Where Are The Cunninghams?

The good old days.  The days of awesome dresses, cocktails before dinner, matching bedspreads and curtains, everything in order.  I wish I had been an adult in that time.  I caught the very tail of it as a child visiting my aunt.  I remember the gold bedspreads and the gold curtains in the guest room.  I remember never seeing my aunt without her make-up or robe in the morning.  I remember the adult women and men sitting and talking as children found something to occupy themselves.  We were not entertained.  The most interaction we had in that regard was an introduction to a game or book.  Then the adult walked away and we were left to our own devices.

 

 

I wish I had thought of this stuff when I decided to have a child.  I don’t know why I thought I could do it on my own, that it would be fine for my child to grow up with a dad that wasn’t married to me.  Maybe all the crap I read in WE magazine really wasn’t true.  I was very progressive at that age.  I had an aunt who was very pro-women’s rights.  She had chosen not to marry and have children.  She had chosen a career.  She was able to support herself and her aging mother.  She could travel with her sister when she felt like it.  She answered to no one, except maybe her publisher or her boss at the school where she taught English.  I always thought she was having a secret affair with her editor.  Now, as I look back, I realize she was probably a lesbian.  Who knew? 

But I digress.   I wish we could turn back time and live life like it was a Happy Days episode.  When Mrs. Cunningham had dinner on the table and Mr. Cunningham could be counted on to lead his family in the right direction.  Where a heart to heart was taken seriously by Richie and Joanie and the morals of the family, while tested at times, were what kept them all on the straight and narrow.  When time wasn’t disposable.  I wish I had thought to give my child that life.  I wish I hadn’t made the choice to be a “modern” woman with a child.  I should have realized that in order to be that woman I should do it without a child.  Once that child was born I should have given it more – more dad, more lessons, more morals, and less - less material, less freedom, less choice.

 

I thought the more I let her listen to what she wanted to listen to, the more I let her make choices, the more independent and strong she would be.  It didn’t turn out that way.  She turned into a spoiled, potty-mouthed teenager that clung to the wrong guys and married a man almost twice her age.  And now she’s sitting in jail, for a crime I never pictured her committing.

I feel that if America revisits traditional values, the golden rule, common courtesy and the like, that maybe we can start to turn our nation around.  Maybe we wouldn’t be so violent.  Kids would grow up with a male presence in the household.  Moms wouldn’t have to brag that they are both mom and dad (which I can’t stand to hear, although I stated it as well at one point).  Women wouldn’t be looking for help saying “Well I am a single mother!”  I have hated that statement from day one.  I myself never used the phrase and didn’t use it as an excuse either.  I chose to be what I was – I walked away from a relationship that didn’t seem fixable, and since we weren’t married it made it all the easier – on me.  Unless someone is widowed, it should never be used.  So many women walked into my office and said that and I wanted to say that it was their choice, but couldn’t because I would lose my job.  It’s NOT an excuse ladies. 

I wish that we could let women stay home and nurture their children and not make them think that they had to be MORE.  Did yesterday’s women not realize that being with their children, nurturing them, teaching them, was way more important than a career?  Look at our world – how is this better?

Mrs. Cunningham was a respected woman in her home.  She was a loved mother and wife and friend.  Sometimes she had to show Howard what she wanted instead of making him guess and being strong was a character trait of hers.  He also knew the golden rule of “Happy wife, happy life” and he treated her well.  We could all take a lesson. 

 

Women weren't as mean as we are now too.  We didn't have to be.  There was more emphasis on friendships.  We actually leaned on our friends.  We had time to be with them.  We helped them with their children, problems, recipes.  The closeness we used to have has been filled by work relationships and I have found that once you leave that employment, those friendships are not far behind.

I realize the Cunningham’s weren’t real people, only characters in a sitcom, but I feel they were based on real people and a way of life that was ideal, but real nonetheless.  Perhaps we should explore going back to this time when we were a kinder, gentler population.  Go back to the good old days…

 

 

 

What Important Right Have Women Lost?

