I recently spent a weekend with my granddaughter.
She is one of those who do not have a regular cable or direct TV, just things like Netflix and Amazon Prime, etc.
When I mentioned an award winning show on Prime that I had heard about, she quickly found it for me and we started binge watching it.
The show is set in 1958 and is about an upper middle class family. I was really enjoying seeing all those fabulous fifties dresses and fashions then I noticed that my granddaughter had a puzzled look on her face.
The characters were talking about reading their Dr. Spock book and what it was about. I explained at that time Dr. Spock had been considered the expert on child care.
She laughed because she had been thinking that Star Trek had not been around then.
Then she was wondering why the women were always putting makeup on and fixing their hair.
I told her that in those days women were expected to look their best for their husbands at all times, even first thing in the morning.
She said that was not going to happen now.
I had to agree as it had not happened for me either!
Then the main character came home and announced that she was getting a divorce.
This made her mother faint and ‘take to her bed’, and my granddaughter wanted to know what was wrong with her.
I explained that back then divorce was a disgrace to the family and women were thought to be too ‘fragile’ to handle big problems like that.
Society had women thinking that they needed a man to take care of them.
My granddaughter just shook her head and said they would never survive in today’s world. She might be right about that!
I know that there were many single women and single moms around in the fifties, most were widows and alone because of circumstances beyond their control, and not by their choice.
The most common answer to that was to get married again.
Thank goodness now women know they have a choice.
They know they are strong enough and smart enough to look after themselves and a family.
Now if they have a man in their life it is because they want him there, not because they need him.
Men should be happy about that because I think it is much nicer to be wanted than to just be needed.
Women should be happy too because being strong enough to be able to be yourself is a wonderful thing.
by Lois Perepelitz
