Opera Singer Leaves Career, Finds Her Feminine Power in Being a Classic Wife and Mother
I am delighted to hear the story below. And I practice what I preach. When I met my wife Jenny, mother of my son, I very soon told her she could give up work and stay at home as a full-time wife and mother. And I know how much satisfaction that gave her. A benefit to me is that she still looks after me 40 years later, now that I am old and feeble
An opera singer who realized her conservative values were incompatible with a career in the liberal arts found her true calling as a wife and mother. She explains how taking on a traditional gender role has led to feeling happy, fulfilled, and empowered as a woman.
Currently pregnant with her second child, content creator Abby Roth, 29, grew up Orthodox Jewish in Los Angeles, California, as the youngest of four siblings. As a young adult, she earned three degrees in opera singing over seven years and has performed around the country. However, in 2017, just two weeks after meeting her now-husband Jacob Roth, she realized she was chasing the wrong dream.
Abby told The Epoch Times that “classical music is glorious” and she felt blessed to be able to create music on stage with a full orchestra behind her, but gradually the left-leaning culture prevalent in her workplace began overshadowing her beliefs.
“At its core, the opera world is still very much the arts world,” she said. “[But] the arts at this point in time are overtaken by the leftist ideology. I kept my political views very much under wraps for fear of being blacklisted.
“During my time in the opera world, I found myself being taken in by everything I was surrounded with, mostly due to loneliness and my own lack of vigilance when it came to keeping myself apprised of the issues.”
However, everything refocused in the best way after Abby met Jacob, who is now a practicing lawyer.
Faith, Family, Community
Two weeks after meeting Jacob in 2017, Abby headed to Colorado’s Aspen Music Festival. She didn’t want to indulge in the opera culture of socializing over drinks and “hanging out with singles” and felt isolated and alone.
“It was the pinnacle of my career. I should have been on top of the world; instead, I kept thinking, ‘I’ve just met the man I’m probably going to marry and now I’m alone,'” she said. “I didn’t want to put myself in those situations as a woman in a serious relationship, and I knew that wouldn’t change as my career progressed.
“It became clear over the course of the time we were dating and engaged that what I really wanted out of life—a strong marriage, to be present for my children, to be actively engaged in my faith community—was not compatible with a life onstage.”
When the couple tied the knot at the age of 24, a year after meeting, in May 2018, Jacob was in his last year of law school, and Abby was working remotely as a copy editor.
“In more superficial ways, I cooked dinner for us because I enjoyed it, and I usually kept the house clean because I noticed it more than he did,” she said. “But, in a bigger sense, the role of a traditional wife is the same as the role of a traditional husband; it’s embracing the importance of tradition … recognizing the three fundamental basics every home is built on: faith, family, and community.”
Today, the couple endeavors to treat their marriage with “the utmost respect” and to keep it healthy by “choosing love every single day.”
Different Roles
Today, Abby lives in Florida with Jacob and their 15-month-old son. Abby feels blessed that her husband’s career allows for her to stay home and raise their baby; far from feeling oppressed in her chosen role, she feels empowered as a woman.
She wakes up with her son around 6:45 a.m., gets him changed, and then immediately eats breakfast with him. They take a walk “early enough in the day” so that her toddler son doesn’t fall asleep in the stroller. Then comes cleaning up the house, quality play time, and laundry followed by chores. Abby’s mom often stops by to help for an hour or so, and once the baby’s up, they often go to the library or a local park, then pick up some groceries before Abby heads home to make dinner for the family.
“Once Daddy’s home, we’ll all go swimming or play together, and then we eat dinner. Then it’s the bedtime routine,” she said. “A day in my life is wonderfully simple, and I’m so lucky for that!
“Of course, my husband helps around the house. But there’s often that little bit of resentment in the back of your head, saying, ‘Why does he get to sit down after his work day and I don’t?’ The answer is, simply, our roles are different. … my husband does appreciate me and he shows it all the time. I have to appreciate myself, I have to recognize that what I do has worth and that God wants me to do what’s right by my family.”
