The Anniversary
Today is, as you are all well aware, the 7th anniversary of THAT 9/11. For each of us, this conjours up different memories as well as a collective and horrific memory of terrorism at its most powerful. For Marc and me, it also reminds us of our wedding. We were married just 11 days after 9/11/01 and exactly 7 people were brave enough not to cancel their flights to attend. Luckily, we had a warm and large local crowd, and several dedicated family members who drove very long distances to be there.
A few people asked us in the days leading up to the wedding whether we were going to postpone the ceremony. We thought about this for about one second and then plunged forward (fully respecting anyone's decision not to travel). Our wedding was an antithesis to the control terrorism hoped to have on our lives, and so was the perfect antidote. Live by love, not by fear.
At its best, this is what we believe about equally shared parenting as well. While so much is made of ESP's call to equal task division so that life is finally fair for women (especially), the point of equal sharing is lost when this is the focus. To us, ESP is about creating the best life for your partner - about making sure that your partner gets a full opportunity for all of what life offers and your partner in turn doing so for you. No longer is a parent's role concentrated on just childraising and homemaking for women, or on breadwinning for men. But on all of what it means to raise a family, be an individual, and live in relationship with a partner. With ESP, the idea is to build equality (which then does lead to equal task division) because we love each other rather than so we can get our partner to do more for us.
As we all look back on 9/11/01, my wish is that we are given the opportunity to live by love and not by fear - by abundance and not by scarcity. That we don't have to yell at our spouses to do more housework, but step back so that they can.
Peace.
posted by Amy @ 7:42 AM
1 Comments:
Happy (upcoming) anniversary! And thank you for the beautifully stated wish for living by love above fear and abundance instead of scarcity. I wish it, too... and I feel even better about our ESP choices when I read posts like this because I realize how much they are an integral part of our wishes and intentions for our involvement in our whole lives, inside and outside our home.
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