As a male, I recently had an experience that involved gender stereotyping, from which I learned a lot. For one thing, I learned a bit about how my sisters have so often felt.
There was a meeting in a major Southern city to plan for a large women’s conference. I attended in my role as chair-elect of CBE’s volunteer board.
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I was born into a Christian home, and my mother and father both believed in no smoking, no drinking, no card playing, no movies, no TV and no dancing. In high school I was always pulled out of gym class during the square dance unit, and I had never seen a movie until I was in college. My father ruled the home and listened to many radio preachers, while my mother worked many hard hours on the farm and in the home.
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Last September, as our third child began her senior year of high school in the home, a bittersweet awareness came over me. On the “sweet” side, our children fared well with home-based learning. They took the Christian faith with them through the frenzied teen-age years. Also, by the prospering of God, we surpassed our own academic goals. Our oldest son graduated magna cum laude from university and is working in a business career; the middle daughter, a college senior, is on target for the same high-honors graduation; and the youngest daughter will attend an outstanding Christian college in the fall with academic and voice scholarships. The task and experience of home schooling have yielded a cherished cache of sweet memories.
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“Zest for living” are three words that describe how Marion Haefele Longman has influenced my life.
During her school years, Mom began bird watching expeditions early in the morning. She became a certified Water Safety Instructor, was an avid Girl Scout, and later saved lunch money to take flying lessons. After getting her pilot’s license and graduating from nursing school at the time of World War II, she and three friends purchased a car and headed out for a two-year, cross-country trip that included months of working in the Southwest, several weeks of travel in Mexico and a stint up the California coast.
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I’m not sure if I ever totally believed that the Bible mandated inequality between the sexes, but that’s just the way it was. I grew up in a church that didn’t necessarily preach such inequalities, but practiced them none the less. By their example I understood that there was a “man’s place” and a “woman’s place.” The men held positions of leadership and the women were in charge of the nursery and potluck dinners.
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When the news of my mom’s death spread throughout my congregation and the naval base in Port Hueneme, Calif., I began to learn about the kindred spirit that exists among women who have lost their mothers. These women cried with me and told me, “There is something deep that happens in our souls when a woman loses her mother.” All of these women talked of mothers who loved them and modeled that every woman can be all that God wants her to be.
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When we read an obituary in the newspaper, we see the visible side of a person’s life — his or her church or organization memberships and accomplishments in life. What we don’t read, however, is how the person touched others in some special way. I’d like to share how Mom spiritually touched the lives of my sister Wendy and me.
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I grew up in fundamentalist churches where women were taught to know their “place” and stay there. My parents accepted these ideas in theory, but not so much in practice, and at the same time they questioned many of the other things these churches taught. During my freshman year of college, my parents ended their lifelong affiliation with this denomination and began attending a new church.
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As I walked out the church door that late summer Sunday morning, my heart was crushed and the tears flowed. This had been a special place where I had grown in my relationship to Christ, developed valued friendships and committed myself to serve. How did it come to this?
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