Been There — Done That

My mother was the role model for Donna Reed and June Cleaver. She wore starched ruffled aprons, hand made our clothes, was a Cub Scout leader, baked bread, and never raised her voice. When my father came home from work, Mother greeted him with freshly applied lipstick, White Shoulders perfume dabbed behind each ear, and without a single complaint. Each day he left a dollar on the kitchen table for her to do with as she wished and each evening he returned to find it still there. She didn’t go to work, she didn’t drive and the only time she left the house was to visit the corner library, after which she’d rush home to field my father’s business phone calls.

Mother ironed, vacuumed, scrubbed floors, prepared hot meals and polished our saddle oxfords daily — all the while singing songs like Mares Eat Oats and Does Eat Oats and Little Lambs Eat Ivy.

This is the standard by which I grew up in the forties and fifties. This is the gauge I used to pattern my own marriage.

I was only married a short while when I realized that something was wrong with me. It happened when I heard myself mumbling obscenities as I pushed the vacuum, powered entirely by resentment, over my lint-laden living room floor. I couldn’t believe it; I detested housework.

I knew that my feelings were unnatural, but who could I tell? It was 1959, and women were suppose to enjoy house keeping and tending to other’s needs — at least that’s what I’d seen, and what my husband kept telling me.

It appeared that the Domestic gene that my grandmother and mother possessed had skipped a generation, and I was destined to a life of feigned contentment, internal conflict and guilt.

I suffered in silence, although my husband argued that bitching did not fall under the category of silence. I tried very hard not to resent my168 hour work week, and my husband’s mere 40 hour week. I reminded myself regularly that generations of women before me had survived — and without microwaves. I was determined to be the Super Wife, Super Mom and Super Hostess my family deserved.

So, when my husband came home from work and said, “Guess what, Honey, I’ve made plans for us to leave tomorrow afternoon for a two week vacation in Florida,” I resisted reaching for a kitchen knife. Instead I smiled over clenched teeth and dragged out last year’s summer clothes that neither the children nor I fit into any longer, and feverishly washed, ironed and packed. I tightly clenched my fists as I canceled mail and newspaper deliveries, rescheduled doctor and hairdresser appointments and rearranged my life. My husband, rock that he was, remained calm through it all as he bathed in the comforting knowledge that his secretary had efficiently tied up all his loose ends.

My husband enjoyed having company. I only enjoyed the idea of having company, so when he announced, “I invited the guys for a barbecue Sunday,” I shopped for groceries, prepared salads, marinated meat, baked brownies and hyperventilated, and he asked, “Why the hassle, honey?” as he patted me on the backside and reminded me to “go with the flow,” and left to play basketball.

Then he suggested we invite his family for dinner. So I sautéed, sliced and sweated while he pointed out that I was doing a great job and suggested that I try being less tense. Then he left to play hockey.

And, immediately after desert he invariably announced, “I’m going to watch the ball game,” or, “I think I’ll run a few laps to work off all that good food.” And he did. And nobody noticed. Or cared. And I was left sitting with a glued smile on my lips, forefingers prying open my eyelids while listening to replays of every story his mother ever told.

When company left I dutifully cleared, cleaned and collapsed, and he would walk by, kiss me on the cheek and say, “Leave all that, honey; you can do it in the morning.” Then he assured me that everything was terrific and told me that if I needed him, he’d be upstairs, sleeping.

And when I pointed out how wonderful it must be for him to come as a guest to his own party, he smiled, and reminded me that I was a great little hostess.

One day, in the mid 1970’s, after being enlightened by my first issue of Ms. Magazine, I suggested, “Let’s have myfamily to dinner.” And while I marinated, minced and embraced martyrdom, he said — all in one breath, “You’re working too hard, honey — I’ll be on the couch reading the paper.”

And when everyone finished dessert, and he stretched, and began to stand, I quickly jumped up and declared, “I’m tired. I’m going to take a short nap,” and I walked off, leaving him with his jaw hanging, and my mother retelling stories of my precious childhood.

It wasn’t his fault. He was a victim of the times, too. But, oh, how I would have loved to write for Donna and June’s shows back in the fifties. I would have told it from the woman’s perspective. Why, I might have changed the course of history.