Friday, October 5, 2012

Facing Dead Ends

An essay about a time that was true in life when you faced a dead end-but you really didn't



Those of us known as baby boomers were raised in a transitional period. Shorty after mid-twentieth century a “COMMA” marks the delineation of the life of our grandparents and parents and the new life that we baby boomers would learn to live.

Our fathers went to work and stayed at the same job for their entire working career. Life was good, a man would come home to greet his family, have a nice dinner and have a relaxing evening watching television and/or reading the newspaper. The men expected to have higher education were doctors and lawyers. That was until mid-century when employers started requiring man have a degree…COMMA...

Our mothers raised us to be housewives, homemakers and mothers. We were children of the “white picket fence” era. A girl would marry her high school sweetheart, or the guy she ended that summer after graduation with. We had every reason to believe we would carry on as our Mothers, Aunts and Grandmothers, keeping the home and raising the children.   In the 50′s and early 60′s we did not expect we would ever have to go to college, or even work once we started a family... …COMMA…

Two things happened to women. One, women’s lib and the concept that we no longer needed to be obligated to our husband’s for our living. Previously the men earned, and usually handled the money. Women started working and we were suddenly given the freedom to think and live our own lives…COMMA…

Two, society evolved and it became necessary for women, as well as the men, to work in order to survive in a reasonably comfortable way. Those of us born in the early 1950′s were brought up thinking we would live a life like our mother’s, and in high school when the counselor asked us which path we planned to follow, the standard or the college curriculum, we chose the standard. Little did we know that within a few years we would need a college degree in order to be “successful”. Women hit “the brick wall” the hardest because we were forced to make the biggest changes, maintain our home and family plus sustain a career.  But we baby boomer ladies broke through “the brick wall” and, not only became mothers and homemakers, became successful career women.

1 comment:

  1. I like your blog and your interest in Sociology and work and wondered if you would like to read and review my book - Peaceful Meadows. You can contact me on Twitter or by e-mail at tracey_madeley@hotmail.com.

    Thanks

    Tracey Madeley

    ReplyDelete