Suzanne Venker

Are Your Expectations Too High?

Suzanne — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:04:19 +0000

High expectations can be a source of so much unnecessary conflict. My husband and I are on a new budget plan where we each get X amount of money every two weeks. Our respective piles of cash are meant for specific expenditures for which we’re each responsible. For instance, my pile goes to gas, groceries, kid stuff, etc.; his goes to house maintenance, entertainment, etc.

My husband decided he was going to see how much could save at the end of two weeks before he made another withdrawal. Unfortunately, it rarely happens—which is fine because we have a savings plan already. But because he kept expecting to save from this particular stash, he’d end up frustrated each time. So I suggested he forget about trying to save from this pile altogether. Just expect to spend it in its entirety, I said, and see if your frustration level doesn’t drop.

Here’s another example. I was at the DMV the other day, and I knew from experience that I would invariably forget some damn piece of paper they’d ask for—so I spent several days making sure I had all the materials. Then I got there and waited in line, all proud that I’d brought my AT&T bill showing my new address, but Oops! It didn’t have my name on it—only my husband’s. Now in the past, I would have become visibly irritated. But because for days I had expected this to happen, even though I tried to keep it from happening, I didn’t get upset. I just walked out and moved on to the next thing.

Lowering our expectations can be applied to almost anything, even marriage and family life. Much has been written about this subject lately, and every time a writer like myself suggests women lower their expectations, the response is inevitable: “What??? How can you suggest such a thing? Women should shoot for the stars! Have it all! Be nothing less than all they can be!”

Well, yes, that does sound lovely. And unrealistic.

The reality is that life throws us endless curves, one right after the other. And all these curves force people to reexamine their expectations. Unfortunately, this is difficult for women who’ve been raised in a postfeminist world—and during the self-esteem craze.

The two worldviews are so hopelessly similar they’re impossible to extricate. The feminist movement says, “Your mothers’ lives were constrained. Don’t live their lives—reach for the stars instead!” And the self-esteem movement says, “There’s no one quite like you. You’re amazing. Go—seize the world! The implication is that women are entitled to lives that defy description. They should be out-of-this-world exciting.

There’s nowhere to go from there but down. The way up is to make one’s expectations realistic. You might call it “lowering” your expectations; but that’s not a bad thing since they were too high to begin with. It’s like the housing market: if you think your house is worth 300K when it isn’t, then lowering your expectations to 250K doesn’t equate to settling for less. It means you made the figure align with what the house is worth.

Same with our relationships. If you expect marriage to be easy, or if you expect to feel “in love” all the time, or if you expect to be in sync with your spouse with every decision, of course you’re going to be unhappy. Same with work and motherhood. If you expect you’re going to excel at both of these things simultaneously, to the degree that you want to, of course you’re going to he unhappy.

In 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research released this finding: “As women have gained more freedom, more education, and more power, they have become less happy.” While the authors are careful not to blame feminism directly, they did write this: “As women’s expectations move into alignment with their experiences, this decline in happiness may reverse.”

Indeed.

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How to Be Nice

Suzanne — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:17:33 +0000

Women can be so mean. Did you catch the article about Queen Bees in the Wall Street Journal? Take a look. Of course it’s one thing to be a Queen Bee at the office, and quite another to be one at home. At the office, a Queen Bee will reach the top. But if she can’t turn it off in her love life, she’s screwed.

Too many women have been taught that being nice, or sweet, means being weak—so their knee-jerk reaction is to develop a tough exterior. This has unfortunately resulted in a generation of, for lack of a better word, bitches.

It wasn’t that long ago that being bitchy was considered a negative quality. Today it’s considered a positive trait. Countless movies and television programs associate female strength with bitchiness. There was even a book published in 2002 called Why Men Love Bitches. The author, Sherry Argov, uses the term ‘bitch’ to mean the opposite of being a doormat.

But there’s nothing new about teaching women not to be doormats— and it shouldn’t be correlated with bitchiness, which is a negative term. Being a doormat means having no life or interests of your own, and that kind of relationship would cause anyone on the receiving end to feel smothered or caged. Being a bitch is just, well, being a bitch.

