Jessica Gray's Philosophies, Rants, Information, and Etcetera

First, if you are reading my blog for information about installing a door and are not at all interested in my thoughts and reflections, watch my video: Now for my thoughts and reflections.... I have a fourth to sixth cousin I connected with on Ancestry.com that I write relatively frequently, even though I have never met her and was not even aware of her until I did the Ancestry DNA kit.  She is about the same age as my mother.  One of our most recent conversations were about gender roles, and how things have changed since her day (this was prompted by my new reviews on 18 inch dolls that are meant for boys).  My cousin, as a girl, had wanted to take shop in school...but she had been told that the class was not open to girls.  She would have to take home economics. In my day, gender roles were still enforced to some degree...but they were also trying to get both sexes to move beyond them.  They told girls they could do anything, and they encouraged...

I grew up in a time where people were preached gender equality, and men were wearing t-shirts that said, "This dad changes diapers!"  Yet, I was a very traditional girl, even though I didn't like dolls and never had a desire to be a princess.  I liked dolls later as an adult when I had ideas on what to do with them, and as for being a princess...it didn't appeal to me because princesses had troubled lives where they were always being kidnapped by dragons and hounded by evil witches. However, I embraced the traditional feminine role very young.  I learned about childbirth from one of my mom's nursing books and practiced the Lamaze technique when I was eight years old so I would be prepared.  I planned on how to decorate my house and how I would raise my children. These dreams never came true despite my preparations.  It wasn't a lack of interest.  My mother married a terminally ill man that took a very long time to die from his illness, and I sacrificed ...