HISTORY MOVES SLOWLY

I am constantly reminded that history moves slowly. In college in the late 40s and early 50s, I decided that I would follow my passion for psychology on to graduate school and still see myself as an attractive woman, potential wife and mother. Beginning in 1970 I began teaching the psychology of women with textbooks just beginning to appear. Related to that I did talks about town on A Healthy Woman is a Crazy Person, usually beginning by singing, “This Little Light of Mine; I’m Gonna Let it Shine.” Contrary to the beliefs of the opposition, the point was not to hate men, send women out to work, and avoid wife and motherhood. The point was to make possible the full potential of women’s gifts. We talked about flex time, working from home, shared jobs, help with child care. Indeed, at Southern Connecticut State College where I taught, we pleaded for a day care center for faculty. It would have made sense, since SCSC specialized in Education training, so it would have provided practical training for Early Childhood majors. Even there, though, the culture wasn’t ready. My memory tells me the day care center at SCSU didn’t develop until after I had retired in 1986.

Much of what we longed for then has come to pass, spurred by the culture’s economic need and the development of amazing technological advances. These thoughts have been inspired by the book I’ve been reading on my Kindle-- Steven Hill’s “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age.” Regarding the lesson of the influence of economic need, he refers to “the dependency ratio,” the ratio of dependent members of society to the wage-earning members who contribute to their support. A light bulb lit – like “of course” – when he referred to the dependents at both ends of the age scale. Kids are dependents too. While the number of aging is going up and is predicted to rise even more, childbirth rates are going down. On a short-term basis, that produces a ratio balance. Over time, however, aging will continue to increase, but fewer children will be growing into productive employment. That’s the problem. There will not be enough working folks to support both ends of the dependency ratio.

So, how does this relate to my opening points? Hill cites evidence that there are two potential sources for increasing the number of gainfully employed - immigration and women’s equality, which would have the effect of increasing the number of births. He says it more effectively than I can. “It is deeply ironic that a substantial part of the response to the continent’s dilemmas hinges on two solutions: less sexism and less racism. More immigration and better integration will help reverse the population decline and increase employment, which will positively affect dependency ratios; more women’s equality also will increase employment and the dependency ratio, and could lead to a higher birthrate.” (Kindle location 4669 – 74)

“Feminism is the New Natalism,” he says. Instead of forcing women to choose between career and motherhood, cultural and financial attitudes toward economic support of parenthood would have to change. Citing data from specific countries, he says. “Germany, Italy, Spain, and other countries need a new generation of women’s liberation, founded on freeing women to be both mothers and workers – working mothers. Fortunately, successful models already exist in neighboring Scandinavia and Britain.” (location 4612, Kindle) Those models include parental leave for both parents, high-level childcare facilities, business, insurance, or governmental subsidies for child wellness. The packages differ in different countries, but the goal is the same – to balance the economic health of the country.

The author is talking about Europe, but much of this may apply as well to the United States. I remember, for example, how quickly a child-care center was established in one wing of my grammar school during World War II. The emergency was clear. Similar centers were established in many businesses so mothers could work, knowing their children were cared for. We knew Rosie the riveter had to be freed up to work on the production line. There are employers today who are establishing similar care centers – a great way to help women to be gainfully employed and, not incidentally, providing jobs for the day care workers. It may not be so apparent, but we are in an emergency situation today as well.

I hope this will not be read to suggest that women should take the self-sacrificing role of providing financial as well as personal care of dependents at both ends of the age dimension. Rather, in a culture that cares about all its people, I read it – and I hope you read it – as encouragement for enriching women’s lives even as the health of the economic culture is supported. Remember, Rosie was paid men’s wages.

My favorite young critic (24) wants me to be sure to make the point that we won’t really be “there” until we talk about giving strength and encouragement to “parents.”

Oh, by the way. As revealed in one of my previous blogs and in this one, I’ve made the conscious choice to divulge and to take advantage of my age, knowing full well that our culture sees it not as an asset but a deficit. Who knows? Maybe my college friends and I can change that bias. In the meantime, I feel like a walking history book – a lesson in patience. It, whatever “it” is, takes time. That’s why I’m planning to hang in here at least for another 20 years so I can understand in retrospect what the heck is going on now.

WHEN DOES CAREGIVING BECOME CARETAKING?

This will be a short blog. I have the question but not much of an answer. It started a few days ago when a friend and I were discussing a book we had read. It took us to the issue of family systems and my comment that caregivers require people who need care.

