"Finding Balance: Embracing Femininity and Seeking Partnership in a Modern World"

In season one, The Thanksgiving episode of The Fresh Prince, when we first met Will's mother, Viola. After some disturbing observations, she was very vocal about it, and her comments hurt her sister Vivian and Will. She said, "he's getting a free ride in a fancy car"; while I understood what Vivian was trying to do with her children and nephew, I could understand Viola's point of view too.

Vivian wanted to give them the childhood that they didn't have, and it's natural for a parent to want to do that, give their child/ren a much better childhood than they had growing up, especially when your parent(s) were poor and struggling and couldn't afford to do half as much as they would have dreamt. Later in a different season, with a different Vivian, she said to Phil, that they got so caught up in giving their children what they didn't have, that they forgot to give them what they did have.

Viola, appreciated what her sister was trying to do, I mean, not treat Will like a relative but like family, she wanted him to understand that in life, things that are of great value, will not just be handed to him as easily as that. His aunt and uncle-in-law worked hard to achieve the success that they enjoyed.

In the early 2000s the world's response to disappointing men, was the independent woman, take a look at us now, twenty years later, do you like what you see? As if women didn't have enough on their plates, they took from the men's plates as well, now where does that leave us? From what I'm seeing, hearing, and recovering, we are exhausted, we are just tired. We are indeed tired because we have been giving free rides in fancy cars, to men who left us on the side of the road when the fancy car breaks down.

Can we, ladies, can we, take a step back and be honest about what we see when we look at ourselves? We are too tired from doing and trying to do it all by ourselves, especially when we are not by ourselves. Fancy cars cost fancy money, to purchase and maintain, why are we giving free rides, when the ride isn't free, the refueling isn't free, replacing the brakes, and tires and servicing it, isn't free, so why are they riding for free? I think the whole point of being an independent woman was that we can tell the free rider this is your stop. and you continue the journey on your own until you find someone who knows what it takes to get and maintain the fancy car.

I do not know about you guys, but I for sure have made a few amendments to my definition of an independent woman. Being an independent woman in a relationship or worse marriage gets you used, it doesn't get you loved, valued, or respected. It's time we stop believing in this lie, and stop telling ourselves this lie. The independent woman movement came about to empower women, if a man was not treating you right, you had the power to leave because you had your own money. Your dollar was coming from your boss, not your boyfriend or husband, so you weren't owned or controlled by him.

It is illogical to be with a man that you don't need, why marry a man who is just going to watch you do everything by yourself? You are doing it all to prove to him that you don't need him, does that make sense to you? I gave this scenario to a guy I was conversing with, I said to him, there's a reason why God made me short and you tall, you the man and I the woman. Say I need something from the top shelf, I will ask you to reach it for me, because it's too high for me to reach for myself, if no one is there to reach it for me, then I will get myself a ladder to reach it. There's no way you as a man, standing there and I would get a ladder to reach it. If you were there and I had to resort to the use of a ladder, then why do I need you in my life, taking up space?

That space is reserved as vacant until a tall man comes and puts the ladder away for me because he can get whatever it is I need from the top shelf. And check this out, you wash, cook, and clean for him, before him, Miss Independent used to buy food, months of gas lasting because you only used it to hot water to make tea or coffee, but you cooking for this man who's doing nothing for you because you're Miss Independent, don't need a man to do anything for you. You made his life so much easier and better, he's not going to let you go because you're doing all of these things for him that he used to do for himself, but he doesn't value you, the person who is doing it, because what has he done exactly to earn it?

We complain about how worse the men of today have gotten, but we are the ones who are to blame for this though, we ran ourselves into the ground to prove to the man we love, that we don't need him, we only want him. We made it easier for them, to get what they wanted without any sincere effort because we misunderstood what the independent woman movement was all about.

We have to first truly love ourselves and value ourselves, there are men out there who will do just the same if we stop settling and making ourselves available to be used and taken advantage of. A real man values and cherishes what he has to work hard to achieve, so why not be you too? We struggle to find real men, because many times we are trying to be the men we are looking for, yet we are all shocked and flabbergasted when we meet the men who are out there being women. If we are out here being the men, what are we leaving the men to do, what choices have we left them with?