Show notes: https://www.tamihackbarth.com/blog/episode-261
My mom died 10 years ago today. We weren’t close, but she was my biggest cheerleader. The older I get the more I understand who she was and how much of the time in history she was born into really shaped who she got to be.
My mom couldn’t wear pants to her segregated school, got married at 20 and had her first child at 21. I came along right before she was 25. She was on the younger side of average at the time, but was relieved to be out of her parent’s house.
In the early 1960s women then didn’t have a lot of choices. Options for work were secretarial work, nurse, teacher or domestic labor. None were high paying. Women couldn’t even get a checking account without a male co-signer until 1974.
I tell you all of this because my mom wanted my life to be different than hers. She wanted me to get my education, find a career of my own choice, be able to support myself, not have kids too early and to not get married unless it was a partnership.
She used to say, “Don't do what I did”.
I used to joke with her that I wouldn’t because her life in a lot of ways was truly awful.
As I’ve gotten older I have asked a lot more questions:
- Were the choices my mom made personal failings or choosing from a limited amount of crappy options?+ If she’d been born in a different era would she have led a different life? Would she have waited to return to college after marriage and kids or would she have gone straight through like me? Would she have gotten married or even had kids? Would she have gotten divorced?
Would she have gotten the mental health treatment she needed after having a traumatic childhood?
This week on the podcast I am sharing 10 Lessons I Learned From My Mom.