Okay, the title was really just to get your attention, but in all seriousness, I received a sincere query to last month's article entitled "Behind the Bedroom Door." For those of you who didn't read the article, I basically spoke to women about taking care of their husbands; it ruffled a few feminist feathers. I was told "to get my head out of the 1950's - did I think that a wife should be waiting at the door with her husband's slippers and a drink?"

First, I don't think beating up the lifestyle of women in the 1950s is the answer. I'm a product of a mom from the 50's and 60's - that generation of women raised their children, were there when the kids came home from school, made dinner, and they were "at the door" so to speak when their husbands came home. And what would be so bad about having the slippers in hand, metaphorically speaking? What should we be standing there asking for - their paycheck?

I think being a feminist means not being afraid of being feminine. Why be afraid that our husbands might want to provide for us? Why are we having children if we're giving them to others to raise? Why as women are we so hung up on the concept of acknowledging our husbands as the head of our home? We seem to have no problem letting them head up a business or a sports team. Why is dating all about the man taking the lead but in marriage we suddenly want everything different? Why in dating do we want to be courted but in marriage we want to take charge? Why in dating do we listen so intently, love just being with them, do whatever they're interested in, and more, but marriage somehow becomes a competition and about not getting our way, not being heard? We're no longer that interested in what they like to do. Why did that exciting man we dated do everything right and that man we married do most everything wrong? How did that happen?

My questions are not meant to appear disrespectful for single women who need childcare. I was a single mom with a 4-month-old baby, trying to finish college, trying to work and desperate for childcare. It was horrible. I had fallen into the trap that was so common for women of my generation. Society said that we could have it all, should demand it all - marriage, children, a career... and instead I lost it all. Now, the second time around I've been married to the same man for 21 years. In order to make it work I needed to learn a whole new way of looking at marriage. It truly is for better and for worse, not for better and for better. It's in the "worse" that our character is built as an individual and as a couple.

Many years ago the columnist Ann Landers received an article written by a wife and mother who had been called "just a housewife." This woman listed the description of a housewife as a wife, mother, friend, confident, personal advisor, lover, referee, peacekeeper, housekeeper, chauffeur, interior decorator, gardener, dog groomer, barber, seamstress, financial planner, bookkeeper, teacher, disciplinarian, entertainer, psychoanalyst, nurse, public relations expert, chef, dietician, and fashion coordinator.

In return, she said the rewards of the job are joy, happiness, hugs, kisses, self-respect, love, and pride in knowing that she'd done a full-days work to insure the physical and emotional well being of those that she loved most dearly. What powerful words: "those she loved most dearly." If we love our husbands most dearly shouldn't we stop keeping score?


When not defending streakers at Saugus High's graduation (we're not kidding), Kim is busy helping clients at the Child and Family Center. E-mail her at kschafer@insidescv.com.