A great article from the NY Daily News
A strong generation of mothers
A couple of weeks ago, there was a wake for the mother of a friend from the old neighborhood. Along with prayers for the 94-year-old woman, laughter and reminiscences filled the room at the funeral home.
The photo collages that summed up her life had familiar scenes. Artistic portraits from the 1940s and 1950s of a young woman; wedding photos; the holiday shots of a family around a table with the smiling housewife - they didn't care about being called that - hovering.
Snapshots from the 1970s: couples having a good time at a house party. Nearly everyone holding a cigarette. The women with high, teased hair. The sofa and drapes in matching floral prints.
The apartment looked like any of ours growing up in Parkchester.
Many of us at the wake had already been through the sad rite of passage of burying our mothers, and this was yet another chipping away of the generation before us.
It brought a lump to the throat to see the loss of another lady from that dwindling sorority, those who lived in a time when females were constrained by a strict code, the last generation to be barred from things because of gender.
My generation went to college and sought careers. There was no question about what we'd be doing after high school. It's the same for my daughters.
For those before us, unless one was wealthy or had very progressive parents, there might be a job after high school but, most likely, it was given up when they married and had children.
They worked during the war, keeping things running at home, then let the returning veterans have their jobs back.
When you look back, these women were so strong - and accomplished so much - in their role as wife and mother.
They couldn't run for President, but the simple things they did inspired and nurtured us.
They were the ones who ironed the cassocks for the altar boys. They were den mothers for the Boy Scouts, led Girl Scout troops. They ran the PTA and joined organizations like the Sodality and the Columbiettes.
They formed groups to preserve their neighborhoods, and raised money through bake sales.
Dinner was at the same time every night. Meat and potatoes and vegetable and milk. Soda was for the weekend.
If you went shopping or to church or out to a restaurant, they made you get dressed up because they would never show up at such events any other way. Our kids laugh at that now, but it taught you respect and to have pride in yourself.
Our mothers could never be mistaken for our sisters. They acted their age - in the good way - and dressed it.
The commiserated over coffee and cake in someone's kitchen; they didn't have spa getaways. The soap operas they clucked over while ironing clothes were less tawdry than the so-called "women's television" on cable now.
Even if my mother had been a novelist (she always wanted to write) or a teacher (she couldn't afford higher education during the Depression) or had some other career, one memory would always remain clearer than anything she may have accomplished professionally.
We were at the beach in Massachusetts, where we rented a ramshackle cottage for a week every year. I was about 6, my brother a year younger. We bugged her every night to wake us up to watch the sunrise. She finally promised to do it the next day.
She woke us, and it was cold and dark and raining. She bundled us in sweatshirts and a blanket and we sat in the splintering rocking chairs on the porch, looking out at the ocean.
We wouldn't be able to see the sunrise, but the storm was fun to watch when it got light out.
She brought out toast with butter and grape jelly and cups of cocoa. It was just me and my brother and her, sitting there. The other six members of the family were still up in bed.
It may sound silly, but it was one of the greatest times of my life.
I thought of it when I went to that wake, and again last week when I bought a Mother's Day card for my child instead of my parent.
I'll probably think of it this week, on the day my mother would have turned 84.
And I think about it every time I'm at the beach and it rains.
by: Patrice O'Shaughnessy
