Women Shouldn't be President...

What?!?!?!????  In today's world who would actually have the audacity to say/think such a thing???  Well, let me tell you a little story...

This year for history we're studying early American History up through roughly 1865 (though we seem to be stuck in the 1700s and just can't break into the 1800s as of yet... HELP!!) with TruthQuest History.  I'm loving the relaxed schedule TQH provides.  Anyway, I digress.  During lunch we were reading "So You Want to be President", which is a children's book covering our many Presidents and their many differences and similarities.  Toward the end of the book, it said that there have been no women that have run for/been elected President.  True, though Hilary attempted in 2008.

Enter my Dear Son #1 who is 10 years old...

"Yeah... I agree with that... I don't think it would be a good idea for a woman to be President."

Now, realize that I was raised in a single-parent home during the 70's and 80's at the height of 'girls can do anything boys can do and do it better,' and I believed it through and through.  A femi-Nazi is what I guess you would have called me.  (I've been a recovered femi-Nazi for 13 years now, bye the by.)  But in that moment, when my precious 10y/o son said that he didn't think women should be President, that old femi-Nazi started to rear her ugly head!  I don't know what surprised me more, that or my 10 y/o's very definite ideas of gender roles.  Anyway, I very calmly asked him why he thought that.  (I also don't think a woman would be a good choice for President, but that's a discussion for a different day.) 

"Well, Mom, because they need to stay home and do the dishes and cook and stuff like that." 

'Is that all he thinks I do all day?' I thought as I resisted the temptation to give him my laundry-list of "accomplishments". 
But what I said was, "But what if the woman didn't have a family to take care of?"  Thinking that might change his mind just a little (of course I was wrong about that). 

"She'd still have to do all those things..." he said nonchalantly. 

At this point I realized that my intelligence was at risk of being insulted, so I asked him, "So, do you think a woman is smart enough to be President?"  (That was really the root of my issues with all this.) 
To which he replied, 'yes, I just don't think it's a good idea.'  Phew!! 

As I was sharing this conversation with my dear husband, I was marvelling at the power of the home atmosphere and how that impacts our children's outlooks... I mean, it's not like we've ever discussed Biblical authority in terms of whether or not a female should or should not be elected President.  But somewhere along the way, in our day to day homeschooling lives, those unspoken things shine through...  now I'm wondering just what other things are 'shining through'....    :)

Grace and Peace

Wendy