Trad Wife Delusions in My Home

[no_hypocrisy]

My father expected a trad wife in 1952 when he married my mother. It was akin to trying to put a round peg in a square opening. While Dad finished medical school and an internship, Mom had not one, but two degrees (BA and MS).

Mom was not trained to be a housewife and was not comfortable with the stringent 1950's conventional domestic mores. Keep a house clean; prepare the meals; raise the children; be subservient to her husband; try to keep up with the other housewives, etc. Her solution: She needed a partner: a housekeeper was hired. I was raised by a series of housekeepers (like The Help) since birth.

Besides that, Mom could win arguments with Dad. She totally got Betty Friedan's premise of "A Problem Without A Name". In the 60's, Mom wanted to work outside the home and Dad forbid it. Her only "escape" was to accept trustee position on the Board of Education. And he couldn't nix that. Mom eventually rose to be the President.


If Mom were in love with Dad in the early years, it morphed into thinly veiled tolerance, if not hostility. He never let up.

[IbogaProject]

1. Sorry

Glad you came out well, I hope the rest of the family did too.

[niyad]

2. It always makes me sad, yet angry at the same time, to hear such

stories. Such an incredible waste of talent and energy, so much frustration and emotional exhaustion, all to serve a false narrative of male superiority.

We have fought so hard against that narrative, and yet here we are again. It is exhausting.

[hamsterjill]

10. +1000

What the world has lost in the minds of the MANY women who were never allowed to reach their full potential is shameful and tragic.

I was raised to believe I was equal to all, and all were equal to me. But I had close friends in VERY different situations, and I never understood how a father could want his daughter to grow up and have to serve another master. It was prevalent in my time.

These women today who seem so happy to want to go back to maintaining a household, having a bunch of kids, and supporting a husband so that his frail, masculine ego isn't hurt, are going to wake up one of these days and realize the same thing that many women before them realized. That is - when it comes right down to it, you better be able to take care of yourself.

EDITED TO ADD: I might as well go ahead and piss a bunch of people off - so here goes. No one, and I do mean NO ONE should have more than two children. Having too many children creates burdens not only on the family itself, but on society in general. This "birthrate" nonsense is completely ridiculous. All of these people who are spitting out six and seven kids are not going to be able to put them through college. We are going to wind up with an even more ignorant populace, and at the same time, resources will be stretched and the planet will suffer.

There, I feel a little better now.

[slightlv]

18. Ah... but remember...

all those kids are "Arrows for God" or whatever that group called them. It's on the tip of my tongue, but just can't get to it right now. Have all the kids the mother can push out, regardless of what it does to her body, and each one of them is a "quiver" for God, once they were reared correctly. Quiverfull... THAT was the name of the group, I think. Ridiculous notion. We need more people working once they're of age... and in good careers. But that doesn't have to mean quiverfulls of evangelical kids; it DOES mean we need to go back to a good immigration policy and decent government assistance for families!

And while I've always heard large families are fun-filled chaos by nature, I very much preferred to being the oldest of three children. THAT was chaotic enough for me at times... my brother was a real pistol growing up.

[biophile]

3. Sounds like many marriages, including my own

It happened a lot, still does - a disconnect in the expectations of how life will be lived between the two people involved.
A marriage is a contract - should probably be treated as such. I have no objection to pre-nuptial agreements. Many say that’s a deal breaker because if you love someone, it shouldn’t matter. But if nothing else, it forces a conversation about how individuals view a marriage scenario.

[niyad]

4. I agree. A pre-nup should be about more than just finances.. And many

people do not seem to know that there is a third party to that contract. .the state.

[murielm99]

11. Sounds like my marriage, too.

I stayed with him and I raised the children. He was never there for me and it was difficult for me to work more than a part time job. We needed the money, too.

I sacrificed. He did not. In spite of his negativity and obstruction, I have accomplished a lot personally and professionally. I have done things locally as a librarian and a local political activist. I don't regret my children, but there are many times that I wish I had never married.