So where does the confusion come from? I believe it’s from women’s perception that the 1950s housewife was a doormat. That’s the meme that’s been drilled into the modern generation. But 1950s housewives, as a whole, weren’t doormats. On the contrary, they understood men in a way women today do not.

They knew, for example, that men’s desire to love, honor and protect is instinctive—and they honored that. Part of honoring that meant being respectful and kind in return. Remember the movie theater massacre when James Holmes murdered twelve people (and injured fifty-eight more) in Aurora, Colorado? Three men—Jon Blunk, MattMcQuinn, and Alex Teves—died shielding their girlfriends from Holmes’s rampage. That’s male instinct.

They also knew men can smell femininity a mile away and that its energy is a magnet. When a woman walks past a group of men sitting in conversation, 99 percent of the time the men will stop talking and look up. That’s not always because the woman is gorgeous; it’s just because she’s female.

Women have unbelievable power over men, but today’s generation has been mired in victimhood and thus lack the tools to use this power. They’ve been taught that being strong and independent requires bitchiness. But it doesn’t. It is possible to be strong, independent…and nice.

The problem is that for a generation of women raised to “never depend on a man,” it’s going to take a lot of convincing. And practice.

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The Top 10 Dos and Don’ts for Wifedom

Suzanne — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:20:26 +0000

Below are my top 10 Dos and Don’ts for being a good wife. They are not (naturally) politically correct, but they work. I do not address men here, only women. So don’t come back with, “What about him? What does he have to do?” My book, How to Choose a Husband, speaks to women, not men, and that’s where this list comes from. Besides, you’d be amazed how changing yourself—as opposed to being focused on what the other person’s doing wrong—can move things in the direction you want them to go.

1.    When it isn’t absolutely necessary to speak up, don’t. Silence can be golden.

2.   Have regular sex, even if it’s just a quickie and you’re not in the mood.

3.   It’s okay to cook for your husband and even—gasp—serve him a plate of food. Cooking is
love.

4.   Encourage your husband to go out with the guys just as you like to go out with your
girlfriends. (Note: This does not include an eight-hour game of golf on Saturday after you’ve
just given birth.)

5.   If you’re home with young children and your husband is the breadwinner, give him time to
decompress after work. Don’t shove a baby in his arms when he gets home and take off for
the night.

6.   Do everything in your power not to measure the amount of work your husband does at home
with the amount of work you do at home. If you’re your children’s primary caregiver, you will
always do more household chores because you’re around the house more. Unless
your husband spends most of his time in front of the TV outside of work, he’s probably
pitching in more than you think.

7.   Make your husband’s family your family, particularly since you expect him to do likewise.

8.   Let your husband date you. This includes letting him choose where you’ll be going, letting
him drive, and allowing him to hold the door open for you. It also means letting him pay the
bill. (Even if the money’s in one pot, the gesture is important.)

9.   When you and your husband have a conflict, look in the mirror. You may or may not be to
blame, but recognizing that what you’re doing isn’t working can help steer you in a different
direction. You can’t change other people—only yourself.

10. Last, but definitely not least: Don’t be a bitch. Be sweet.

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What’s for dinner tonight?

Suzanne — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:09:16 +0000

Do you know what you’re having for dinner tonight? Who’s responsible for that chore in your home?

I’ve been getting dinner on the table every night we don’t go out (roughly once a week, maybe twice if you throw in a pizza night) for at least 15 years. It’s a task I voluntarily took on when I got married—both times. So wait, make that almost 20 years I’ve been getting dinner on the table.

A lot of people (mostly neighbors, who don’t know me well enough) think I love to cook. I don’t. I think the chore of planning a week’s worth of meals, going to the store to purchase the food, and then prepping and cooking the food is awful. The only way I would enjoy cooking is if it were just my husband and me, and we could afford to eat out more often but I chose to cook instead. And then I could make whatever I wanted.

Having to cook every night for a family—two children, a husband, and a grandmother—is a whole different ballgame. I don’t enjoy it, per se. I do it because the alternative is no better, for different reasons. (And for the record: my husband does the dishes every night.)

