I know all about the facts of life
And I don’t think much of them
Dodie Smith

When I was young my mother groomed me to please men. “The only future for women is to become an obedient wife and a doting mother, Lynn Ruth,” she said. “Anything else reduces you to a servant either to some man in a business suit or other people's children.”

The definition of a wife at that time was a magician in the kitchen, a lady in the drawing room and a temptress in the bedroom. In my case, it became obvious before I was out of diapers that this was an ever-receding utopia. I had a very stubborn attitude and believed that I was the center of the universe. This does not make for good marriage material in any era, but in the thirties, it was the road to disaster.

My mother was determined that I would follow the feminine pattern for success despite the obvious odds. It was she who insisted I play proper games that would train me for what she considered the only acceptable feminine role in life. She gave me dolls to nurture and a teddy bear to cuddle. I changed the diapers on my dolls, told my teddy stories and began to imagine how I could be a nicer mother than the one I had.

I loved to play house. My favorite toys were a tiny electric stove and a tea set. I brewed endless pots of tea out of burned toast crumbs and water to serve to my dollies so they would wet their pants. The handwriting was already on the wall and even my mother could not ignore it: I was destined to destroy every banquet I ever attempted. Anyone who dares dine at my table to this day should come to dinner equipped with a stomach pump and a large jar of Pepto Bismol as well as something stronger than wine to blot out the unusual flavors I combine in the inevitable casserole I always serve with a salad containing a lot of unusual things that tend to dance and sing when tossed.

When I was forced to go outdoors to play, I wore starched ruffled pinafores with large sashes that tied in the back . “Don’t get dirty,” my mother cautioned me. “I just polished your high top shoes. …and have fun, Lynn Ruth.”

I ventured into the world outside our back porch, my thumb tightly secured between my teeth and tried as hard as I could to keep my dress clean and my shoes unscuffed. I did this by not talking to anyone or encouraging them to invite me to play with them. They might make me do something to get my dress dirty…something really wild like tag. That was the only girl option at that time that used up any energy.

Nice little girls never swung a baseball bat and they certainly didn’t fight. It wasn’t done. I would never have dreamed of throwing snowballs, chasing critters or rolling in the mud. Those were boy things.

My choices outdoors were hopscotch, and Mother May I (but she never let me). Sometimes if Marcia Zimmerman asked me to play, and we were feeling feisty we played hide ’n seek. If Carol Reinstein wanted to play with us, too, we played circle games like a Tisket a Tasket and drop the handkerchief. When I grew just a bit older, my friends and I played dress up in our mother’s clothes. I was very inventive and wrote the productions we presented in our backyard free to anyone who could stand the noise.

The big social event for us was our birthday party. We could play with the boys then because their mothers cleaned them up and dressed them up in ironed white shirts, long pants and plaid bow ties. We played pin the tail on the donkey and spin the bottle and sometimes when our chaperones weren’t looking, we played post office where you got to kiss the little boy of your choice. This was always a problem for me because the only boy I ever wanted to kiss was my daddy. The ones at my party didn’t smell good and they had pimples on their faces.

As I grew older, I was brainwashed into believing that the only acceptable role in life was marriage. My mother sent me to cooking school and she supplemented that curriculum with her own culinary secrets each night when I helped her prepare dinner. She enrolled me in modeling school and I learned to walk in three-inch heels with a book on my head. She insisted I attend Marie Bollinger’s ballroom dance class where I stood on the sidelines with all the other misfits and watched the in-crowd do the polka. It became apparent early on that my father would have to support me the rest of his life and when he died, or I would have to go on welfare. My mother swears that is what gave him ulcers.

My mother was certain that the root of my social inadequacy was that I didn’t dress properly. “You have no style,” she informed me. It was pretty hard to have “style” when the dress of the day was a long, narrow pegged skirt, heavy wool bobby socks, saddle shoes (for school) or penny loafers (for dress) and a baggy cashmere sweater with a sorority pin perched on the tip of your bosom (assuming you HAD a bosom and I did not.) My mother took me to the lingerie department at LaSalle and Cooks and a large woman with gray hair, evil breath and a tape measure draped around her neck measured me. “I don’t think she is ready for a brassiere yet,” she told my mother.

“But she is fifteen years old,” said my mother.

The woman chewed her pencil and gazed at my potbelly filled with my mother’s magic casseroles, crusty schnecken and those delectable kugels that melted in my mouth. “Her stomach is very distended,” said the lady. “Is she bothered by excessive flatulence?”

So it was that my mother purchased an Edith Lance bra for me size 30 AAA and a boned prison camp referred to as a foundation in a 36 buxom. “That should get her in shape,” said the lady.

“I hope so,” said my mother. “If she doesn’t begin to look a little more
glamorous she will be an old maid.”

“I never married, “ said the large woman. “And I am very happy.”

My mother blinked. “You are!” she exclaimed.

By this time I was ready to go to formal dances; very exciting events for me. My mother bought me a purple strapless ballerina length gown with purple satin shoes to match. She also forced me to wear a Merry Widow undergarment to nip in my potbelly and push some of my baby fat upwards into my upper regions. When I donned this torture chamber my bosom was forced into two lethal cones that could wound anyone not wearing a bullet- proof vest. Once the merry widow was hooked (and it took two people to accomplish this) my dress was dropped over my head into place. I tied a matching ribbon around my neck, wore a matching band in my hair and finished the outfit with an ankle bracelet engraved with my initials. Any young man that got close enough to read those three letters was considered committed and the next thing I knew I was engaged to a very near-sighted young man from New York City. He had been attempting to peer into my eyes.

Every young lady who grew up when I did had the same attitude and submitted to the same tortures to trick some unsuspecting young man into supporting them for the rest of their lives. The one I got, managed to trick ME into supporting HIM through college and then was smart enough to get out before I had time to cook him one of my creative meals.

And then it was the sixties and the feminine world turned upside down. We were liberated. No bras. No morals. No limits. Women’s rites were transformed into women’s RIGHTS, the ones we use now to run the world the way it should have been run in the first place.

The heart of a woman, like the diamond
Has light treasured in it
O.O. McLean