We have recently bought Gail Collin's book on the history of women during the last fifty years. Andy is engrossed in it and I am itching to get my hands on it because this was my time in history!
I was in the 'sandwich generation', squeezed between what was and what is now for women. I was fortunate to be able to look forward and determined to get all that I could. I never wanted to be like our mothers, though I have taken in my mental baggage many wonderful things from them.
Coming of age in the early sixties, and pretty idiosyncratic even then, I knew that my own personal bottom line was that I needed to have good work that would financially support me and the kids. (If Andy were to fall off a cliff!) Of course, this was not necessary. My husband was the primary bread winner. But this fact never deterred me from working every single year of my life. And it was up to me to figure out what to do after working a full day, about child care, cooking, shopping, house maintenance, and the daily crap of taking kids to their athletic, educational, and artistic places, and taking care of the pets. But work was sustaining.
The most tender and meaningful thing my husband ever said to me (and he has said it often) is that he didn't know and was oblivious at the time. So were all men then. My husband made five times in salary what I did and so I thought at first, anyway, that this was what one settled for. We so often thought then that there was a numerical value to what one did. i.e. I am a woman and I make a lot less than a man and so I am of less value.
I see our daughter, now in law school, who never doubts the fact that she will ultimately be responsible for making her life. No one ever told her she would have to settle for less because she's a woman. She doesn't have to make any sense of this crap we put on ourselves back then. We expect her, of course, to be as responsible for her choices as her brothers.
I see my assertive grand daughter who will never know about all this. She'll take her place as a person in America, same as her brother. She'll be able to do anything!
I still have the legacy of my age in being responsible for other people's happiness. I constantly think about what would please others. Tentatively, I am now being assertive about not doing the things I used to do (and hated!). I will not go to loud banquets seated at tables of ten.
Ten years ago, my same-aged friend, Marie, and I began taking annual trips to Central and South America and other places. We experienced many amazing things, but most of all those times were time outs of having to be responsible for the happiness of others. Those times have been so golden!
Our daughters most likely would have no idea what we were about. And this is what we have wanted all along; we want our daughters to be truly on an equal footing with men - and they are!
And yet.. women have always been the care-takers and the ones responsible for others' happiness. In some ways this is the best.
What do you think?
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