A lovely tribute to your mother. It speaks of the expectations of her generation of women. Their role was to conform to the social expectation of their day. Any woman who did not conform was shamed. The shame of breaking out of the mold was self inflicted as well as socially inflicted.
Of the two forms of shame, the self inflicted type was the most powerful. A woman would need to step out of her expected role quite forcefully to be publicly shamed. But only she would know if her thoughts and desires were out of bounds. And this self knowledge would be enough to inhibit her ability to create, to actualize her creative needs.
I really appreciate your poem / song lyric. It hits close to home in many ways. I think my mom would have identified. She was a writer for most of her life, but she did technical writing.
She always wanted to write fiction. She and my dad were friends with various writers, including Bill Styron, who was roommates with my dad, and was my dad’s best man at their wedding. She never really got the quality time to write the fiction she dreamed to.
Thanks Nancy, for voicing those unfulfilled dreams.
A lovely tribute to your mother. It speaks of the expectations of her generation of women. Their role was to conform to the social expectation of their day. Any woman who did not conform was shamed. The shame of breaking out of the mold was self inflicted as well as socially inflicted.
Of the two forms of shame, the self inflicted type was the most powerful. A woman would need to step out of her expected role quite forcefully to be publicly shamed. But only she would know if her thoughts and desires were out of bounds. And this self knowledge would be enough to inhibit her ability to create, to actualize her creative needs.
Such a touching and thoughtful tribute to your mother. Thanks for this reminder to reach for our dream.
“This is not the me I started out to be": Ah!
Wow - this is very moving.
I really appreciate your poem / song lyric. It hits close to home in many ways. I think my mom would have identified. She was a writer for most of her life, but she did technical writing.
She always wanted to write fiction. She and my dad were friends with various writers, including Bill Styron, who was roommates with my dad, and was my dad’s best man at their wedding. She never really got the quality time to write the fiction she dreamed to.
Thanks Nancy, for voicing those unfulfilled dreams.