(A note from Mark Remond: I join many of my readers in lamenting Ms. Amanda’s recent departure from guest posting here. I learned a lot about FLRs and female-led families from her posts, as well as from her clear and concise response to readers’ comments. I, too, hope that Ms. Amanda will consider posting here in the future, if circumstances permit.
In the meantime, I am pleased to offer readers the first of what I hope will be quite a few guest posts by an online friend and email correspondent of Mrs. Amanda, “Ms. Jenn.” Ms. Amanda mentioned Ms. Jenn several times in her posts, as here: “I have [had] some email correspondence with another dominant lady who lives in the Netherlands. She also runs a female led household...”
Although English is not Ms. Jenn’s native tongue (that is Dutch), I have found it necessary to make only a very few alterations in her writing. Here is her first post. — M.R.)
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First, to provide a little bit of background. I do not come from a female-led family, but from early on I became aware of what I would call the higher potential of women. Add to this the fact that I have always been the dominant type. However, when I met my future husband, Paul, our relationship started off quite “normal.” Actually I should say “vanilla,” because, as you will see, I regard a wife-led marriage and female leadership in a family not only as normal, but quite natural, firmly based on the natural fact of female superiority.
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Paul is a very soft, loving, caring and loyal guy. He works two days a week as a way to supplement my full-time income. This allows him time to do all the household chores and to help with the children. We have three—Sophie, 12, Luuk, just turned 9, and my youngest girl, Lotte, 6 years old.
In many ways, however, my Paul is like another child. He is frequently very childish in behavior and thus irresponsible (a trait which I have come to recognize in many men) and, frankly, less intelligent than Sophie, for instance. That does not mean that I love my husband the less; I am merely stating the reality.
When Sophie was 3 years old, I became fed up with Paul’s childishness, and told him we had to change things for the good of the family. This has been an ongoing process for the last 9 years. Eventually, I decided I should take more responsibility over Paul, even though that would mean he would be relieved of responsibilities and thus rights.
As a result, Paul has grown to be more and more off a brother to my children rather than a father, even though he still displays fatherly love and, as I said, does practically all chores. But he is relieved of any meaningful decision-making. I told him, as his behavior is childish, his treatment should reflect that. All kind of rules that the children abide by, my husband has to abide by as well.
Believe me, compared to the way it was before these stricter rules were applied to Paul, it has worked very well for all of us. My husband is happy and works hard, even though he sometimes has trouble coping with having to keep to the same rules as the kids.
So far I am talking only about our female-led relationship. Now I will speak of our female-led family.
Not long ago my daughter Sophie became 12 years old, and I viewed this milestone as a crucial turning point. She had been asking for more responsibility within the family, and I decided that she should get comfortable with increased responsibility.
I had been browsing on the Internet for information about female led families, or matriarchal families. In that search I came across Mark Remond’s blog, Worshipping Your Wife, and especially certain guest posts by dominant women who had taken charge of their families.
I was especially interested in the posts by Becky Sue on female superiority and matriarchal family guidelines, and by certain comments by Siobhan to Ms. Nancy’s guest posts. I also received some valuable information from comments by other dominant wives and mothers which Mark Remond kindly emailed to me at my request (including from Ms. Amanda).
In my next post, I will share a little bit about my first family meeting on this important topic, in which I talked about some of these ideas with my husband and Sophie and the two younger children. I will also tell you about some of the changes that were decided upon as a result of that meeting.
But here I would like to add a note of caution, which I may repeat in later columns. While I do believe strongly in female-led families and a female-led future, obviously no two people, and no two families, are quite alike. What works for our family may not work for another. So when I describe some of the female-empowering guidelines that we follow, please do not suppose that I am offering these as prescriptions or as an "exact model" for other families. —Ms. Jenn
