ElderChicks

Hummmmm…unlike the posters so far, my experience of the 1940s and 50s was less idealized than the posts I’m reading. I grew up in rural Virginia. Most women in the families I knew did not work outside the home and few, if any, were educated beyond high school. Women were generally subservient to their husbands and so far as I know, none had access to birth control. Families were larger; homes were smaller. Entertainment was much more limited…outside play and inside board games. Some husbands were responsible parents and partners. Some were not. Some mothers were careful and nurturing. Some were not. There were a few divorces, but unhappy women mostly stayed in miserable marriages because there were few options. Some families were Catholic, some were Protestant, some were Jewish, and some were agnostic or even atheist — although the latter tended to keep quiet about it. Children tended to reflect the beliefs they were born into. A few, like me, never believed anything in particular. Some children were spanked or beaten and some were not. Some children got into trouble and some did not. A few girls got pregnant in high school…they were either forced into marriage or rushed off to a “home” to give birth and place the child into adoption. Abortion was known, but a frightening prospect if you were poor. Homosexuality certainly existed, but was whispered about and the people who did not “fit in” were ostracized and treated with contempt. I knew of both boys and girls who were sexually abused by family members, older adults, or older peers, but talking about it to adults was strictly taboo. Being an “old maid” was frowned upon and being a bachelor beyond a certain age, say late twenties, was suspect. Family meals were just that…meals. In some of the homes I visited, they were pleasant experiences…in others, they were not. In my peer group, family life was not the focus of our lives. We were not all that interested in what our parents were trying to teach us…if they were trying to teach us. We were interested in each other, in school, and the future. If we talked about parents at all, it was to complain. Oh…and we lived segregated lives. Black children went to separate, but most assuredly not equal, schools. Water fountains were segregated, as were restrooms, restaurants, hotels, and movie theaters. Black men were lynched in my county. Black people did not vote. White children and black children never crossed paths.

Social norms in western cultures have changed a bit in the last 50 plus years. In the US and in Europe we are more open about what goes on in families and we are more accepting of human diversity, although we’ve got a very long way to go. People are people…we are now as we were then…what has changed is our willingness to recognize the truth of human experience. That is not comfortable for everyone…it is certainly of greater comfort to me.