There were very different expectations for women in my family than most I think.
My great grandmother immigrated alone at 14 from Ireland, around 1903 I suppose. She worked for the Cassatt family for a time. And she asked Mr. Cassatt what she should do with her money. And he told her to invest in real estate. So as a single, unmarried woman shortly after the turn of the 20th century Nora Roddy bought a house. She married and had children later than most. Her husband died in his mid 30’s, from working in a battery factory. Leaving her a single mother of 4. The 2 boys went to Girard College, a school for orphans, Eileen to her aunt and uncles, and Mary stayed with Nora. Mary would go on to graduate valedictorian from Hallahan Girl’s High School at 16. She won a full scholarship to chestnut hill college but Nora told her she could not afford the train fare.
Mary was not a soft woman. Not the cuddly sort of grandmother. Brilliant, calculating, driven, but not soft. Fiercely protective of her sons. As if they were made of glass, and not men. They were not the sort of men forged by the trials of war, but rather those spun by a candy maker, soft and cotton.
She rose through the ranks of insurance, and I’m sure by the end of her career made more than her husband, though no one would mention such a thing back then. He worked in education. She was an executive.
Her son, my cotton candy father, married an iron clad woman. An olympian, a wharton grad. With barbs on the outside and molten lava on the inside. Who cried when I was young but the candy man did not step up. He ignored her tears. They dried. She also made far more than he did. Supporting children on her own. While mama bear accused her of breaking up a perfect family. He was insufferable. Because who will treat the candy man the same as the woman who spun him?
And then to go on to be such a misogynist. To tell my partner:
“She must be on her period, you know how women are”.
No, Kevin, I know how you are.
Laughs and Lobotomies 