When Spouses Need to ‘Get Away’

Published September 5, 1985. Friday and Saturday are going to be an interesting two days for me and a lot of other husbands and fathers in our neighborhood. The women in our area are going for a little overnight trip, together, up in the canyon at a camp called Edenbrook, near Midvale.

While they are gone, we husbands have to take over all the responsibilities of running the homes and taking care of the children. By the time you read this column, all the food stores in the area will likely have sold out of frozen pizza and root beer. I think it is appropriate that women take a little time off together. But I have a friend who disagrees.

He and I were talking just a few days ago. I told him, with tongue-in-cheek, of my upcoming plight and the two-day pizza party my kids had planned. I said Susan looked forward to going. My friend was quiet for a few moments and then said, “But what does it really signify when wives and mothers “have to get away?”

“Nothing, really,” I replied. “To me it is a group of women going on an overnight trip.” I didn’t see any of the hidden symbolism of the outing.

He then expressed concern about all the current attention drawn to the individual, for the need to “get away,” as it were, from family and friends, even children and spouses. As evidence, he cited contemporary beer commercial on television. Some depict a group of men late at night on the beach, or in the mountains, sitting around the campfire together and drinking beer. Then the announcer states “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Such advertisements, my friend suggested, are anti-family and undermine the importance of family life. Meaningful experiences, he went on, should be had with family members, and not “away” with others.

Obviously my friend disapproved of the women in our neighborhood going up to the camp overnight. And while we were on life’s’ events and symbolism, how could I tell them that they were actually going away . . . to Eden. I related the conversation to Susan, who said it was a good philosophy but not too practical. She still needed a day or two away.

Why do women, wives and mothers, need time away from husbands and home for a while? Perhaps poetess Carol Lynn Pearson has expressed it best.

On Nest-Building

Mud is not bad for nest building,

Mud and sticks

And a fallen feather or two will do

And require no reaching.

I could rest there, with my tiny ones,

Sound for the season, at least

But,

If I may fly awhile

If I may cut through a sunset going out

And a rainbow coming back.

Color upon color sealed in my eyes

If I may have the unboundaried skies

For my study.

Clouds, cities, rivers for my rooms

If I may search the centuries

For melody and meaning –

If I may try for the sun –

I shall come back

Bearing such beauties

Cleaned from God’s and man’s very best

I shall come filled

And then –

Oh, the nest that I can build!

(From Carol Lynn Pearson. The Flight and the Nest, Bookcraft 1979 Bookcraft Inc. Used with permission.)

Susan and associates enjoy the trip. But PLEASE hurry back from Eden.