She corrected my language, asserting that I should be distinguishing between “caregivers” and “caretakers.” The emphasis, she pointed out, should be on the last half of the word. I guess in a way it might even be biblical, with the assertion that giving should be done in quiet, without advertising one’s largess, with genuine concern for the person receiving the care. Given that distinction, the term “caretaker” would refer to folks who need some sense of control or competence or superiority or something else, with the emphasis on satisfying a need of one’s own by way of tending to the needs of others.

As you can see, I’m wrestling with the implications of this distinction, a very interesting one. Any reactions?

APPRECIATING GOOD FORTUNE (with special note of 1947 - 1979)

Snippets and snapshots have been dominating my thoughts these days, stimulated by working on “Riding in the Back Seat” and, recently, a request from Boston University for snapshots of memories of my time in the Ph.D. program there. Things that have hovered at the back of my mind are springing forward. How lucky I was that my father was the youngest of his family whose oldest brother was already here when he came from Sweden. There was a family waiting for him. Even though he never wanted to blow his own horn, he had friends at work who would, at appropriate times, tell the boss things like, “You’d better promote Carl Gustafson or you’ll lose him to another company that will appreciate him,” and so he made his way – almost in spite of himself, but based on his abilities – to a nice position.

How lucky I was to be the youngest in my family, born at the beginning of the depression, but old enough when we were pulling out of it so that I didn’t really experience it as my brother and sister did. My parents gave me the wonderful gift of a Connecticut College education. Years later I was fortunate to have a mentor in Bill Trinkaus at Southern Connecticut State College when “mentor” was just a word in the dictionary. And I was among the last group promoted to Full Professor there in 1978 before a long, dry season of limited spending on higher education set in.

All that is personal, but reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers this summer reminded me that my good fortune was directly related to broader demographic factors. My life and my career hit the years at just the right time. Remembering that my parents new home – which they moved into a month after I was born – relied on public events like new roads and electricity to the suburbs, I went back to one of my favorite books, Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were. There I realized how the home ownership my husband Lou and I enjoyed depended upon government action guaranteeing home loans with less than the 50% down payment that was often required before WWII.

Wondering how accurate my perception was that the economic divide had widened during my career and parenting years, I decided to get more specific and google the year I graduated from High School – 1947. (Now you know!) I knew I was among the lucky ones that WWII was over. (Never mind that we really believed wars had ended.) It turns out that 1947 was a significant enough year that it got mentioned in several places. Coontz points out (p. 78) that 1947 was the year when the government began a project to build 37,000 miles of new highway. Oh, and in 1956, the year after I was married and before we bought our first home, the Interstate Highway Act provided for an additional 42,500 miles – all of which helped the growth of suburbs.

Recently I have commented on the lives of the wealthy in Bristol. We had rich folks connected to the clock companies and to businesses that had been especially important during the war. They lived in mansions, quite similar to the starter mansions I see near my neighborhood in Minnesota. But they were a part of our community. Their kids went to High School with me. My boyfriend’s father owned a diner, disparagingly called “Dirty Bills.” by some. One year the daughter of the president of one of the clock companies was his date for the prom. (If you want to know more about why I wasn’t his date, you’ll have to read “Riding in the Back Seat” when it comes out in a few years.)

Were we an unusual community, or was there really not such a huge disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us in those years? I found the Internet loaded with references to 1947. It really was an important year! It didn’t take long to come up with a brief quotable reference. “For a quarter-century after World War II, Americans grew more prosperous and less unequal. Families in every fifth of income distribution saw their incomes double between 1947 and 1979. But the next quarter-century changed course dramatically. Between 1979 and 1998, the top fifth gained 38 percent, and the top 5 percent gained 64 percent, while the bottom fifth lost 5 percent of real income.” (If you copy and paste the following, it will take you to the source of the quote, Dec. 15, 1999 entry, “United For a Fair Economy.”)

file:///Users/mona/Desktop/Report:%20growing%20divide%20at%20decade's%20end%20%7C%20United%20for%20a%20Fair%20Economy.webarchive

See how personal these data are. It wasn’t just my imagination that wealth distribution was fairer in my family-raising and career years. I was part of the filling in a metaphorical sandwich between 1947 and 1959. So much for the bootstraps theory and more evidence of my good fortune just for when I happened to be born.

One last word. Mrs. Job needs readers – and purchasers. And remember, she is now available on Kindle for $6.00. Also, please, if you like her, a review on Amazon.com would be really nice.

Some of you have been kind enough to tell me that you enjoy my blogs – quite a motivator, really. And all the more reason why I feel so remiss that it’s been so long since I wrote.