[Jokerman]

5. My parents also married in 1952.

While my dad was a very outspoken "Roosevelt Democrat" and didn't object to mom having a job, he still considered maintaining the house and children to be "women's work" and rarely lifted a finger to help.

Mom however was a true feminist, involved in NOW, NARAL and held the Democratic County Chair for more than a decade while doing all of the cooking and cleaning. Even after dad retired she continued both paid and volunteer work until she died at 70.

He drank beer and watched TV until he died a sad, bitter old crank at 85.

Mom has always been my primary role model.

[ToxMarz]

6. Until 1974, women did not have free access to bank accounts, credit cards and mortgages

Employment opportunities were very restricted. They were 'forced' to find someone to marry and probably didn't have the luxury to wait for the perfect man or stay single. Many I'm sure had to settle for just good enough.

[biophile]

15. Yes and this is what the patriarchy wants to return to

Limited options make women desperate

[BeneteauBum]

7. Amazing how many men want their mom, not a partner

Couldn’t live with a subservient woman……

Peace ☮️

[mwmisses4289]

9. Yeah, I've come to the conclusion that when some men

say they want a "sexy mama", that is exactly what they want.

[Prairie_Seagull]

8. All marriages change over time.

Mine certainly has. Managing those changes is a key that defines success or...not.

42 years and counting.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

12. It is absolutely wild today to think about the fact that single women could not even...

...apply for bank accounts, credit cards, and mortgages entirely in their own names without a husband's or male relative's permission in America until the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act!

1974.... Let's let that sink in. That's only 52 years ago. And it happened 54 years after women finally got the right to vote in America.

Yes, progress started in the 1830s, but the ECOA was the real turning point for single women.

How many women were forced into the marriage "contract" in order to just be able to have a life outside of their birth home?

For too many women marriage wasn't a choice but a necessity. And it turns out that marriage rates have plummeted over the last five decades since women gained this bit of freedom that men always had.

Maybe in another 100 years we will have finally fully shed the damage that was done.

[ClaudetteCC]

13. It looks like an interesting clash with

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221280407

[infullview]

14. Other detrimental effects of being a traditional wife.

My mother had four hungry mouths to feed. Time was always against her to keep up with laundry, house cleaning, potty training, tantrums, health issues etc. etc. etc.. To save time, she used a lot of canned and prepared frozen food. Gross. Olive drab colored sting beans from a can. Yech!

[3catwoman3]

17. Same at our house. Canned peas are even worse...

...and creamed anything makes me want to gag.

In the interest of morning efficiency, every Sunday evening we would make 5 days worth of sandwiches for school lunches and freeze them. Pop them in the lunch box in the morning. By the time it was lunch hour, the sandwich of the day would have thawed.

To this day I cannot abide an egg salad sandwich. Egg salad on white bread thaws into a mushy, disgusting mess.

[3catwoman3]

16. My parents married in 1948, and I was born in 1951.

My mom was a nurse. When I was in 1st and 2nd grade, I remember her working night shifts. By the time I was in 5th grade, she started working as a school nurse, which she loved, and which she did until she retired decades later, after which she still subbed from time to time, into her 80s.

She was one of the few working mothers when I was in grade school.

Nonetheless, she had some pretty traditional views. When I was in nursing school myself, I remember taking delight in knowing something that some med student friends of mine had not yet learned. I was bragging about this, and my mother cautioned me to keep that to myself because men didn't like women showing off their intellect.

Although not in those words because I didn't use it at the time, I thought a cleaner version of, "Fuck that BS."

I was expected to, and did, help my mother clean the house every Saturday. My brother's only household task was to help empty wastebaskets.

My father changed jobs several times, always looking to advance. He never asked for her input about any of those decisions. We moved 7 times by the time I was 12. That's a lot if you're not in the military.