“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told.” —Alan Keightley
As a child my parents had very specific ideas as to how I should be including the ever so popular “seen but not heard.” I was a girl growing up in the fifties. I wore hats and gloves to church on Easter Sunday. I learned to cross my legs only at the ankles and to keep my knees together. Girls were expected to take home ec while boys took shop. Boys were expected to pay for everything which girls were to appreciate only by saying, “Thank you.” What the neighbors thought was more important than how you felt. Only shift workers did not sleep the same hours as everyone else. Even in the early sixties girls were not allowed to wear slacks to school except under their dresses on Friday IF there was a football game right after school–and NO ONE wore blue jeans to school and we dressed up to travel if we were going in anything other than the family car.
Now?
I write a blog and other things that strangers read.
The only hats I own are a knit for winter and a rain hat for summer. The only gloves I own are for winter although they are nice leather ones lined with Thinsulate.
I no longer cross my legs at all because my artificial knees make it uncomfortable.
I never did learn to cook or sew but I know even less about mechanical/electrical things.
Dave still pays for everything and I still say, “Thank you.”
It’s still hard for me to identify my feelings, let alone express them.
On a typical night I go to bed somewhere between midnight and 2 am and get up somewhere between 9 am and noon.
I wear blue jeans to everything except weddings and funerals and I wore white jeans to the last wedding I attended. I own one culotte-style skirt–everything else is jeans or sweat pants.
And I go off for the winter in my RV and leave Dave at home.
That last one would drive my mother nuts if she knew about it. After all, what would the neighbors think?!!!
TTYL,
Linda
I also grew up in the 50/60’s, oh so true, I do wish tho, that I could leave my hubby in the “summer”, like you do in the winter, I would love the time to myself to travel and reflect on my life, past, present and future, to get out and see the country, ah to be free…………..
I give you credit for doing something for yourself.
HAHAHA…what a cute blog. Some of the things I now do wouldn’t make my mom turn over in her grave, but it should would my grandma, if she knew…bless her old-fashion soul
Ha! Love your post!
I was in high school in the late 60s and we still weren’t allowed to wear pants of any kind to school. I wanted to take an automotive shop class but “girls weren’t allowed” so I took a speech class. What a waste of time. I had to take a sewing class but I’d been sewing my own clothes since I was 9 so that was another waste of time. I hated high school! All I wanted was to be out of school.
I’ve been single (divorced) now for about 10 years – I love it! I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do 🙂 I finally feel like I’m free… free to be me.
Thanks for your post!
So true!!!!
“What the neighbors thought was more important than how you felt”. I’m familiar with that rule. What a backwards way of going about finding happiness.
Geat Post – how different our Mother’s could be – mine told me to go out and try anything I was ready for!! She said way to go when I fought to wear pants to work at my first job! She did however refuse to let me ride on the back of my boyfriend’s motorcycle – and anyone who knows me knows how that worked out!!! LOL
My friend, Billie Jean, and I convinced our folks to go to bat for us with the school and we were the first girls to ever take shop in Sidney, MT. I made a cedar chest in woodworking and still have it to this day. But I did build it wearing a dress. Too funny. Times have definitely changed – some for the better and others not so much.
hahaa….. I did a similar post about this very subject! we have come a looooong way with societal customs but some women are still stuck in that era…
I tried to cook and sew but … there’s just something about that domestic stuff that my brain blocks out. hate HATE doing floors and won’t do windows. I feed the cats and empty the litter box … close the blinds at night … because if I didn’t they wouldn’t get closed. I do stuff that I have to do … I’m working on the have to’s as you know.
I think life’s funny … I really do.. glad you survived the damn storms!
Great blog. I have done a lot of traveling without my husband. Maybe not a whole winter but some pretty exotic trips when our schedules didn’t match. Sometimes it’s fun to be responsible only for me. Then, I get to do everything I want when I want.
We also had to dress up to go to town. Girls had to take Home Economics. We had to learn to sew and cook …. even though mom sat me at a sewing machine when I was pretty young. I like to cook but not little fast meals. I like the big ones and when I am in a big kitchen. Girls weren’t supposed to be good at math … my original major in college. Girls were supposed to lose to the boys in games. Boy, there sure have been a lot of changes. Thank goodness!
Love this blog post. I remember it was my junior year when girls were allowed to wear “pants suits” to school. Then by the end of my senior year, we were wearing jeans. Now the girls go to school half dressed, and the boys wear their pants baggy and hanging past their butts. UGH! Seeing prom pictures on the news the past few months just floored me — girls looked like they were wearing nighties to the prom! LOL
I’m already thinking about fall trips. We’ll have to see if we can connect at some point this fall/winter/next spring.
“What the neighbors thought was more important than how you felt” could totally describe my upbringing, although now I’m a “let your freak flag fly” sort of girl.
oh i loved this post! i groaned in agreement and remembering… and i laughed with you at the silly expectations. although i did like the little white gloves. they were rather nice i thought.
i dress like you do now and i would never go back to all the HAVE TO’S!!!
if my bob could come back to me now he would find a very different woman.
he died when women were still the ‘second class’ citizen in the home. though he never ever treated me that way. i had a good man.
but now he would find someone extremely independent and probably just as extremely opinionated!!!
LOL.
LOVE the comments too! you have some great followers. of which i’m proud to be one!
Great post, Linda! I threw away my last skirt the day I retired. I never could stand them. At my oldest son’s wedding three years ago, I accompanied his dog (the ring barer) down the aisle wearing white jeans and gym shoes. 😉