For years people have been looking at me like I’m a relic from the past—as in, Who cooks anymore? My 13-year old is even saying, “Can’t we be like everyone else and just grab whatever we want and eat it wherever? Like in front of the TV? Can’t we be normal for once?”

Well, um, no. We can’t. Because there are just too many benefits to all that time I spend in the kitchen. Such as:

1) It’s healthier.
2) It’s cheaper.
3) It’s family time.
4) It’s comforting to kids (despite my teenager daughter’s recent protestations).
5) The kitchen smells good.
6) It teaches kids to be responsible with their wallets and their bodies.
7) It teaches children good food habits and table manners.
8) Your kids will appreciate you when they’re adults, and it’s their turn to do this chore.
9) Cooking is love.
10) For most people, dinner at home involves prayer.

Not one of these things applies to eating out. Well, except number three. But that’s it. So whoever’s responsible for getting dinner on the table in your family, give them a big hug and kiss tonight and thank them for all they do. And if that person is you, then kiss yourself. When no one’s looking. Otherwise that might look really weird.

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Be Unhip

Suzanne — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:53:39 +0000

[For blog subscribers: Welcome to all my new subscribers! You probably noticed that my blog was supposed to be daily. However, I've developed carpal tunnel syndrome (no surprise there) and need to lay low on the typing. So my blog may be sporadic for now. Weekly for sure, maybe more—but definitely not daily. Thank you all for your patience!]

Are you hip? Most people, in their youth, think being hip is the most important thing in the world. As we age, this becomes so much less important. In fact ,being uncool means you’re smart. It means you think for yourself. It means you won’t get sucked into things that can lead you down the wrong path.

When it comes to making good decisions in life, it’s essential that people think for themselves and surround themselves with positive influences. The more you surround yourself with people or messages that support your goal, whatever it is, the more successful you will be.

As an example, suppose you wanted to lose a bunch of weight and had a choice between two doors you could open to help you accomplish your goal. Behind the first door is a roomful of obese people, and behind the second door is a roomful of strong, healthy, fit people—Dr. Oz types. Which door would you want to open? It’s a no brainer, isn’t it? If you’re serious about losing weight, you need to be around people who can help you get there. The same is true with marriage and the family.

If you listen to the culture when it comes to sex, men, marriage, and family issues, you will fail. The culture says few people today are happily married. It says women don’t need men. It says men are losers (or closet rapists) and children do fine in their parents’ absence. The culture says all kinds of things that simply aren’t true.

To be successful in your personal life, you must reject the culture and go with your gut. You have to do what you believe in your heart is right—even when everyone around you is doing it differently. And you have to teach your children this lesson. (Bringing Up Geeks, by Marybeth Hicks, is a great book on this subject.)

Bottom line: Never be afraid to be unhip. As the late Steve Jobs once said,“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become .”

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Living in a World of Soundbites

Suzanne — Fri, 03 May 2013 07:00:25 +0000

(Note: Thank you in advance for your patience as I figure out the particulars of my new blog. I know there’ve been some formatting and comment link issues. By Monday we should be good!)

Some of you may have caught my appearance on Fox & Friends yesterday morning (hopefully not, since it was really early and I looked awful); but if you didn’t see it, you didn’t miss much. Five minutes on television, especially when you’re sharing the stage with another guest, is almost silly. No subject worth its salt can be discussed, let alone debated, in less than five.

Unfortunately, we live in a world of soundbites—which is so unfortunate. In order to become truly educated about something, you have to read. There’s no way around it. But people today are too busy, too lazy, or too easily distracted to hunker down with a mountain of material on any one topic. So they catch a sound bite from television and run with it.

So many people don’t think about how they get their information or realize that some of the information they do get is erroneous. They think, “Well, if it’s on TV, it must be true.”

Scary as it sounds, the folks behind your television set put together segments for the purpose of entertainment more than anything else. The hosts are just reading from teleprompters. And the producers who create the programs just try to put content together that sounds provocative or interesting. They could care less about getting to the bottom of an issue or figuring out a solution.

