They say the older you get the more you turn into your parents. And I’m realizing that includes things coming full circle and eventually liking things you used to find annoying.

My mom’s favorite show and the female heroine of her generation was That Girl. She made me watch it when I was younger and I never fully became a fan of the character Ann Marie. Maybe I found her bubbly personality irritating, or her boyfriend Donald to be more of a sidekick and less of a romantic ideal. Or maybe it was because her name didn’t have an “e” at the end of it because myfavoriteheroine was a more dramatic and feisty Anne Shirley (Anne spelled with an “e”) whose soulmate was the ever-charming Gilbert Blythe. Nevertheless, I’ve now come to realize why I’ve decided to be more like That Girl.

To me, That Girl is a symbolic character of the every girl trying to make it; the brave girl that moves away from home and starts her own life somewhere new. The persistent girl that never gives up going after her dreams. The scrappy girl who finds odd jobs that build character and pay the bills. The romantic girl who waits for the right guy and keeps him around. The independent girl who doesn’t make marriage the ultimate goal of her existence, and the girl who stands out and makes those around her often ask “who is that girl?”

Most people assume that the first single female to be portrayed on television was Mary Tyler Moore playing Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Not true, in fact it was actually Marlo Thomas playing Ann Marie in That Girl. I personally always preferred Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show rather than the depressing Mary Richards. Maybe it was her being stuck in an office of old frumps or her general sad disposition, or maybe it was that she just seemed lonely and one dimensional, but Mary Tyler Moore did not inspire an independent streak in me. And I think it’s because I identified her as being unhappy.

On a superficial level, I grew to appreciate Ann Marie’s style; her Kate Spade inspired fashion, her iconic big hair and false eyelashes, her expressive eyes, and raspy voice. She had gumption and spunk, and often played silly well. She messed up at her many jobs while trying to make ends meet, all for the hope of achieving her dream one day of being an actress in New York. She had a good boyfriend that found her quirks endearing, and she got herself in and out of many crazy schemes. She was a driven and ambitious girl for her time, but not overly obsessed with success and accolades. But I think what makes her a likable character now that I’ve grown older - it's that she was fun and happy, down to earth, and even folksy. As shallow as you might think that is, please try and name a single woman portrayed on television today that isn’t a miserable mess. Scratch that; try to even find any woman on television today (single or married) that isn’t a miserable mess.

For the record, I don't think (historically) women have ever been truly happy. They're not happy when oppressed by men and they're not happy when liberated by men, mainly it's because it's a false liberation. A real empowered and “elevated" woman would expect nothing less than the best and we haven’t seen any examples of that in culture; hence enough misery to go around.

Millennial women are either miserable because they sleep around or miserable because they don’t (since it’s nearly impossible to find a man who doesn’t sleep around either).

There are some who are solely career minded and want to make a name for themselves in trivial jobs, ending up miserable because that “career” often becomes their life since they define themselves by what they do instead of who they are. I like to call this the “man complex" that most women my age end up settling for.

And then there are some women who want to incorporate balance and have a well-rounded life that allows them to pursue their passions, use their gifts, and demonstrate their abilities in the workplace, but because work has become so glorified in our culture that they no longer find purpose in most tasks and are often discouraged by a lack of priority and perspective from those around them or above them.

Warning: My criticism of the following men was not because I disagree with all their points, because I don’t. My disagreement stems from the polarizing and offensive manner in how they present their points.

If your male conservative heroes are as obnoxious as Steven Crowder, Milo Yiannopoulos, or Gavin McInnes – it’s time to find some new role models for the movement.

Call me old fashioned, but I prefer a gentleman with class who expresses his views without the unnecessary shock value approach to attract an audience. I respect an intelligent man who has the ability to decipher the different waves of feminism and find truth in the original intent of the movement, instead of acting offended, irrational, insecure, and threatened by the idea of liberated women in the world. These guys claim to be "old-fashioned conservatives with traditional mindsets," but it’s these outdated mindsets we could do without.

"No offense, but it’s true: women have been getting steadily unhappier since the Second World War, when they first entered the workplace in large numbers. It sounds bizarre, but ever since the rise of feminism, every decade has seen another slump in female morale. Women now report themselves more generally depressed and more likely to think about suicide than at any time in history. (The vast majority of suicides are still men, by the way. Women talk about it endlessly, but rarely pull it off.)

The fight for women’s “equality” has always been absurd: why would a woman want to step down to the lower status of being equal with men? Why should women be badgered into choosing to work over having babies and being happy?

Women were told by feminists that they could “have it all” — the career, the husband, the kids, and the book club. But it was a lie. What they’ve ended up with instead is a tiny apartment in an “up and coming” bit of town, friends they hate, a string of disastrous and emotionally unfulfilling past relationships and a cat."

Ouch! Basically a synopsis of the HBO show GIRLS, which is a very depressing yet entirely accurate depiction of our generation (although very unrelatable to most girls I know). And of course he forgoes the countless studies that concluded that many housewives were often depressed and functioning alcoholics, because when your life is your children and they leave you, what do you have left? And what’s sad in this rant is that women who “want it all” often don’t find the right men willing to sacrifice having “their all” (their ability to have a job and still be labeled a family man) in order for them to have it.

I happen to agree with Milo’s assessment on how modern feminists act as if they don’t need men (which they do), especially sexually (since they praise the inventions of commonly-used sex toys for masturbation). I even agreed with him when he said that women are often their own worst enemies. But please read the rest of his article because it gets much worse.

