kellen46

I was searching for "vintage" images for a collage project and this popped up. It would be just a curiosity except it was real for a lot of women in the forties and fifties. It was real for my family, long ago when I was newly married into a cattle rancher family all the women, from grandmother to daughter would gather in the kitchen to cook, and then to serve the menfolk in the dinning room, we would eat standing in the kitchen just in case there was an order for more of something or the other. Later we would clean up and care for any little ones around while the men napped in chairs. Shhsh daddy is sleeping. We also worked outdoors, gardening, helping with field work or caring for livestock. While the men watched Ed Sullivan we were preparing for the next day, last thing was to set the table for breakfast. I was young, only a teen, but the amazing thing was none of us questioned it back then. It was just the way things were. When I finally did take a breath I asked myself why and rebelled. It earned me a slap in the face, led to the end of my marriage and hard years of being a single parent. But it also taught me the value of personal freedom and it kept my ex mom in law as a lifelong friend. When men get sentimental about the great old days of the fifties and the sixties I get a little steamed, it was not a good time for women and children and we did have to march in the streets for, at the minimum, some recognition of the need for change. I spent the last twenty years of my working life working in the field of child protection. I have seen the damage that comes from powerlessness. I will give one small example. I had a client who was expecting her fifth child. In our conversation I asked if she was planning to breast feed her baby. She was shocked I would ask her to do something so perverted, in her words, "titties are for men, not for children". After I got my wits back I tried to educate her that no they were specifically for children, only men think of them as sexual. I finally had to point out kittens, puppies, calves and etc drank milk from the mother, that's what mammals do, she was still skeptical but admitted I might have a point.
I know this is simplistic, and not all women experienced this but, I know I we still have a long way to go when I hear women say " My husband lets me....." you fill in the blank. Our daughters and granddaughters need to know the past to create their futures, and to know that as recent as fifty years ago there were laws on the books that a woman who was pregnant outside of marriage could be incarcerated as a threat to public morals. Women were jailed for having a "love child". What an irony that is. I think the best thing we can do for our children, male or female is to teach them critical thinking. Enough, I will get off the soap box.