Ann, if I did misread your comments on being a housewife as being negative, I apologize. I admit to being a little hypersensitive on the subject. Just a number of years ago, as more and more women started having children and then returning to their careers, they faced contempt from society about abandoning their children to caregivers. The tide turned relatively quickly, however, and now the 'stay-at-home' moms, unless they have several pre-school age children, are often looked down upon. I've been to any number of dinners where one of the first questions I'm asked is "What do you do?", and you can just see their eyes glaze over with my reply.
But again, that is present-day society, which is not the same as the times that Anne was living in. So when you write in what appears to be horror:
Some upper-class women had servants, who did all the housework for them, and there really were women of that time who did practically nothing!
Hasini has already commented very well to that, but let's suppose that it is really true: some women did practically nothing. You are viewing it through modern eyes, apparently seeing them as unfulfilled or lazy or simply not living up to their potential. Maybe that was in fact true, but these were the restrictions set out by the society of the time. And if a woman was perfectly content living that kind of life - whether it was because she enjoyed it or whether she honestly never thought of challenging it - what was wrong with that? The sorrow would have been for the women who chafed under such restrictions, but didn't know how to - or couldn't - change things.
And again, as Hasini has mentioned, no matter the size of the household you are managing, there is a lot to do. Ann, surely you, as a working woman, struggle at times to take care of the various minutiae of your life around your teaching responsibilities. I may be a stay-at-home housewife, but I can assure you that I do not spend most of my day actually cleaning house. I
hate cleaning house. But believe me, even if I'm not dusting and vacuuming all the time, there is enough to do. I'm not overstressed (not most of the time, anyway), but I can't imagine trying to get everything done while raising children and still working a full-time job outside the house. These women who "have it all" really are superwomen, in my books.
Back to the issue of L&C with children: as so many have mentioned, I think we're more interested in reading about L&C than the children, and the focus of your life shifts considerably once you have a child. I suppose I prefer reading about their romance because, no matter how happy or content I may be with my marriage and my family, I remember the days when our relationship was just starting, when we were on the cusp of romance. My feelings of love, of anticipation as the relationship was growing, were different than now, and reading about L&C's path to love helps remind me of that.
There are many next-gen stories, as I and others have listed, that I have enjoyed very much, and have reread time and again. And I'm sure there are others that I have forgotten. Both Yvonne and Sheila have written several awesome "married" stories, but I didn't mention them earlier in this thread because there are no kids in those stories. It's not my favorite genre, but that hardly means that I hate it or even dislike it. Nothing of the kind. It's just not my first or second choice.
And now that I've made so many of
your eyes glaze over with this rambling post
, I'll shuffle out of here...
Kathy
