Confidant
Paper Lithograph
Signed
1500 S/N
8 1/4 X 6 1/2 https://artusa.com/artist/greg-olsen/
I spoke to a new client today that just had a baby 6 months ago. My son is already in his 20s, and as we got through the business portion of what she needed, she started asking for advise, like “when do they finally sleep through the night?” I laughed, because I remembered well asking that same question, though I shouldn’t because it’s a horrible thing, the lack of sleep; then, I realized what advise she needed.
Tip-toeing around the sensitive issue, I just point blank asked her – are you married? I don’t have any issues with any kind of relationship people chose to have with other consenting adults, as long as they are based on genuine integrity and respect toward each other, not just lip service to such things. But, she brought up a little 6 months old girl, and this is why this question mattered. It had to do with male role models a child will have and realizing mid-conversation how important this is. Whether we are conscious about it or not, they will be there.
Non-normative relationships aside, a little girl will learn about how men should treat women from the closest man in her life, be that man her father, uncle, or whatever the closest male role model she has in her life. This in no way ever degrades the importance of the influence her mother has on her. However, when she grows up enough to meet a boy and if she ends up being interested in having a romantic relationship with him, her decisions on what is ok and what is not ok coming from him will be influenced by what was ok from her very first male role model. If she came from a home where it was ok to hit her mother when things were not up to his standards – she will remember it, and no matter how much her logical brain will fight against it, her subconscious will find it comfortable, remind her of home and people that otherwise made her feel safe, at least most of the time. If she learns from this man that women need to be treated with integrity, that their word and opinion matter, that they are the foundation of family and community, she will seek out a man who will echo that and will reject men who do not hold up a candle to this ideal.
Conversely, this is also an alternate possibility….:
https://www.disparody.com/products/father-daughter-first-dance-gallery-wrapped-canvas-by-artist-bucket
There are as many types of families today as there are stars in the sky, but we are all people living in communities and we all live together in one way or another. Even if she grows up to be gay, she may still have kids of her own who are girls who will date boys. She may still have a job where the boss or her co-worker is a man. How men in our lives act when we are little girls is one of the most important foundations that are set in us. It’s probably as intense as attraction laws (why do we like people with black hair, or blue eyes? slight of build or large in the shoulders? etc.) I told her that the man in her daughter’s life will teach her how men should treat women, and she will remember that for good and for bad. They will teach her how important she is, how her mind and her feelings are valued, and, most importantly, give her the red flags she will need when she grows up what to NEVER put up with. Her own sense of integrity will be bound to what he does and how he treats her and her mother
I think – I hope – she heard me.
Freyja's Frenzy 