   Women’s rights.  Seriously, when I was younger I thought that this was a great idea.  Be equal to men, earn what they did, be independent and bring home the bacon.  You can do it all – raise a family, fix the car, volunteer, cook, clean, pay the bills – and for what?  My question now is, where did we go wrong?

   It seems to me that in the last 25 to 30 years our children have grown up alone, with no moral figures and no one to cling to when things get rough.  I say this in view of where I grew up, which is mainly rural.  When I was a kid it wasn’t the norm to have friends whose parents were divorced.  In fact, when my best friend told me her parents were getting one we were really worried that we might not be friends anymore.  I didn’t know anyone else whose biological parents weren’t together.  Using the term biological was usually reserved for adopted kids.  I was probably nine or ten before I found out my own dad had been divorced and that my older brother and sisters were really my half siblings.  I was told to keep it quiet, the whole neighborhood didn’t need to know.

   My mother worked.  I’m pretty sure she did part time work for a while and then full time when my dad had his heart attack.  I know she was home every day when I was a kid getting off the school bus.  We would walk in the door, drop our school bags on the floor, sit down and have snack and she would ask us how our day was.  Then we would run and change, do our chores, homework, eat dinner when dad got home, play and go to bed.  Dad would tuck us in and listen to our prayers.  Mom would get her tea and some quiet time with a book or a TV show.

   I look back now and I realize I had an idyllic childhood, not unlike something out of the Andy Griffith Show.  Our neighbors kept an eye on us when mom and dad might not be around, whether we knew it or not.  Someone called my mom when she saw me smoking in town when I was fifteen.  When I got home she was ready for me.  I still have no idea who told, but I knew someone was watching.

   We went to church as a family too.  I hated it, but every Sunday and church holiday, there we were.  Dad sang in the choir and he had an awesome voice.  I still love the church songs and I can still hear him in my mind singing them.  Mom always did the church groups and fund raisers.  They helped people and modeled the life they wanted us to live.

   My mom didn’t march on Washington.  She kept a good clean home, she made great meals from nothing, she read to us, fixed our hurts, monitored our television and our mouths, warned us of our actions and promptly punished us when warnings were ignored.  She taught us the lessons we needed to learn and gave us room to make mistakes.  She was there.

   It seems now, in this day and age, that we have the right to be everything except good mothers.  Sure there are some out there that get to stay home with their kids and live that life that a lot of us had, but there are a lot more that have to work to make ends meet.   There are a lot of single moms out there, by choice, that wanted it all and get home after a long day of school or work or both and just don’t get in the time that they want with their child(ren).  We’ve lost the right to raise our children in a two parent home, where one of us gets to stay home and take care of things on the “home front”.  The “home front” is now the “war zone” where we have to fight for time for dinner, for sports, for clubs, etc.  Our babysitter is the television with hundreds of channels or the internet with unlimited avenues or video games.  We had three TV stations – we were told to go outside and find something to do or something would be found for us.  We had to use our imagination. 

   Having our mom there gave us that.  She didn’t have to feel guilty about wanting to be there for us because she didn’t have to have it “all”.  What I don’t think she realized, and a lot of American women didn’t realize, was that they did have it all.  They had the best of it because they had a choice.  They could go out and work, or they could stay home.  There’s no choice now, not unless one is very wealthy or chooses to live very simply. 

   In my heart I believe the women’s rights movement did a lot for women.  We got the vote, we’ve passed some laws, we can get out and work in jobs traditionally held by men.  But socially, I feel it has broken down the family.  There was a reason women were nurturers and men were the providers.  There was a reason we held those roles. 

   I wish we could go back.  Just have a taste, see if the flavor is just as sweet as when I was growing up.  I know this piece has rambled, but I guess my point is this, by gaining all of these rights, women have lost the biggest right we had – to be a parent.  By losing our time to everything else we’ve lost that right and in doing so we are seeing a chain reaction in the loss of a cohesive society and a rise in violence.  Let’s give children back their two parent households with their moms at home.  I bet it makes a huge difference in twenty years time.