Which means all those hours people spend in front of the news are essentially wasting their time if the goal is to become informed. It’s fine to use TV news to become aware of something you may not know about; but if you want details or facts, there’s only way to get them: read.

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Ladies, stop trying to prove yourselves

Suzanne — Thu, 02 May 2013 12:09:13 +0000

I’ve taken a lot of flack for telling women to not compete with the men they love and to be more feminine in their approach to love. Feminists hate my message (naturally), but even those who don’t consider themselves feminists are skeptical. What do I mean when I say this, they want to know. To be a “yes” woman and do what you’re told?

Not exactly.

I just mean women don’t need to try so hard to prove themselves. Men know you’re smart, capable, and in charge of yourself. So just relax and give in once in a while. Take a chill pill. Unless you’ve made an exceptionally bad choice, your guy isn’t going to hurt you. You really do attract more bees with honey than with vinegar. And men are so easy to please! Just smile a lot and don’t be so argumentative. That’s about the sum of it. (In case you’re wondering, no: I was not born this way. It’s something I learned the hard way.)

If you want a guy’s perspective on this, here’s what a man named Joe had to say about the message in How to Choose a Husband:

“Don’t be a competitor” is a reminder to women to not approach men in a competitive fashion. This seems to only be a concern since the advent of strident feminism advocating that gender is contrived/artificial and women should adopt masculine traits to show they’re equal (sigh…women can be equal without being men).

Generally speaking, men compete in life. We compete with our buddies; we’re competing at work; we compete with everything (to greater and lesser degrees depending on the subject and the person). Just watch how little boys play versus how little girls play when adults aren’t around. Girls tend to focus on the social “game” while boys tend toward physical achievement/”winning” against their friends. If you want to be crude: for boys, life is a pissing contest! Even as an adult, we guys are always ribbing each other in a competitive fashion.

Men who are like this (most of us, in degrees) don’t want women who have the attitude of competing with a man. Most of the women I’ve dated had this attitude. It’s rather disheartening. It always seems to come across as if they have something to prove, to show me they were as good as any man. Heck, I don’t need another man in my life. I want to see she’s as good as any woman—which then means we complement each other’s nature.”

So if you’re someone who has her sword up (and you know if you do), try putting it down for awhile and see what happens. Who knows? You might be pleasantly surprised.

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The Examined Life

Suzanne — Wed, 01 May 2013 11:25:33 +0000

At the end of the day, people live one of two lives: an examined life, or an unexamined life. An unexamined life is when you move through the years mindlessly, not really thinking about what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, or even if you like doing it. You’re just doing it, whatever “it” is, because that’s what other people are doing—because that’s what you think you’re supposed to do. Or because, quite frankly, it’s easier. Living an unexamined life means living a life someone else designed for you.

The examined life is different. The examined life is when you tune out the voices, sounds, and visuals in your midst and make important decisions based on what you want and what you believe is right. More than anything, it means dismissing cultural trends that conflict with your core beliefs.

This is extremely hard to do, which is why so many people don’t do it. But if you want to live an authentic life, it must be done. As Gordon MacDonald wrote in Ordering Your Private World, “Few of us can fully appreciate the terrible conspiracy of noise there is about us, noise that denies us the silence and solitude we need for this cultivation of the inner garden.”

Most of this “noise” comes in the form of media. As a consumer of media, you’re not supposed to be a passive observer when you watch romantic comedies or read about the lives of Hollywood starlets. You’re not supposed to just watch the Katie Courics of the world, or the women on The View, or even Giada De Laurentiis on Food Network. You’re supposed to identify with these women.

Which wouldn’t be a problem if the women in the media represented, or even touted, the values most Americans share. But they don’t. Here are just a few headlines of the past few years:

“Who Needs Marriage?” (Time, Nov. 18, 2010)
“The End of Men ”(The Atlantic, July/Aug 2010)
“For Women, Is Home Really So Sweet?” (The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 18, 2012)
“Is It Time to Retire the Word ‘Wife’”? (The Huffington Post, Feb. 15, 2012)
“Do You Hate Your Husband?” (Yahoo, Dec. 5, 2010)
“Stay-at-home moms more depressed than working moms, study finds” (Today Show, May 18, 2012)

Headlines like these are commonplace. (And by the way, can you imagine a headline that read, “Do You Hate Your Wife?” The double standard is astounding.) But if you’d been born at an earlier time, it would never occur to you to think along these lines. Instead, the messages you’d receive from society would be positive. Helpful. They would be pro-marriage and pro-family.

