I don’t have much to add to the running commentary on the Kansas City Chief kicker’s commencement address about the “diabolical lie” told to female graduates about what qualifies as a good career and life, except to say that I read it in full and found it mostly nonsensical…i.e., I couldn’t follow his logic, his word choice, or his train of thought. At all.
I could follow why it incensed so many of us, though—and also why it simultaneously confirmed the position of many others. (
pointed to an Ipsos study that found that 40% of Americans believe that the primary role of women should be confined to that of wife and mother.) Buttkins, or whatever his name is, is not alone—he’s part of a choir that’s barely a minority.![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4d569a56-d3a2-47e3-9c96-2eda63847fd4_1550x1034.png)
There were some great takes on what he said—I particularly loved ones like
’s: “This week, a man who kicks a ball for a living told a group of new graduates a bunch of dumb stuff and we all got pretty mad about it even though getting mad at a dumb man is as useless as getting mad at a cat. …The man whose wife takes care of him and his children so he can fulfill his vocation of kicking a ball believes that the highest vocation for a woman is marrying (a man, duh) and having children.” Or ’s IG rant where she points out that she’s achieved far more than him (as a sometimes solo parent) without requiring that an entire human devote their existence to buttressing her welfare and success. The larger point being—despite this image of a super macho man who is bringing home the bacon and “establishing the codes of society” or whatever else he said—he’s awfully dependent on the servitude of his wife.Anywho, I’m not here to debate this dude, but it did get me thinking about what qualifies as a full and spiritually satisfying life for each one of us, a life that’s ideally expunged from both repressed wants and resentments, a life that’s chosen and not compelled. It was also top of mind because I spent part of last week in Boone, North Carolina co-leading a workshop with Courtney Smith for 45 women that I found incredibly moving—all while my husband held it down at home with the boys. (He took them to Monster Jam World Finals, they drove over a nail on their way, and returned to the garage after the event to a flat tire—they didn’t get home until 2am and it was apparently the best and most exciting night ever.)
Courtney and I took these women through a process that culminated in the articulation of wants, and it became clear how many of us have never considered our wants at all—or more frequently, we kind of “lost them,” or pushed them aside. (And yes, I write about this a lot: “Owning Our Wanting,” “How’s the Wanting Going?”). As we gave voice to them, there was a lot of feeling in the room—along with the urge to change the words “I want,” to “I would like.” Old habits die hard.
The undertow of fear that follows many women is that wanting risks relationship—if I want something, if I go after it, will you still be here? If I change, will you change with me? It’s truly terrifying stuff.
I was thinking of the right model for relationships where both partners want to be fully expressed—and want the same thing for their partners. This is tricky, particularly when timelines collide, but the best metaphor I’ve read comes from M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled, which he wrote in 1978. It’s a little dated, but I think it holds up incredibly well. (You can read another newsletter about the book here: “Accepting Responsibility.”)
First, Peck establishes an externally expressed political/market spectrum of pure care and relationship (communism) as opposed to extreme individualism (capitalism). I’m including it because I think it’s interesting, and a good example of why these binaries fail. Here he goes:
The problem of separateness in close relationships has bedeviled mankind through the ages. However, it has received more attention from a political standpoint than from a marital one. Pure communism, for instance, expresses a philosophy not unlike that of the aforementioned couples—namely, that the purpose and function of the individual is to serve the relationship, the group, the collective, the society. Only the destiny of the state is considered; the destiny of the individual is believed to be of no consequence. Pure capitalism, on the other hands, espouses the destiny of the individual even when it is at the expense of the relationship, the group, the collective, the society. Widows and orphans may starve, but this should not prevent the individual entrepreneur from enjoying all the fruits of his or her individual initiative. It should be obvious to any discerning mind that neither of these pure solutions to the problem of separateness within relationships will be successful. The individual’s health depends upon the health of the society; the health of the society depends upon the health of its individuals.
And then he turns to this very helpful metaphor, which takes us to the thesis of this particular newsletter.
When dealing with couples my wife and I draw the analogy between marriage and a base camp for mountain climbing. If one wants to climb mountains one must have a good base camp, a place where there are shelters and provisions, where one may receive nurture and rest before one ventures forth again to seek another summit. Successful mountain climbers know that they must spend at least as much time, if not more, in tending to their base camp as they actually do in climbing mountains, for their survival is dependent upon their seeing to it that their base camp is sturdily constructed and well stocked.
