Just before my daughter-in-law, Bri, gave birth, I went to her baby shower: a tradition for all the female relatives on Bri’s maternal side of the family. Because everyone was new to me, I observed and absorbed more than participated.
It was fun and satisfying when the last gift sat atop the mountain of baby-wear, but no one budged. The best was yet to come and everyone knew it.
All eyes zeroed in on Bri. Without a word being said, you could feel the room being called to order: Let’s get down to business.
These women: aunts, cousins, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and sisters, proceeded after that, to TALK in a remarkable way about remarkable things. Their candor would have made ANY man blush and flee. Men, labor and delivery, breast-feeding – they ran the gamut. It wasn’t just an information-fest, but a celebration of LIFE and EXPERIENCE: the ups and downs which are completely, utterly, absolutely unique to WOMEN.
And sister, it was beautiful.
Reminiscent of women gathering in a basement to quilt, or on a back porch to shuck peas, these ladies talked like happy hens with no tomorrow—the way women have for generations – until this one.
Our gender has always enjoyed and depended on each other, but science has now proven that our generation actually NEEDS each other to stay healthy: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. In so many words and in so many ways, we will literally die if we starve ourselves of ‘wimminfolk’. The company of our sisters is vital to the production of the hormone oxytocin; the antidote to the killer cotisol (the stress-related hormone eating at our bodies almost non-stop because of our non-stop lifestyles). Spending a judicious amount of time gabbing with girlfriends (on appropriate topics and face to face or voice to voice, by the way; virtual interaction does not seem, according to the research, to raise oxytocin levels the same way physical presence does), is downright GOOD for us.
And what’s in it for the husbands? LOTS. Men are NOT by nature, equipped to fill our love bucket till it overflows day in and day out. The pressure to be perpetually passionate and to absorb all our womanly angst with aplomb, wears even a nice guy to a thread. The good, supportive women you love can lighten his load, by providing a portion of the nurturing you crave; all part of your (and their) biochemical make up.
So next time Hubby mummers about “babysitting” during Relief Society, tell him you need to replenish your oxytocin – then when you get home, reward him with the surplus!
“When stress levels are moderate and well managed, both men and women can be at their best. They are warm and friendly as well as giving and appreciative to each other.” John Gray, Venus on Fire, Mars on Ice (good reading for more on this topic!)
NEXT UP: Wife Support Part Three: Teaching a Knight to Knit. Mona shares and teaches romance at Mona's Musings with a Hint of Romance and posts daily at Mona's Musings on Facebook. and is the award-winning author or With Mine Own Hand: The Musical Account of Nephi. Based on her experience and study of two fathers, one husband, three sons, two grandboys, and seven brothers, she is writing a book about UNDERSTANDING MEN (go figure). Women say her live presentations on the subject are like going to Zumba class (though she's not sure what that means). Her Relief Society version is world famous (well, Canada is on the schedule).
See Mona's Musings for into.
Photos from Dreamstime.com
See Mona's Musings for into.
Photos from Dreamstime.com
