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Diane C. Jones of St. |
Everyone is so busy! It seems that no one has time to drive to a destination without making cell phone calls as they go. No one has time to sit down to drink a coffee, but has to sip while walking. Then there's e-mail to read and answer! And just try to get half a dozen people together at the same time on the same day for even the briefest of meetings! It's not possible. Why is that?
Recently someone told me that nowadays people are busier than we were in my youth. Of course, that was said by someone who was much too young to remember the days of my youth. So let me take you back to see if that is really so.
In the 1950s things were definitely different. I was a "SAHM" (internet chat-room talk for the phenomenon of' stay-at-home-mom"). It was the norm in those days. I had quit my day-job to raise my family - eventually that came to be five children. My husband had his traditional five-day workweek. He left the house about 7:30 am and rarely got home before 7:30 pm. So, I had the house and children to myself for at least twelve hours a day. On his day off, Frank tended the garden and mowed the lawn or did repairs around the house. Sundays we went to church.
Simpler times? Don't be fooled. My days were not twelve hours, they were twenty-four/seven, with sleep times fitted in when babies permitted. Until my fourth child was born, I washed all the laundry (mostly flannelette diapers) in a wringer washer and hung it all out to dry on a clothesline. On rainy days, the kitchen was full of wooden clothes-horses with steamy baby clothes reeking of bleach. Baby number four arrived and we bought an automatic washer and dryer. Hallelujah!
Meals were prepared without benefit of microwaves or convection ovens. My electric fry pan was my best friend. How I would have loved a dishwasher!
Let's not even talk about shopping for groceries. I bought all children's clothes and Christmas gifts over the phone from Simpsons-Sears Catalogue. In those days, they delivered to the house.
Being a typical 1950s housewife, I kept my tile floors scrubbed and waxed, my hardwood floors highly polished, my dishes sparkling, and all my kitchen appliances gleaming. I walked my little ones to kindergarten (babies in buggies), and kept guard over the ones who were playing in our back yard. I even had time for the occasional coffee-klatch with my neighbours as our children played together. (We didn't call them "play-dates" then.)
Throughout all those years, I taught Sunday School (1955 to 1967 in the
In my spare time, I took correspondence courses and attended night school because I had not graduated from high school. I felt I owed it to my children to show a respect for education by getting one. When my youngest child entered grade two, I started university.
No, I wasn't a super-mom. I was just doing what everyone did in those days, copying my peers and television's Donna Reed Show. I knew I was busy, but that was the way it was.
Oh, excuse me! I have to go. I see I have a ton of e-mail to read and my cell phone is ringing and I need to get my coffee. At least I'm not driving. I'm just so busy these days!
Diane C. Jones is a parishioner at St.