A common and traditionally masculine marital problem is created by the husband who, once he is married, devotes all his energies to climbing mountains and none to tending to his marriage, or base camp, expecting it to be there in perfect order whenever he chooses to return to it for rest and recreation without assuming any responsibility for its maintenance. Sooner or later this “capitalist” approach to the problem fails and he returns to find his untended base camp a shambles, his neglected wife having been hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, having run off with another man, or in some other way having renounced her job as camp caretaker. An equally common and traditionally feminine marital problem is created by the wife who, once she is married, feels that goal of her life has been achieved. To her the base camp is the peak. She cannot understand or emphasize with her husband’s need for achievements and experiences beyond the marriage and reacts to them with jealousy and never-ending demands that he devote increasingly more energy to the home.
Again, it’s dated (1978), but still helpful—particularly in the context of the commentary set off by this professional ball kicker’s commencement address, which suggests that regardless of your training, regardless of your desire, regardless of an intent to contribute in a different or additional way, solely tending to this base camp so your husband can go adventure is your sole destiny.
I can’t speak for all women—and would never try—but I’m going to guess that a vast majority of us want to take in some views, too. We may want to attempt the summit, or we may want to go on some day hikes. The need for growth and individuation—fundamentally reliant on a base camp of support and care that’s there to prep the traveler for the trip and receive the tired and hungry journeyer when it’s done—is not gendered. This is a core human need.
Here’s Peck’s take on this:
The woman’s liberation movement has been helpful in pointing the way to what is obviously the only ideal resolution: marriage as a truly cooperative institution, requiring great mutual contributions and care, time and energy, but existing for the primary purpose of nurturing each of the participants for individual journeys toward his or her own individual peaks of spiritual growth. Male and female both must tend the hearth and both must venture forth.
10000000% yes! And again, it’s a false narrative in our capitalistic culture that all this venturing forth must be for power, money, and dominance. It doesn’t have to be in a J-O-B—we self-express and share our gifts with the world in wildly different ways. But self-express we must—because map-making, adventure, and discovery is required to figure out who we are. (Rarely, does a J-O-B present that path to us anyway—and while kids are wonderful and will test our emotional limits, I’m not sure they’re the path to complete self-fulfillment either.)
My husband and I both work—we’ve both always worked. We are very much a two income family. Typically, my work has been more intensive and required a lot more travel. (I’ve been on the road every week for the past six weeks.) I mourn leaving my base camp and rejoice when I’m back—in fact, I don’t think I’d understand its value to me, or how deeply it sustains me, if I didn’t spend so much time at the airport. I’m fortunate that I find my work deeply spiritual though I recognize that’s a privilege. I also find motherhood and partnership to be deeply spiritual as well. I wouldn’t have the capacity for one, without the support of the either—in both directions. May we all be so lucky to have a base camp, and some climbing shoes.
THE LATEST FROM THE PODCAST:
5/20: The creation of somatic experiencing with Peter Levine, Ph.D
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5/16: Choosing wholeness over wokeness with Africa Brooke
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5/13: A toolkit for transforming trauma with James Gordon, M.D.
Apple | Spotify | Transcript
5/9: The complexity of weight loss drugs with Johann Hari
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5/2: On loving the end with Alua Arthur
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4/25: On telling the Truth with Nell Irvin Painter
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4/18: Hitting the road with poet Joy Sullivan
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4/11: The unbearable beams of love with Anne Lamott
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4/4: Understanding the Drama Triangle with Courtney Smith
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THE LATEST POSTS:
We Need Privacy: Contemplating the Darkness of the Feminine with Helen Luke
What Are We “Really, Actually” Saying?: Carol Gilligan Offers Some Answers
Calling the Cassandras: What if We Stop Dismissing What We Don’t Want to Hear?
Accepting the Dregs: When You Want the Bigger Cookie
On Beauty: Do You Feel Invisible?
The Cosmic Egg: We are Missing THE Story
Intergenerational Anxiety: Understanding which Part is Ours
One Thing We Need to Learn: A Few Notes on Andrew Huberman
You Have to Start Where You Are
Synchronicity & Fate: Signs are Signs, But They Still Require Discernment
PART 4: The Achilles Heel of Women
PART 3: Who Gets to Be an Expert?
PART 2: The Perception (and Reality) of Scarcity
PART 1: Ending the “Manel”—Doing this Requires Understanding Ourselves
My Baby-Thin Skin: The Shame of “Disappointing” People and Our Doubled Selves
Full archive HERE
My New York Times bestselling book—On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good—is out now.
I'm a psychotherapist and have been quoting this analogy from Peck all my working life (25 years). I'm so glad I read that book all those years ago - it has been a wonderful clear way of expressing and exploring what the aims of a relationship can look like - to my clients and to myself. Thank you for quoting and revisiting it here. It's truly lovely to find another appreciative receiver of the wisdom.
Fantastic analogy