He concludes that man’s desire to achieve is due to his sexual desire to bed the best babe (which proves the argument that men are dogs, which I'd like to not believe). He wants women to use their sexuality to trap a man into marriage - because again - men are only driven to marry and commit due of their sexual desire (because that’s the only way they’ll “get some”). He believes that patriarchy is the preferable system (and that somehow the only options are a patriarchal or matriarchal system), whereas I would argue an co-equal partnership of both sexes would be ideal and how it was intended. He suggests that men and women go elsewhere for sex and that it will somehow strengthen marriages because women won’t be "holding all the cards." He believes that women aren’t as capable or as smart and obviously have nothing to offer society. He continues on with saying that many men don’t want to date man-hating feminists (rightly so), and that because of feminism (he doesn’t decipher which wave), it’s perfectly reasonable for men to give up on women since they don’t need them anyway (mind you, he’s gay) and have sex with female robots – basically concluding that women are only good for sexual pleasure, which is the exact reason why the original feminists sought suffrage – to caste away the notion that women are property of men and here for sexual duties and to birth children.

I’m concluding that he hates women.

Gavin McInnes, another loud-mouth, who uses the word cunt to describe women, and also lives by sexist double standards, once said in regards to drunken orgies that develop on spring break vacations, “There’s no way in hell my daughter is going, but with my sons, I hope they have a great time… and the women that go are human garbage whose parents don’t love them.”

If that wasn't disheartening enough, he went on to say in another Fox News segment that, “Women do earn less in America because they choose to. They would rather go to their daughter’s piano recital than stay all night at work to work on a proposal, so they end up earning less. They’re less ambitious. I think this is sort of God’s way; nature’s way of saying women should be at home with the kids. They’re happier there.”

If women choose family over work, why don’t men? It’s perfectly understandable if men have to miss family affairs once in a while out of fear of getting fired, but some actually prefer the ego-enhancing job that pays more because that’s where they find fulfillment or are able to boast that they’re providing. But providing is much more than financial. It’s providing yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s working less to be with your family more. It’s being secure enough in your masculinity to encourage and support your wife’s call to advance the Kingdom. It’s understanding that leadership looks a lot like service and its purpose is to unleash the potential in others for the betterment of the team to accomplish the mission.

I wish McInnes saw that the choice to stay at home does not mean that you’re less ambitious. Maybe it means that women are more enlightened and find more purpose in their relationships than in a generic job, especially since most people on their death beds express that our relationships are the only legacy we leave behind that matters.

I appreciate his celebration of women who choose to stay at home, because too often they're criticized by liberal feminists that view “a housewife as someone who sold her soul for a center hall colonial. She has no depth, no intellect, and no interests.”

But if conservative men are going to champion the choice for women to stay at home, they should be just as willing to make that choice themselves. You only truly value something if you find honor in doing it yourself.

I would advise this generation to either find a job that allows you to bring your kids to work, a job that provides the ability to work from home if your kids are young or if you home-school, or to line up a job that allows you to alternate between both of your work schedules. Or even come to a compromise and take turns staying at home depending on where you both are in your seasons of aspirations.Too many times women are socially expected to give up their dreams and their job for the sake of the family. While most prefer that, it's not a mandate.

“When Harvard Business School surveyed 25,000 of its male and female graduates, it found that high-achieving women failed to meet their career goals. At graduation, most women said they expected 'egalitarian' marriages, where both spouses’ careers were taken equally seriously, but several years later, more women had deferred to their husbands’ careers. This study, and others, suggest that while married couples often make work-and-home decisions as a unit, the cultural expectation that men be the top providers proves to be an insurmountable force, even (or especially) among the best educated households.”

But the all-knowing McInnes is still convinced that “Women are pretending that they like work and they’re not making money because they don’t stay all night at the office, they don’t go the extra mile, they don’t work all weekend.”

The famous theologian G.K. Chesterton once said that, “Feminism is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.” I agree (as long as that includes men helping their wives as well) and I encourage both men and women to be their own boss if possible – to rule your own day, that’s the American way.

But even before the American way, I would advise doing it God's way. In Genesis 1:28, it tells us that “God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'” He intended them to have a fruitful love in the confines of marriage, to have children, and to work together.

He made the woman a “helpmate” which “according to biblical scholar David Freedman, the Hebrew word translated into English as “help” is “ezer.” This word is a combination of two roots, one meaning “to rescue”, “to save,” and the other meaning “to be strong.” Just as the roots merged into one word, so did their meanings. At first ezer meant either “to save” or “to be strong,” but in time, said Freedman, ezer “ was always interpreted as ‘to help’ a mixture of both nuances.” "The noun ezer occurs 21 times in the Hebrew Bible. In eight of these instances the word means “savior”. These examples are easy to identify because they are associated with other expressions of deliverance or saving. Elsewhere in the Bible, the root ezer means “strength.... the word is most frequently used to describe how God is an ezer to man.” What an incredible comparison to be made! Women are warriors and serve a noble purpose in this world. Let's not waste the talents and call of half the Church.

We can agree that both genders have their difficulties. Women have to endure periods monthly for years and give birth. Men have to do the dirty work we don’t want to do, like be sanitation engineers, go to war, work in a factory, or even sit in an office all day pushing paper for no purpose other than to make money to support their family. I have women in my family (both my grandmothers and my own mother) who worked in factories and took on less-than-desirable work because they had to; they bestowed the noble quality of selflessly sacrificing for the good of their children, to provide a future for their posterity. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “a woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” I come from a long line of strong women. This is work I don’t aspire to endure, but work that I would do if necessary and called to.

And this is a reason why a lot of women take the easy route in life by marrying into money so they don’t have to take a job “beneath them.” This is work we could do (if we had to), but work we shouldn’t have to do. So thank you men for doing it.

Ultimately, I wanted to express that men are more than the money they bring home, and women are more than the home they make for them. It’s about time we get back to Eden and work alongside each other, out in society, as well as inside the home.