Miss Independents

Forget happy-ever-after dreams with a prince waiting to play rescue. Forget playing the submissive little housewife at home cooking and baking. Since revolutionary women's lib had them all busy burning their token bras in protest, feisty lil Miss Independents everywhere have been having dreams of climbing up the competitive corporate ladder.

Case in point are my friends the fabulous Lushes.

Though much battered, bruised and beaten, Lissome Lorelei has returned to our shores with a new song and an even stronger conviction to reach for that impossible dream. And like the rest of the girls, her dream doesn't involve sitting at home with a steaming pot pie waiting for her significant other to appear.


Paul : What's with the oversized hat?
Lorelei : I have a bandage on my head. Not chic.
Paul : Does that explain the large bow on your dress?
Lorelei : I'm not going to answer that... but yes.
Paul : Ouch. But I already popped some painkillers into your tea.
Lorelei : Thanks.
Only hitch is while she was away swimming in foreign waters, Lorelei had a traumatic tumble that left her with a concussion - and landed her a helpful hero in the tragedy. Every siren needs a charming rescuer after all. Not sure if she thinks the cut lip was worth the catch yet :)

With the princesses unsure of whether they need rescuing, knights in shining armour do have it hard these days!

You'd expect Lorelei to find her happily-ever-after in a fairytale apartment on a hill but finding the prince has only put our nomadic sea siren in a life-altering quandary! To be part of his world, does she have to make landfall and ground herself? Is it time to trade in her wandering fins for pots and pans?

Lorelei : I wanna be where the people are. I wanna see, wanna see 'em workin' walkin' around on those whaddya call 'em? Oh, feet. I want a career. I want job satisfaction. I want success.
Paul : Tending to sick sea slugs and ailing anemone?
Lorelei : Yes!
Paul : Seriously? What about hearth and home? A husband and family?
Lorelei : Umm. Don't think I have a song for that.
Paul : Maybe it's time you wrote one.

Okay, never say that to a Miss Independent. I might as well have told her to dye her hair green and sign a lopsided bargain with a seawitch instead. Still, Lorelei likes her prince enough to consider it.


Lorelei : You gotta be kidding me.
Really, has turning housewife become something so terribly awful? Making it sound like a crime exchanging our work briefcases for children's lunchboxes. Has our changing values actually turned a wonderful opportunity into something despicably low instead?

Had me wondering where have all the nifty lil 1950s homemakers gone? Stepford ladies in white gloves and frilly aprons who bake, sew and cook till their doting husbands return from the office? Have they all been packed up, boxed up and tossed out with things all retro?

Fortunately as it turns out these retro housewives still exist. These roles have reverted to gay men instead.

Seriously. How the roles have changed! Turns out amongst my ambitious gung-ho workmates ( quite a number who are women! ) I might be the only one willing to trade in the stethoscope for a frying pan. Going the family route has always been one of my ambitions. Oddly enough for a guy, a successful career has never really been all that high on my list of priorities.

But making a happy family is.