage and the "Mine" Generation

by Miriam Metzinger | More from this Blogger

We've all heard of and perhaps even remember the "Me" generation. I was little then, but I recall hearing the phrase "Me time" quite often and humming the tune "It's My Turn" on the way to school (which is kind of ironic, since what child doesn't say this at least several times a day, but the song aimed to be a poignant, very grown-up anthem.). The 70s was a time when everyone was focused on self-actualization and "finding themselves". Traditional roles were questioned and viewed with suspicion, particularly roles that were often occupied by women and the task of taking care of the home. Women were encouraged to shed these roles and to start discovering who they really were, apart from definitions of self that included boyfriends, husbands and children.

As a result, many women started to view their lives with dissatisfaction. There was the time they spent caring for others and the "me" time, which seemed to grow smaller and smaller. In the 80s, women were urged to "have it all" and go to work outside the home, but the tiny sliver of "me time" just kept getting smaller and smaller.

I feel blessed to be living at this time, when the internet allows me to work at home and to spend more time with my children. However, since housework and "paid" work pile up in the same few rooms, I have precious little "me" time (and one of the things I do during this "me" time is writing this blog.)

I didn't realize that the problem of shrinking "me" time could be solved, not just by rearranging schedules and hiring childcare, but by changing my attitude. I heard a tape in which Rabbi Manis Friedman (who is head of a women's yeshiva, Beis Chana in Minnesota) discussed how terrible it is for a woman to lose her identity to her husband and children if she thinks of them as "other." However, for a woman to be dedicated fully to her husband and children because they are hers is healthy. This concept, I think, could be revolutionary if it were publicized and applied to our lives. We should perhaps think in terms of the "mine" generation instead of the "me" generation. When I invest time in helping my son with his ABCs, making my husband's salad or wiping my little one's endlessly runny nose countless times a day, I am doing these tasks for myself because these people are part of "my" family.

I think Rabbi Friedman's concept of "mine" versus "me" could reverse a habit of thinking women have been urged to adopt for decades. Instead of thinking of "me time as a little sliver of the pie, why not discover that you have the whole pie? And if this is so, Bon Appetit, or as we say in the land of Israel "Betayavon!"

Learn more about Miriam Metzinger

Miriam is a freelance writer, a work-at-home mom and lives in Jerusalem with her two sons, Schneur Zalman (3), Yosef Yitzchak (6 months and counting) and her husband, Yehoshua, who is a rabbi and i...

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