Theme of Discussion Zoom Meeting: Independence

Email: rgordon118@tampabay.rr.com

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Questions:

1. What are the characteristics of an independent adult?

2. How did you first show your independence as a child?

3. Can you describe how a person helped you to develop into an independent young adult?

4. Do independent women tend to be happier than dependent women?

5. Can you have a happily married couple in which the husband is very independent and the wife -- very dependent? How about the reverse – a dependent husband and an independent wife?

6. How do you nourish independence in children?

7. How might grandparents play a special role in helping their grandchildren to mature into independent adults?

8. Are women more independent today than they were fifty years ago? If you answer “Yes,” consider -- Has their happiness level gone up with their growing independence?

9. How can you protect your independence as you grow older?

10. Do most men like independent women?

11. What nation seems to have the most independent women?

12. What cultures are known for nourishing independence?

13. How has religion encouraged or discouraged female independence?

14. Is an independent female scientist less likely to get professional recognition than a male scientist?

15. Is a person striving for total independence less likely to find happiness than someone willing to be more dependent on others? Can the need for independence lead to alienating a person from loving family and friends?

16. How might independence prove a double-edged sword?

17. In our discussion, what was the single most important new idea you embraced regarding independence?

Quotations:

1. “My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

2. “I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

3. “I wanted to be an independent woman, a woman who could pay for her bills, a woman who could run her own life – and I became that woman.” Diane von Furstenberg

4. “Independence is a heady draft, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.” – Mary Angelou

5. “No one outside ourselves can rule us inwardly. When we know this, we become free.”-- Buddha

6. “No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” – Alice Walker

7. “You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” – Abraham Lincoln

8. “The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.” – Roseanne Barr

9. “To all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful, and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.” –Hillary Clinton

10. “The greatest gift a parent can leave a child is that parent's own independence.” – Rosamunde Pilcher

11. “I think a common misperception about attuning and tending to a child’s needs so constantly is that they don’t grow in their independence, but I think that the opposite is true.” – Alanis Morissette

12. “. . . besides love, independence of thought is the greatest gift an adult can give a child.”― Bryce Courtenay

The End