After their son goes to bed, Abby and Jacob spend quality time together watching movies or TV, playing board games, or talking. “It’s the best life I could have asked for,” said Abby, who claims there are two major misconceptions about her chosen role as wife and stay-at-home mom.
“The first is, ‘You must have internalized misogyny, and that’s the only way you could believe the things you do,'” she said. “That kind of talk drives me crazy because it assumes two things: one, that I’m too stupid to have my own thoughts, and two, that theoretically I should therefore take no responsibility for my actions, as my beliefs are not really my own.
“First of all, conservative women are incredible because we actively have to go out of our way to find the answers; we don’t simply trust everything the media throws our way. … Second, at a certain point, we all have to take responsibility for the things we believe and the actions we take.
“The second misconception is, ‘You must hate women,'” Abby said. “There is nothing more ridiculous than this statement. Women are incredible, unique, strong, and the reason that society flourishes. … We are capable of anything, the question is what we choose to use our capability for.”
Abby credits her own mother for nurturing a happy home and providing a strong example of womanhood and motherhood. Ironically, her mother grew up “in the shadow of feminism,” which the pair often discussed as Abby found her own way as a wife, mom, and homemaker.
“My mother and I are extremely close,” she said. “My mother is not afraid to tell me what I need to hear, but she’s also always there to help.”
Abby shared that her mother was “the primary breadwinner” in their family who always prioritized her family life over everything else: She was always there to kiss the kids at night; she made dinner for them “more often than not”; and she waited until all were asleep if she had to finish any of her work at the end of the day.
“We always knew that we came first,” Abby said.
Seeing her mother find her deepest joy in raising children, Abby always knew she wanted to be a mom. Asserting her traditional role in a feminist world is still a battle, said Abby, who started her YouTube channel, Classically Abby, in 2019 with the hope of imparting to women “how to be classic while living in an era that encourages slovenliness, hooking up, and ‘girl-bossing.’
“I wanted to show women why living a classic life would lead to more lasting meaning and happiness than all the advice they were getting from women’s magazines and TV shows,” Abby said. “Over time, it became clear to me that I needed to openly share that I was conservative because all of my advice about being classic stemmed from traditional values. I definitely have haters … But I also have some wonderful women who appreciate a different point of view.”
“As an Orthodox Jew, I feel so blessed to know the importance of a mother’s role,” she said. “I know that my worth as a woman has nothing to do with how wealthy I am, how many people know me on the street, or how high I ascend in my career. What I do for those around me, what I contribute to my community and the world, that’s what matters.
“Without strong families, without belief in God, and without warm and supportive communities, we have a declining society. If you believe in traditional values, you will necessarily be living out a classic life. A woman who knows her mission, a man who knows how to find meaning, purpose, and fulfillment, that’s classic, because what does classic really mean? Something that always fits, no matter the era.”
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A black Supreme court justice relies on a lie
Not a quality mind
The leftist meltdown over the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling over affirmative action, striking down those protocols in the college admission process as unconstitutional. Unlike the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe, this decision has been chiefly curtailed to the confines of liberal newsrooms and the most left-wing faculty lounges in higher education. To be blunt, no one cared about it because most agreed with the Court’s decision, even Black Americans. While a short emotional outburst, we’ve moved on, though liberals probably have not recognized that the nation, overall, doesn’t feel that race and ethnicity should be considered in these applications. Still, even some on the Court penned nonsense, like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent that contained statistical figures that didn’t comport with reality—literally.
Only in Willy Wonka’s laboratory could this piece of data fly in the face of reality. Justice Jackson recused herself from Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College but would hear arguments for a separate related case: Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina. Of course, Jackson dissented, but one line stood out, and it’s a whopper. Ted Frank, a senior attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in the Harvard case (via WSJ):
Even Supreme Court justices are known to be gullible. In a dissent from last week’s ruling against racial preferences in college admissions, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson enumerated purported benefits of “diversity” in education. “It saves lives,” she asserts. “For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live.”
