I'm going to talk about another inequality, one I've never seen on the news or Oprah. It's the Hunting, Fishing gap. Some might call it a Hobby Gap, but in my world I most commonly see it related to hunting and fishing.
In many parts of the country Deer Season is a national holiday for men. Rural schools close for a day or two, camo and bright orange catch your eye at every corner and caravans of campers, and loaded pick-ups go to the "deer woods".
Deer Widows often have nights out when the men depart, but for the most part the wives are at home going to work, and keeping things running as always. The only difference for a non-hunting woman between deer season and not, is watching the bank account deplete and dealing with the hassles of life without a back-up or help.
What chaps my hide (and other deer widows I know) is that there is no equivalent for women. Women rarely get to just take off, and leave. The good Lord knows that if I decided to leave for a week it requires much more than just packing my clothes and leaving. I must make sure all the laundry is done, there is a clear calendar, not just for me but for the rest of the family and if there are things on that calendar it's clearly marked and explained and a dozen other things taken care of because frankly we all know who runs the household. Don't get me started on what you come home to find in the wake of being gone for more than three days as well.
Honestly Hubby is a really good guy. I'm just REALLY peeved to see the large amounts of money and time spent trying to kill an animal. IF Hubby kills a deer this year that "free" meat will have actually cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 a lb. yeah, lobster is way cheaper. This irks me when I go the grocery store and buy the generic because it's 15 cents cheaper and I don't buy the nice handbag I've eyeballed because it's "too expensive".
My next husband will not hunt or fish.
5 comments:
Funny, many times I think that my next husband WIll be a hunter or fisherman!!! Why? Because maybe, just maybe, if my dh had some hobbies of his own, he might be understanding, or even supportive of me and my own interests! (The grass is always greener, is it not?!) But I do understand the difficulty/impossibility of getting away. I'm planning my own vacation to start the day after my youngest child's graduation party! Enjoy your $100/lb deer meat! :-)
Came across your blog by hitting the 'next blog' thingy from mine, I'll bookmark it.
Yeah, my wife would have shown me your post if she was still with us. I'm guessing our oldest girl is about your age, I'll send it to her.
You're spot-on with the notion of cost/benefit of venison, or fish, etc. My sympathies as my wife's would have been.
Also, an earlier post mentioned the possibility of living abroad. I highly recommend it, our youngest (25) girl and I lived in Germany for a year after my wife passed, it was a great experience for both of us.
Good luck to you.
Mike
Thanks, I get the idea of needing hobbies, I just wish he'd take up something less expensive and more productive like gardening, I would at least have an overload of squash around instead of a freezer full of waterfowl I find distasteful.
Mike I will definitely take up the opportunity to go live abroad if it presents it's self. I spent several weeks in Ukraine when we adopted my youngest and realized then that you can't really get the feel of a place until you've had to grocery shop and navigate daily life and not just run from one site to another.
I just hope he bags a deer early in the week so he comes home early, but I guess he'll have to buy a knife as I found a bag of stuff left behind with his deer knife in it. Not an expert but gotta be near impossible to gut a deer with a pocket knife (if he even has that - men don't seem to be hand with a pocket knife when I need one)
It goes for golfing, watching football or men's softball leagues too. Basically anything a man wants to do, he does it. Women...well, we have too much guilt to just pack it in and just go. We need to re-think this!
Agreed, he doesn't have the least bit of remorse he's been gone 10 days for fun and then leaves again a week later ( for Paris no less) for another week. Me i thought I was living it up sending one kid on a scout outing and taking the other one with me to buy stuff in MKE for scouts. Something is not right here.
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