It was around 5 pm every weekday that my mother would quickly change from her housedress into something she referred to as fresh. She’d apply a quick application of lipstick, whip a clean apron around her waist and then…drumroll please…my father would be home.Â
We weren’t exactly like the sitcom families, what with the lack of martinis and cigarettes, but we weren’t that far off.
No wait. I’m lying. We were Mennonites. We were most-assuredly far removed from the people around us. Actually we were somewhere out on another planet, but still, that decade’s gender roles crossed all galaxies.
It was understood. Mom’s domain was the home. Dad was out in the world, but never, ever ‘of the world’.
I was the youngest. I rebelled, not as much as one sister, but way more than the other.
In 1975, I was 15. My mother was 51 that year. She walked every day. She juiced carrots and wheatgrass in the hopes that she wouldn’t succumb to the cancer that was killing off her siblings. I continued to belt out the chorus to Helen Reddy’s anthem with the best of ’em.
My life would not be like my mother’s. Â My life would be larger.
At 26, I married Mr. Redl, insisting on rewriting the vows to not include obedience and subservience and whatever other female-dismissive-speak I could edit out of those archaic vows. I scratched out ‘spinster’ on the legal form, refusing to consider that as my official provincial status.
We were to be equals and partners. We would conquer the world together!
At 28, my mother died. She was 63. We gave away her juicer.
When I was 36 and Kevin was 39, we sold our business and retired together. We travelled as a team. We made our financial decisions together. Helen Reddy hummed in the background.
Kevin supported my decision to write and travel. I supported his decision to pursue his interests and any job he found interesting.
I am now 53.
This morning Kevin left for his new business consulting job. He wore a suit and tie and carried a briefcase. I drank the last of my green smoothie and put down my dusting rag to kiss him goodbye. He gave me his drycleaning receipt and the manila envelope full of the tax prep he had put together and asked me to mail it.
I shut the door and thought about a new cornbread recipe that I might try with the lentils I was planning for dinner. I gathered the garbage and recycling to take out before my daily walk. I straightened the duvet and then I polished the bathroom mirror.
I caught my reflection and stopped.
My mother stared back.
Colleen, I couldn’t relate to this blog as with me it was the other way around. My mother had a strong personality, she was independent, strong, intellectually gifted. She loved us (me and my sister) but was not a home maker.
I adored my mother, couldn’t see anything wrong with her, followed all the advice that she gave me but at the same time I lived in her shadow. She also married me off without asking my feelings. My mother died 14 years ago but I still feel her presence.
I could not really say “such mother, such daughter.”
Test 3
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testing comments field
Testing 1, 2, 3.
No pedestals. You have confirmed with me that you fight as a couple so you’re right down here with the rest of us. You two just have a great vibe together – take the love baby. Besides Kevin could never be on a pedestal – he uses a PC.
I’m taking the love Laurie 🙂 And thank you for my loudest snork of the day. I think I scared the Canada geese off the nearby roof. Speaking of a good donnybrook, I can’t wait to show Kevin your comment.
Ah, this one hit home for me as well. Though my Dad increasingly takes on household duties as my mom grows more frail – baking bread, making crumbles, using all manner of kitchen ‘gadgets’ to create meals, housecleaning – it was my mom’s kingdom when I was young. We always joked one should always clutch one’s glass at parties in our home, lest my mother dump out the 1/2 to 3/4 of the drink remaining and put it in the dishwasher. “Where’s my glass?” was a common refrain from guests 🙂
And I have discovered that I am the one in our family who both needs – and let’s face it, enjoys – the rituals of cleaning. And my eldest, Annie, takes after me. We are simply not able to relax in the dust bunny heaven created by 2 elderly pugs and a cat, we can’t eat if the kitchen is dirty/cluttered and love a sparkling bathroom. We are the vacuumers, the fridge cleaners, the dryer-trap-emptiers. Luckily, Diane is the go-to-the-dumper, the recycler, and the library book returner. But I still remember her informing me upon moving in: I don’t do vacuuming. Took me a while to recognize that I ought to put down resentment that someone could decree that sort of thing while importing the biggest reason for vacuuming (pugs), and pick up the mantle of virtuous satisfaction.
… I love your relationship with Kevin – it’s an example I use often in the relationship I’m creating with Diane. Roles/schmoles, I say. Two people loving and supporting each other = magic.
Roles-Schmoles. Thank you for a perfect takeaway line from all this.
Everybody! Altogether now! Repeat after me…Roles! SCHMOLES!
Ha. Feel better already.
Laurie, I can recognise the slight compulsivity of your mother, you and Annie in all that tidying up. I see it because it is what I inherited as well.
Ship-shape. Whitey-Tighty. I could go on, but I hear you begging me to, well, not…go on. Suffice it to say that I find it hard to function in chaos and chaos to me includes an unmade bed and a dish in the sink (and yes I recognise the anal-ness of that last statement). I’m working at letting it go just a little…
Thanks for your belief in our relationship. Just don’t put us on a pedestal. We’re old and our hips will break when we fall off.
After today’s events, I came home and checked your blog. I didn’t think I had any more tears left….but damn Colleen we love you!
Randy
Oh Randy, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ve been crying quite enough. Sending you tons of love right back…
I loved this piece. Thank you Colleen. Bon voyage!
Thanks Liz…I’m looking forward to this trip. Travel is a great way to shake things up 🙂
I think that our mothers would say they had an equality that just looked different to us.
I think you’re right about that AnneLise. Equality comes in all sorts of guises. That being said, I believe if my mother was born into these later generations, she would have had more options and choices in how that looked.
I feel lucky that this is simply one of many choices for me.
Wow Colleen – such a beautiful piece. I feel you 100% – I’m in a similar situation at the moment. What to do though? Accept or rebel?
Thanks Amanda. I’ve decided to accept it and own it; but completely on my own terms. It doesn’t matter in the least how it ‘looks’.
I failed to mention that I was making the lentils with duck stock that Kevin made last night 🙂
And that, although I’m leaving for Cuba on a press trip in a few days, Kevin will be joining me a week after that because of all the arrangements and connections I have through my traveling writing.
It’s all equal. Just that equal looks different to everyone.