Mom, you were never Donna Reed

I don’t know about you, but being a baby boomer I think we lived through a golden age. Maybe to call ourselves children of the Rock and Roll era would be closer to the truth, the 50’s and the early 60’s. Up until JFK’s assassination and the Vietnam War it was a pretty idyllic time to grow up.

Our lives seemed to be molded by the stories we read and eventually what we watched on TV. Ideals like the Golden Rule, good triumphs over evil, if you do your best you’ll succeed, be courteous, and of course obey all the rules. We had heroes like The Lone Ranger, Hop-A-Long Cassidy, Roy Rodgers, even the beloved Mouseketeers always had a moral to the stories they told and songs they sang. Be good and a good life will follow.

Probably more influential to me were shows like “Father Knows Best”, the “Donna Reed Show”, “Leave It To Beaver”, and of course cute Ricky Nelson and his family. My family didn’t fit the template that I saw presented on those shows. My mother almost always wore pants; those mothers wore dresses and pearls as they prepared lunch boxes for their kids to take to school. Their fathers wore suits when they left for work, or around the house it was slacks and a nice golf shirt. They were doctors, lawyers, even insurance salesmen; my dad was a glass glazier, hard to say and even harder to explain.

It seemed like there was an agreed upon order to your life back then. You went to grade school, high school, and maybe some college. At least enough to get you a job, or a husband, or both. Then it was time to start a family.

Even though I was given the option to “be whatever you want to be”, eventually becoming a wife and mother was the expected path and goal. Actually that was a role I accepted and sought out. The end of my Senior year I did meet the man who would be my husband for over 30 years. Within 2 years after out marriage we had our first daughter and three years later the second that rounded out our little family.

I guess you’d have to say I was taught my parenting skills by watching TV. I knew I didn’t want to raise my kids the way I was raised so I watched TV and listened to the “expert-of-the-month”. Remember Dr Lendon Smith and Dr Spock?? All the while seeing those TV families in the back of my mind. Knowing my family was going to be picture perfect.

Oh my gosh, when it came to food I read Adelle Davis and totally bought into eat right and “Let’s Have Healthy Children.” I shopped the health food stores which were still a novelty and hard to find back then. Halloween, Easter, and Christmas my kids would find their baskets, and stockings filled with carob malt balls, Tiger protein bars, Applettes, and other “good-for-you” treats. “Go ahead, carob tastes just like chocolate.” “Yuh uh, no it doesn’t” I didn’t seem to notice my girls had no desire to jump on my health food band wagon.

Not to be deterred I pushed ahead on my All American Mother course. I baked home made bread from scratch. I sewed matching dresses for my daughters, shirts for my husband that were quite the fashion statement. I even knit him a ski sweater that must of weighed 10 lbs and would of kept him warm to a -40 degree temperature. You know I only remember him wearing that sweater once?!?

I went on school field trips, taught Sunday school, cleaned my house, cooked good meals, and worked in the yard. But some where along the line there was a part of me that wanted to step outside the box that had been created for me. I loved my life but every now and then a bit of the Earth Child would surface. I became fascinated with New Age music and ideas; I read about yoga and practiced it secretly at home. I loved the beautiful flowing clothes (I had missed the Hippie Era) There was a free spirit that just kept slipping out. But all in all I really thought I was living the stereotype of the All American Mom.

Imagine my surprise a few years back, when I was telling a friend about the early years of being a wife and mother. I was explaining how I had nailed my interpretation of the “Apple Pie” mom. My daughter Tracy happened to overhear the conversation and with a big smile, laugh and shake of her head said, “Mom you were NEVER Donna Reed”!! I wasn’t?? Wow, who was I then? And if I wasn’t who was? You know what I’m thinkin’? Nobody was, probably not Donna, not Mrs. Cleaver, not Harriet. We had been sold a false template of what society thought we should be, but in the end who we were was even better, the authentic self, the original spirit that we each are.

I’m glad I had the role models those women represented, a base to build on. But I’m also glad a part of me grew along with that artificial ideal. Yes Ladies, Mother’s of the 60’s and 70’s we did the best we could, made our mistakes, and enjoyed our successes. The result is the generation that is our children, freer than we were, smarter for sure. I am lucky enough to see my grandchildren who are now perched on the edge of adulthood. Environmentally aware, socially compassionate, multifaceted beings that will help change this world for the better.

So okay I wasn’t Donna Reed, I was something better, I did the best I could, and I became ME.