On Thursday, April 29, I returned from a fabulous Mediterranean cruise. As I took a few days to do the things one does to get back to normal after a long time away, I kept writing the blog in my head. I had so many things to say, I thought I might have to break it into two. Then I got hit with something very akin to the flu, except without gastro-intestinal involvement. Since “I never get sick,” it came as a shock. All I could do was cough, sneeze, use up boxes of Kleenex, sleep, and occasionally, when energy was really high, stare into space, or maybe even watch TV. Unfortunately it did nothing to reduce my appetite. By the time I was recovered enough to go grocery shopping I was pretty much down to black olives and ice cream bars. I’m happy to say I was able on Sunday, May 9, to see M. Butterfly at a Guthrie matinee. It was fabulous. Not one wink of nap was I tempted to take.

So now, about the cruise. We were fortunate to have a direct flight from Atlanta to the Rome airport, but even at the last minute it looked like we might not be able to do it with Iceland sending its ash over Europe. Even when we arrived at the airport in Minneapolis, we were told we wouldn’t be able to get to Europe. It took insistence and 20 minutes of consultation for the woman at the desk to discover that Rome would probably be opened. Still, even as we flew to Atlanta, we were planning alternatives – maybe John C. Campbell folk school. Meeting Atlanta friends at the airport, we found only Jeff and Max. Val was home preparing the house for our visit, which she was sure would happen. The fact is, we made it to Rome right on schedule.

But lots of people didn’t make it. Holland America kept the ship in port an extra day for passengers held up by the ash situation, and, depending on which rumor you go with, 200 or more people never did make it. And some others had their cruise inadvertently extended as they were invited back on board when they couldn’t fly home. Our schedule was modified to make up for that extra day in port (which we, of course, spent sleeping -- jet lag recovery.) I can’t tell you anything about Corfu. We never did get to do that stop. I can tell you we were lucky in Athens, being there before the strikes that closed down the acropolis. Well, I guess I was lucky. My acrophobia really kicked in there. All the while as I made my way halfway up, I was rehearsing, “What goes up must come down.” I found myself a piece of something to sit on/cling to, while Doug went mountain goating above me. But here I am. A survivor.

I’ll try not to get boring with detail, but I do want to mention the half hour we had in the Acropolis museum. It’s the best visit I’ve ever had to a museum. Our guide took us on a quick tour of the development of statuary art, from the stylized Roman statues to the more detailed and realistic Greek works – mostly marble, because bronze statues had a tendency to get melted down for ammunition. The one we did see had come from a sunken ship. Particularly intriguing was the – probably competitive -- development of grave markers. Engravings to honor the dead or their gods gradually emerged from the marble, finally becoming separate statues.

Marble in the art; marble in the streets - old and a bit uncomfortable to walk on in Ephesus, flat and beautiful in Santorini. Apparently that seismic area produces marble in quantity. That area also had me in awe of the smallness and yet significance of each of us. Civilization after civilization was built on top of the ruins of its predecessor – earthquakes, volcanoes, and the human desire to invade, possess and destroy. With apologies to those who hear this too often from me, all I could think of on seeing the statue of a famous conqueror, “And now he’s a pile of bones.” Makes one think about the meaning of our own existence, and what we’ll leave behind. And time! I wonder whether it affects the sense of individual significance to live on the remnants of so many previous civilizations.

More travel is planned for Italy in November. I’ve ordered Pimsleur “Quick and Simple Italian.” After all, people will see my last name and expect me to understand Italian. I sort of agree that I should have picked up something in my years in New Haven. Unfortunately my in-laws discouraged learning Italian from them. They wanted me to know only “proper” Italian. My parents, on the other hand, didn’t want me to learn Swedish after all the harassment my father had experienced as an immigrant. So here I am, reminded how very difficult it is to learn another language after the age of 4 or so. We’ve become so accustomed to people in other places speaking English as if it weren’t a second language that we tend to take it for granted. Well, I do, anyway. Then I hear someone delivering a major speech, or even a lengthy interview, in basically perfect English, and I am amazed. I do wish I’d been taught foreign languages in grammar school. German wasn’t so bad in High School – so much in common with English, and with the word order I heard in church as a child.

Ho hum, I have gone on. I’ve got some other stuff I want to talk about. Maybe I won’t be so slow to write the next blog. Just one last word. Mrs. Job is now available in Kindle format -- $6.00.

WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP

I just decided what I want to be when I grow up. Well, not just now, but sort of early this morning as I woke up. Yesterday a friend of mine told me the reaction of the person to whom she had given a copy of Mrs. Job. Reportedly she loved it, and wondered would I be willing to do a retreat at her [Lutheran] church. There was no real offer, just the suggestion that I should think about it. It took a good night’s sleep for me to realize that this is exactly what I love to do. Forgiveness, Justice, Job and his wife. They are so intimately connected, and how they tie in to my interest in gender psychology and restorative practices! So now my thoughts are off and running. What a great two-day retreat we could have, or even a one-day workshop. It would have to be tailored, both in title and content, to the hosting group. If it were a group of Lutheran women, for example, it could be "Mrs. Job, forgiveness, and justice for the Godly woman." For others it might be "Forgiveness, Justice, Restorative Practices, and the influence of Mrs. Job." Who knows? It would take a lot of thought to name it, and more thought to arrange a fruitful presentation that would frame the issues and their solutions in general as well as personal gain for participants. But my cupboard is filled with so many great ingredients for the recipe. It would be fun. First job – construct a blurb that would describe it to a general audience.

OK. That’s it. Help me with your thoughts. In the meantime, I have spent some time (not enough) on “Riding in the Back Seat” and reading on my deck in halter and shorts. Imagine! It’s that warm here today.

I GET DISCOURAGED – AND THEN I’M NOT

I guess it’s all part of the process of deciding what I want to be when I grow up – or maybe just growing up. Anyway, I get discouraged when I sell only two books at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center Writers Book Festival. I get discouraged when I discover I don’t have the energy I once had to contribute my efforts to the causes I care about. I get discouraged at the danger I put other people in when I attempt to drive in strange places in the dark. I even get discouraged when I find I want to do nothing but read my Kindle. (Currently it’s “90 Minutes in Heaven.”)

Then I watch the snow melt with much more enthusiasm than one might muster to watch the paint dry. Every morning I look out to see whether the really dirty stuff is gone. (not yet). My damaged deck chairs are now unencumbered by accumulated snow, and I can send them off for repair, dreaming of sitting in the warm summer sun. I can sit and read for an hour or more at a time without feeling guilty that I’m not being productive. I can catch up on phone calls to many of the people I care about.

Then there’s the four session series we’ll be starting tomorrow at the Presbyterian Church based on the DVD “The Power of Forgiveness.” It was a success when our JustFaith+ group sponsored it recently at Mount Calvary. And the booklet I’ve been preparing for my Connecticut College group is just about done, with the help of Diane Eidsmo, a very talented lady at Mount Calvary. On the 18^th I’ll be helping to facilitate a group discussion on the book “Riding the Bus With my Sister,” in a project sponsored in part by the Chaska Community Engagement Group. On March 25^th I’ll be doing a small part, helping to set up – being in attendance for conversation – at Mount Calvary’s new project which we’re calling “New Friend’s Community Meal,” with a goal of serving a meal for the community at the end of each month. My part is small, but I guess every little bit helps.

Oh yes! Tonight we Spring our clocks forward, giving us an extra hour of light at the end of the day – additional comfortable driving time for me.

Then there's the "Mona's book" business friends connection I've set up on Facebook. What I’m most excited about right now, though, is that I’ve finally begun “Riding in the Back Seat.” My head swims with ideas for the little vignettes I’ll be including. Just for the fun of it, I’ve decided to expose you to the beginning as it stands now. It will be edited, of course, but here’s the first section for your enjoyment – or whatever.

Of course, feedback will be greatly appreciated.

RIDING IN THE BACK SEAT

I’m riding in the back seat, but no one is driving the car. How is it there has been no fatal impact? Other vehicles scream by; fences bend as they barely avoid being hit; trees blow aside in panic; people fly about like cartoon characters. I’m glued to the right rear seat. No matter how hard I struggle I can’t make my arm reach far enough to push down on the brake in the front. Nor can I move my body into the front seat to take over the steering wheel and apply the brake. In fact, I can’t move at all. I save myself by waking up.

As bad as it is losing control of the car, it’s even worse on other occasions when I see it from outside bursting into bright red flames. I save myself by waking up.

I did wake up. Those dreams are emotion-free memories now, as are those of octagonal rooms filled with ancient debris. Over time I cleaned them out and created a bright, white, sun-lit, fragrantly airy space for myself. Even the dreams of a royal octagonal table standing atop long legs under which is rushing a brown, fetid stream are gone. The water was purified. The dream was no longer needed.

Most of us, I believe, have ridden in the back seat of a driverless car, eventually recovering to take over the direction of our own lives. Some of us have endured the passionate, fiery explosion of the vehicle that carries us through life. Many of us, I think, have discovered the bright new parts of ourselves after cleaning out the old, untended debris in our hidden rooms, or removed the personal pollution that contaminates our life energy.

