success | My Journey So Far….

If I will get a nickel for all the times, I was introduced using this phrase….

As a person, we all have different roles that we play in a society like a Man is a husband, a son, a father, etc. Same with us Women who are mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, etc.

But what should be the general rule of thumb when you are introduced as someone’s husband or wife? Do post in the comments what you think about this?

Let me give you an example when my husband goes to my office gatherings, he is introduced there as my husband but the next question that they ask is what do you do? What are your hobbies? How do you spend your time away from work? Nobody assumes that he is just a husband. He has a personality that people want to know about.

On the other hand, when I am in a gathering and if I am being introduced by a person, especially from an older generation, as soon as they will say that I am a wife they will follow it with this cringe-worthy quote “Behind every successful man there is a woman.”

Not that, I don’t like to be introduced as his wife. I take pride in that. I am proud of him and his achievements, and ladies if you don’t know that he is married, well, I will parade my customized Mrs. Singh Purse in front of you like a hundred times.

My problem with this quote is two-fold.

Firstly, when you say behind every successful man/woman or whatever, you are taking away credit for that person’s success. There are a lot of factors that go behind making a person successful, their parents, siblings, friends, education, and financial background, but mostly it is that person who despite good or bad situations chose to become successful. My husband could have been maybe more successful if he had someone else as his wife, or maybe not (as I chose to believe).

I read this story somewhere that two men met at a party and one offered a drink to another and said, I drink because my father was a heavy drinker and now, I am too. It is part of my childhood and I blame my father for giving me this bad habit. The other man declines the drink and says, I don’t drink because my father was a heavy drinker. I saw how alcohol ruined his life and now I have decided to stop this habit in my family generation.

The moral being, many get the same challenges, but it will depend on how you want to respond to your life challenges.

That is why nobody, your husband, or your wife, can make you successful. Own your success. Own your failures too. Your family could be a part of your journey, but it is YOU who are walking the path and making your own way.

The second problem that I see with this quote is why when a lady is introduced as a wife society felt the need to add this quote to justify her existence. It does not matter if you are a homemaker or a working woman, it is so insulting to prove that you are worthy of being a wife only if your husband is successful. What if he is a failure, then are you going to blame it on his wife too? And yes, people do that.

The notion that I let him be or let him do whatever he wants to do, implies that I could have been a nagging wife and stopped him from doing the things he does. So, I should be credited for his success, which is me being a quiet and submissive wife. Argh….

Why can’t a wife be vocal, an active partner, and successful as a team? Why do I have to let him be, why can’t we decide how to be in harmony with each other and work towards shared success. Why is it so hard for people to understand that it is no longer acceptable for a wife to STAND BEHIND?

I am and I will always be STANDING WITH HIM.

You must have heard of the phrase “Behind every successful man there is a woman.” Now, in the era of feminism and woman empowerment, we are hearing more of ‘behind successful woman’ quotes as well. I have heard few of them too. Actually, 2-3 versions of them. Something in the line of –

Behind every successful woman is a Loving Father.

Behind every successful woman there is a Family who supported her and not the society.

Behind every successful woman there is a father who trusted her and not the society.

Wow… we seem to have so much support for successful women. So much love and support for the poor woman. Family, and father supporting daughter of the house, so that she can one day be successful. No, I am not being sarcastic. I am happy, really happy to see these quotes. I just have few thoughts.

When you read this quote, ‘Behind a successful man there is a woman’; what kind of woman do you see? I bet she would be a dutiful wife, taking care of kids, doing all household chores, cooking, taking care of everything in and around house; so that successful man won’t have to bother about it, and instead could keep his focus on being more successful.

Now, read the quote, ‘Behind a successful woman there is a loving father, or supporting family’. What kind of father/family you see – This father/family is the one who is giving an equal opportunity to the daughter as they have given to the son. There is nothing more to it.

When we bring these loving father and supporting family in the equation, we are actually negating all the hard work that a successful person(man/woman) has done to reach there. I don’t want to talk about woman specifically, as I think both man and woman want love and support of their family. But, considering it is a lot difficult for women to achieve something in our patriarchal society, lets first talk about her.

Most of the women who are successful, are so, because they wanted to be successful. Some of them had a single parent, specially a strong single mother. Some of them had both the parents but got supported by none. Some of them struggled for their education and career, as their family didn’t approve of it. Out of all successful women, there were a few who got all the support. Who were lucky enough to have a loving father, and understanding mother, forward thinking brother, helpful sister, motivating friends and appreciating well-wishers. Those women are really lucky, but they are few. Rests have fought for their basic rights. Right to have higher education, right to do a job, to do marriage at their preferred age with someone they want to, to have or not to have children, to leave kids in day care while they work; basically right to make their own decisions. Successful women were not, who had it easy. They are the ones who face difficulty and rise above it.

Even men don’t have it easy. Not every successful man had a loving wife/mother behind him. Some would have had a nagging wife and a helicopter mother; forcing them to prefer work over home life. So, why are we selling this idea of having someone behind us to be successful?

Who doesn’t want a loving father behind them? who does not need support of a family? We all do, right? Men or women, we all need a loving father, a loving mother, a supporting and trusting family; we all need them; but we don’t need them to be successful. We need them so that one day we could share our success with them.

It does not matter if you are a man or a woman, or who is behind you and who is not.

Only thing that you need to be successful is You. You are the only thing that matters.

Why are we not teaching this to our kids? They don’t need to believe in others to be successful, they just need to believe in their own strength.