A moment’s thought should be enough to realize that this claim is wildly implausible. Imagine if 40% of black newborns died—thousands of dead infants every week. But even so, that’s a 60% survival rate, which is mathematically impossible to double. And the actual survival rate is over 99%.
How could Justice Jackson make such an innumerate mistake? A footnote cites a friend-of-the-court brief by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which makes the same claim in almost identical language. It, in turn, refers to a 2020 study whose lead author is Brad Greenwood, a professor at the George Mason University School of Business.
The study makes no such claims. It examines mortality rates in Florida newborns between 1992 and 2015 and shows a 0.13% to 0.2% improvement in survival rates for black newborns with black pediatricians (though no statistically significant improvement for black obstetricians).
The AAMC brief either misunderstood the paper or invented the statistic. (It isn’t saved by the adjective “high-risk,” which doesn’t appear and isn’t measured in Greenwood’s paper.)
Justice Jackson isn’t the only one afflicted with this condition that has impacted most liberal Americans: making stuff up. There is no middle. Even when the Left is ranting about real things, they’re so trivial and niche that it portrays them as suffering from ‘boy, who cried wolf, or, if you will: ‘non-gender specific person crying wolf.’ It’s why most of the time, leftist advocacy doesn’t move beyond their circles. You can’t be credible if you lie, manufacture statistics, or, even worse as a sitting Supreme Court justice, misread a study that forms the core of your dissenting opinion, which may or may not be revisited years from now to revise existing law. The Left conjures up fake studies and figures because many of their priorities, which they’re most passionate about, aren’t popular. You can add affirmative action to that list.
In the meantime, the Left will drool over her dissent even though it's flawed.
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Are people with posh accents always a class act? Not so, Keir...
Irreverent Australian author Kathy Lette is being satirical below but, like all good satire, there is much truth in what she says
Keir Starmer waged war this week on the “class ceiling”, promising that Labour will give priority to ensuring pupils of all backgrounds are able to speak English fluently and express themselves clearly.
But in truth, you English don’t really speak English – you speak euphemism. When I first moved to London 30 odd years ago, it took time to realise that a visitor needs those little United Nations headphones to decipher everything you say. For example, when a host would turn to me and purr “Oh, do stay for another drink”, I would plunge head first into the Pimms. I didn’t realise that translates as, “leave immediately and never darken my door again”.
The same goes for, “Oh, you Australians, you’re just so refreshing.” At first I thought this meant that you really, really liked me. It was only years later I realised this decodes as “rack off, you loud-mouthed, colonial nymphomaniac”.
And of course, speaking of euphemisms, we can’t possibly not mention, “there were no lockdown parties in Downing Street” which clearly translates as, “Vote Labour”.
Over the past several decades, various governments have declared that the class system is defunct, and that Britain is now a “levelled up” meritocracy. Despite this, surveys have continued to reveal that people with “received pronunciation” – that posh “is there any loo pepper, abite the hice” accent – are generally perceived to be more punctual, hygienic, intelligent and better in bed.
I’m dubious about the intelligence of the upper classes when they’ve been hitting their heads on the low beams of their priceless Tudor mansions for centuries. And as for sexual prowess? An upper-class Englishman just can’t drive past a perversion without pulling over.
In my erotic experience, the “cream of English society” clearly just means rich, thick and prone to whipping. Being “sent away” to school warps them in the most peculiar ways. It’s very difficult to date a man who can only achieve arousal when touched on the genitals by a rubberised gardening glove.
If you can understand his request that is. The voice of the upper class male is so brittle it qualifies for osteoporosis pills. He’s also bound to be a Conan the Grammarian, meaning he’ll correct your grammar, even when you’re talking dirty in bed.
The expenses scandal proved categorically that the class system is still thriving in all its stereotypical glory. Labour politicians were caught claiming for Hobnobs and nappies, while the Tories were raiding the public purse to pay for their moats and mazes.
Research also reveals that Britain suffers from some of the worst social mobility in Europe. Now, I have a head for heights – I’m the Edmund Hillary of social climbing – but my accent will forever keep me stranded on the lower social slopes. That “Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy,” nursery rhyme is not fiction, but fact; for the most part: Brits are born into a stratum of society, and tend to stay there.