Most of what I plan to say, however, is much less dreamlike. Besides being a psychologist who dreams, I am in many ways a walking history book. Some of you may find some glimmers of your own history in the snippets of stories I tell here. I know I’m writing this for my own family. I hope it will resonate with your memories and challenges.

FRONT SEAT DRIVING; BACK SEAT RIDING

I ride in the back seat as often as I can these days. I no longer enjoy driving. But I was excited about getting my driver’s license when I turned 16. By that time my father was out of the Ford (more about that later) and into a DeSoto, one of the first to have fluid drive. That was really nice for me – or maybe not so nice at all – because I never did learn to drive a “stick.” All I had to do was lift my foot off the accelerator and it would shift.

I liked the freedom and independence of driving, just like a real grown-up. Being a child always carried with it the sting of not being in charge of my own life, so my solo drive down the boulevard in Bristol, Connecticut, heading home to Forestville with my brand new license, confirmed my competent adult status.

It wasn’t long, though, before I went off to college, where we weren’t allowed cars (Yes! That’s really true), and then to graduate school in Boston, and who in her right mind would even want to drive in Boston? I walked. Occasionally I rode with Frances, an amazing driver who had controlled vehicles on the farm from the time she was 13. She understood that the rule in Boston driving is, “If you want to take that turn, take it. Somehow everyone else will get out of the way.”

In Johnson, Vermont, I walked to class, to the drugstore, to church, to bowling, and just for fun. That’s all there was to do there, except for an occasional trip into Burlington with Kate. I walked in Burlington, too, when I moved over to the University of Vermont.

END OF SAMPLE

RETREAT DAYS, MOURNING THE LOSS OF A FRIEND, END OF AN ERA, and WARNINGS

RETREAT

This is a potpourri of things I’ve been storing up. Earlier this week, after a therapeutic conversation with my granddaughter, KJ Neun, I decided to take Thursday and Friday of this week as retreat-at-home days, letting friends know that I would be accepting no calls or interruptions. It was such a great thing to do that I’m planning a repeat next Thursday and Friday. It’s amazing what one can accomplish going from one thing to another with time completely under one’s control. I still don’t have my tax information gathered together, nor have I begun “Riding in the Back Seat,” but I can see my way clear. In fact, I can see the surface of my desks. I recommend it. Well, maybe it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it was what I needed right now.

MOURNING THE LOSS OF A FRIEND

I did take a call from my college roommate, though, and received the very sad news that one of the husbands in our college friends group died earlier this week. Hale and hearty, he went to the hospital three weeks ago with a mysterious blockage in the abdomen. And now he’s gone. Bob Christensen was one of those men who make one sort of tingle with delight. He had such a subtle sense of humor, sometimes evoking deep belly laughter. He and his wife Rennie were such a loving and caring couple. It was they who arranged our occasional mini-reunions at Craigville on Cape Cod. When I was on the east coast at holiday time, I got to enjoy New Year’s Eve with them and the other east-coasters. It was through Bob that I learned two things: (1) how vicious can be the treatment of a company’s most successful (highly paid) salesman when there is the decision to downsize, and (2) how a cool, calm, collected person turns a defeat into a victory. Bob went straight to the library and took out some books: “What Color is Your Parachute,” and a bunch of books on wood stoves, just ‘cause he was interested. His children are still running his very successful wood stove business. I’m having trouble writing this with tears in my eyes. We will miss him.

THE END OF AN ERA

Bob’s passing is the end of an era, and suddenly what started as a casual little fun booklet I was putting together after our last stay at Craigville has become a kind of testimonial to the joys of our retreats there. For the CCers who may be reading this, it will take time, but it will be coming. I’ve enlisted the aid of someone with a more appropriate Word program than mine. And she’s more talented too.

WARNING

The things I learn from working with clients! Maybe you knew this, but before you let someone move in with you, it would be smart to check local laws. When I read a recent article in the Psychotherapy Networker about adult children moving back home, they recommended telling them to leave if the situation became intolerable. (not, but the way, what they felt was the common situation.) A similar thing happened to a client of mine who let her adult offspring move in – with dog – and found her new home being trashed. But here’s the deal. She can’t just tell the person to get out. I’ve checked this with the local Sheriff who tells me similar laws exist almost everywhere. The law is that you cannot force someone to leave who has used your mailing address as his or her residence for a week. (Probably this varies in different venues.) My client has had to fill out a long form, paying a fee of – if I heard it correctly -- $320 for processing. Now she has to wait 30 days for a judge to decide whether to evict the person. One certainly hopes that not every kind person would be trapped in such a situation, but I think it’s a good idea to be aware.

And so ends my potpourri, with a final farewell to Bob Christensen.