Unfortunately, fractured families are now the rule, not the exception. Almost everyone you know has either been divorced or has been affected by divorce. And your source of support and camaraderie is no longer family and community—it’s the media. Strangers. Women with whom you have nothing in common.

Which brings us to the million-dollar question: How are you going to block out this “terrible conspiracy of noise”? Are you going to live mindlessly? Or intentionally?

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What Marriage Offers Women

Suzanne — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:00:42 +0000

No matter how you slice it, marriage is still a boon for women. Sound so retro, doesn’t it? Today’s women are empowered! They don’t need husbands!

It’s true women don’t need men in the traditional sense of the word. Women can do all sorts of things that in the past would have been verboten or just bizarre: live alone, travel, climb corporate ladders, or even hang out on a bar stool with a glass of wine and the newspaper.

But most women—not all, but most—choose to settle down and have a family. And when that happens, everything changes. All those plans that were once made with a single individual in mind must be modified to accomodate the needs of others.

But marriage and motherhood is not all sacrifice. Being a wife and mother offers women something, too: flexibility and choice. By depending on a husband’s steady income, women have a phenomenal opportunity to explore what kind of life they want. Men don’t have an excuse to leave their jobs if they’re unhappy. Women do. If they want to leave the workforce, motherhood is a perfectly sound reason to do so. “Maternity provides an escape hatch that paternity does not. Having a baby provides a graceful and convenient exit,” writes Sarah Amsbary.

That is a perk of being female we never acknowledge.

The question is this: Do you want your job to be your life (as the culture teaches)? Or do you want to have a life? Research shows most women want balanced lives. They want to work part-time (if at all) when they have kids—especially when their children are young. By depending on a husband, women can lead fulfilling and well-rounded lives.

To achieve this goal, however, women must start thinking differently from the way they’ve been taught to think about men, marriage and gender roles. Rather than fight over a false concept of equality, embrace the opportunity marriage and motherhood offer. Motherhood, in particular, provides a wonderful opportunity for women to be their own bosses. It may feel that way in the early years, but eventually it will. Simply put, you’re in charge. Your time is your own.

And time, these days, is a serious commodity.

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Do you want to be liked? Or do you want to be you?

Suzanne — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:00:18 +0000

Of all the things I feel passionate about, being ‘politically correct’ tops the list. It’s so wrong, on so many levels, to keep quiet when you know something is factually incorrect. Or even if you just want to chime in but don’t.

It’s easier, I’ll give you that. To be sure, you’ll be more liked. But here’s the question: Do you often find yourself bursting at the seams, wanting to say something but holding back? Chances are, that’s because you want to be liked more than you want to be you.

Now if you never find yourself in this boat, perhaps you’re just shy. Perhaps you prefer to live a quiet life and keep your thoughts to yourself. I understand. I don’t relate, of course, but I understand. I’m not suggesting everyone should become opinionated and outspoken.

But if you do hold back out of fear, if you feel stymied when it comes to your thoughts and feelings, and if your spouse or significant other is always getting irritated because you “let it all out” with him or her but say nothing in mixed company, my advice to you is: start talking.

In public, I mean. When asked what you think, tell the truth. Try to get comfortable making your feelings known, whatever those feelings are. As you become more comfortable in your new skin, you’ll find yourself speaking up more. Will you surprise some people or perhaps even lose some friends? Maybe. But then they weren’t really friends anyway.

What you will get from the “new you” is peace of mind. You will know you said what you meant to say and felt proud to have said it. You’ll sleep better at night because you won’t harbor resentment feeling like you wanted to say something but didn’t. You will have had your say—even if the neighbor was the only person who heard it.

Think about it.

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