Re: (NBC) poll - working mothers (prior generations)
- From: angelagrace <cryinthesun@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:51:33 -0700
A to Z wrote:
2. The reply - "yeah, but of course back then, only one parent worked..."
which we all accepted on blind faith. Until we started talking and found out
that:
* my mom worked
* her best friend worked
* my two best friends from grade school had working moms
* my best friend from high school, same thing
* my wife's mom worked
* her aunt worked
* etc.
and then we realized that except for a certain part of the student body at
my school (which was filthy rich, as in Forbes 100 (not 400, 100)) most of
our moms worked. The reality of our own situation was totally at odds with
our perception of the world. I wanted to see if that was the case elsewhere.
From here, it appears that it is - most of our moms appear to have worked.
It's good to see that your reality check lines up with the scholarship
on the subject - there is actually no time in American history that
most women did not work. Whether they got paid or any credit is
another matter altogether. There's also interesting theories as to why
the common misperception exists that women, especially mothers, did
not commonly work before the 60s.
I don't think anyone else posted about the family farm experience. I
grew up on a tobacco farm and were it not for the 'free' labor of my
mother and siblings, the enterprise would've never been going. My
mother never worked for pay, but brought up nine children, ran the
family canning factory from our garden and orchard, was a seamstress,
nurse, all-around chauffeur and seasonal harvest kitchen chef. Never
got paid a dime for all the work that kept the whole enterprise
running, and sadly, never got credit for it either. She did this from
the time she married my father out of high school until he retired
from farming, roughly 1949-1986. This was fairly typical for farm
families. To his credit, my father always told me it took a strong
back and a weak mind to grow tobacco for a living, and that I ought to
do something else. What he thought about my mothers vocation, he did
not say, but he never encouraged me to follow in her footsteps,
either.
Angela
.
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