my mom wanted the world to read this
Happy Mothers' Day
"But despite differences, our common bond is powerful. When we let it, our strength flows out of us and around each other in a wonderful stream. We frequently care for each other's children as much as we do our own.
Without our interdependence, we would be miserable indeed. Our children would be miserable and isolated, too. But in our shared life, they have brothers and sisters to play with, more than one loving mother and some of them are not entirely devoid of father figures.
I want to write about our lives because I think we have something of value to offer others."
She wrote this in '76 or '77
She would have been about 27.
I remember little if any of that time
but the one impression I have feels cozy.
I saw it for the first time last year,
it took a while to sift through her things
She wanted the world to read this
there was no internet then ~~~
I'm an unwed mother of a three-year-old son. I want to write an article for your magazine about single mothers but with a point of view that is different from the usual one.
So much has been written about the difficult life of the single mother. as I transcribe this sentence I feel like I hear the ghostly whirring and clacking of my grandmother's electric typewriter How her children are deprived and her life is lonely without a man. How hard it is to raise a child alone. How difficult her life is in a male dominated society. How those on welfare get mauled in that system.
But are our lives so depressing as all that? Some of us think so. I don't.
this is where I begin to feel weird from reading this from the distant future, knowing how things ultimately played out
True, I lead a life of late rents, unpaid bills and a continuous search for types of employment that will give me enough money as well as leave plenty of time for me to spend with my son, and even a little time for myself. But despite the difficulties, in most ways because of them, I find that my life is full of opportunity. Opportunity to grow strong, independent and loving. Opportunity to learn cooperation and compassion in human relationships.
but then Ronald Reagan happened on a wider scale
Of course, I must be strong and independent, having no convenient shoulder for my tears. Of course I must still, though unmarried, learn to work cooperatively and lovingly with others. For, though I am single, I do not raise my child alone. I raise my child with ******, a weaver and nurse who supports her boy with no money coming from anywhere but her own paycheck. There's ***** *** ******* * *** **** *** ******** **** **** *** **** **** **** **** **** **** And my roommate, a welfare mother who left her violent ******* husband ** *** ******** and returned ** *** ****** with her year-old baby.
another way that reading this from the future is really weird, is about how my mom was half my current age when she wrote this, and some aspects of her writing style from then make me cringe in the same way I cringe at some of my own writings from that age. But that's not really why I blocked out some of that paragraph, there are some other reasons
My neighborhood, a little enclave of elderly houses and lovely tiny parks, is popular with single mothers. I know so many we could almost have our own community. Some of us are feminists seeking independence, some of us hunger strongly and fiercely for communion with the perfect man. Some of us are somewhere in between. Myself, I've been through all of the above.
I wonder how many of those little parks have become parking spaces by now, and who can afford to live in those elderly houses
But despite differences, our common bond is powerful. When we let it, our strength flows out of us and around each other in a wonderful stream. We frequently care for each other's children as much as we do our own.
Without our interdependence, we would be miserable indeed. Our children would be miserable and isolated, too. But in our shared life, they have brothers and sisters to play with, more than one loving mother and some of them are not entirely devoid of father figures.
I want to write about our lives because I think we have something of value to offer others.
~~~ by the time i began to form many memories that remain with me, that phase of our lives was about over, and, reading from the distant future, may have been our happiest. A few years later the terror in the room was palpable that night as I watched my mom and grandma watch the election results come in. Ronald Reagan is the devil
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