A coffee shop encounter

I was in Tim Horton’s this afternoon drafting a blog post when an elderly lady came up to tell me how much she enjoyed seeing that some people still write by hand.

We ended up chatting for a little while and our conversation ranged from penmanship, (mine is poor but she admired that I had any at all) which has declined since the introduction of the ball-point pen, to the role of women (we both agree that the women’s liberation movement has gone too far and now ties women to their desks rather than their kitchens, and far too early in their children’s lives), to the education system in Yukon (she quit teaching as a professor at the college because she felt it didn’t qualify as a learning institution), to parenting values (too much emphasis on being perfect, not enough time showing our children how to live values, and too much pressure on educators to pick up the slack), to the dangers of homeopathic remedies, to the politics in her senior’s home.

We agreed in opinion on each of these topics and she admired the decision we are making to move away from Yukon in order to pursue the life we want as a family. It was nice to have this validation, especially from someone of that age. Most of the time when I tell people we are moving, they ask if I have a job lined up or what I will do for work. When I explain that I will be at home, the question of when I’ll go back to work inevitably comes up. It’s clear that my choice to be at home, for however long, is hard to accept for the women I talk to in the work force.

One last little note from our conversation: She spent her post-children years as a cultural geographer, focusing on how cultures compete for power and she defines culture as “how you understand the raw stuff of life.” I thought you might like to ruminate on that interesting definition.