In Australia, which is a true meritocracy, we have inverted snobbery. Those without a convict branch in their family tree quickly graft on a twig or two; while those born into wealth take the opposite of elocution classes, at pains to flatten their vowels so that they can sound like everyone else.
But what this unique social experiment that became Australia proves is that unshackled from the class system and with the oxygen of optimism and opportunity, reinvention can take place. By the time of the 1814 muster, only one of the first fleeters, Enoch Weavers, was still in jail. Modern Australia began as an act of theft – it was stolen from the Aboriginal people. But from our inauspicious colonial beginnings as the world’s largest open prison, we have grown to be a successful, confident, egalitarian democracy.
Starmer has a track record of breaking his promises, so I can’t imagine we’ll all be rounding our vowels any time soon. But he’s right on this; getting rid of your class system really would be classy.
Meanwhile, if any snooty aristo is ever mean to you, simply smile and say “Do stay for another drink… You’re just so refreshing.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/keir-starmer-speech-oracy-education-class-b2371330.html
*****************************************************Australia: Anti-gay defrocked minister not unfairly dismissed, ‘not employee’
The Uniting Church as gone so far Left that it is now effectively post-Christian
A defrocked church minister has failed in his bid to claim protection for unfair dismissal under employment laws after he was sacked for his anti same-sex marriage views, when members of his congregation dobbed on him to the church hierarchy.
Reverend Hedley Wycliff Atunasia Fihaki applied to the Fair Work Commission for unfair dismissal after he was defrocked by the Uniting Church of Australia, Queensland Synod.
It is the second time he has been sacked by the church then mounted a legal challenge against the Queensland synod’s decision to dismiss him, having taken action 11 years ago when he was sacked from the Emmanuel Church in Cairns.
According to the decision handed down by Commissioner Paula Spencer on July 7, Rev Fihaki is barred from claiming protection from unfair dismissal because he is “not an employee” under the Fair Work Act.
“The Letter of Call cannot be construed as an employment contract,” she said of his agreement to a May 2013 letter of call for congregational placement.
“I find that Reverend Fihaki is not an employee or an independent contractor and is in a separate category of spiritual or covenantal relationship,” Commissioner Spencer ruled.
She also ruled that even if Rev Fihaki was determined to be an employee of the Uniting Church “a valid reason … existed for the dismissal.”
Rev Fihaki was sacked from his role as a Minister at Mooloolaba Christian Church and lost his ministerial credentials after he “publicly departed from and significantly recanted the teachings of the Uniting Church of Australia in his statements to the media”, the FWC heard.
He made a number of statements to and on both mainstream and social media between January 2019 and August 2021, and his views were contrary to the church’s position permitting same-sex marriage under certain circumstances, the FWC heard.
His congregation made “multiple complaints” to the church synod committees about his anti same-sex comments which “significantly recanted the teachings of the UCA in his statements to the media”, and the synod committee “made out” 23 breaches of the church’s code of ethics.
Rev Fihaki “did not refute that he made those statements as part of the disciplinary investigation undertaken by the” church.
One of the complaints was about his conduct at a Sunnybank Uniting Church Council meeting on December 22, 2020, and a formal complaint to the church hierarchy was made on January 11, 2021.
Rev Fihaki has been minister at the Mooloolaba Christian Church since 2013, and this church was dissolved on March 18 this year by a regional committee of the church due to their opposition to same-sex marriage.
A day later, he became pastor of the church congregation rebranded as Faith Church (Sunshine Coast) Limited.
Rev Fihaki holds the position of national chair of a breakaway organisation called the Assembly of Confessing Congregations of the Uniting Church in Australia, which is not a recognised council within the church.
Rev Fihaki unsuccessfully argued he should be regarded as a church employee under the Fair Work Act because he is paid at a rate of $28.32 per hour for work, he gets a monthly pay slip from the church, and receives superannuation and holiday and housing allowances and that the government declared “religious practitioners” as ‘employees’ so they could get JobKeeper payments during the pandemic.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See
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