The purse that drives a car
Now that we have it all, what will we do with it?
Of course we don’t have it all. Pay inequity, violence and every evidence of ongoing problems—these are realities. But we do have more than our mothers or grandmothers had: more in terms of opportunities, friendships, support, encouragement, even inspiration. More in terms of work, and the possibilities—nearly infinite—of work. And yet we are still heavily burdened, more so than at any time in the past, by our own expectations, and others’, and by the vast and ever-increasing numbers of our household tasks.
Lacking free or even affordable child care, and with men in our lives who still don’t seem able to do half of what we do at home, or do it half as fast, or half as well, we are up against a wall: long hours to succeed professionally and then long hours operating all the machinery of housekeeping.
Of course, a few of us can afford to hire other women to take care of our children and our households, but only a few. I doubt if our admirable leader, Nancy Pelosi, would have been able to achieve what she has achieved without a devoted full-time caretaker, and we all know the story of Ruth Ginsberg’s husband.
For the rest of us, this season piles buying and wrapping presents on top of everything else.
The domestic machinery that was said decades ago to be the way to liberation has only succeeded in multiplying what we do: towels and sheets washed more often now there is a convenient (but still time consuming) way to do it, more elaborate meals cooked now we have all those gadgets, greater expectations for our children. And so, what has happened to the dream of liberation?
It would have to start with very small steps. Is there someone at home old enough, and biddable enough, to be persuaded to do a load of laundry? Is there another someone with a budding interest in cooking? Is there some way to allow children to play unsupervised, even to venture outdoors alone? Otherwise I don’t know how writers and artists and musicians will be formed, since all creative work demands solitude.
I remember years ago when my sons were small and we were living in a godforsaken suburb with no public transportation of any kind, I called myself, “The purse that drives a car.” Hard for me to believe now with two books to be published next year that that could have been the case. Yet as Tillie Olsen commented in her excellent book, Silences (these books and many others followed my years in the desert), the terrifying expanse that stretches in front of women who are responsible for everything, except our own dreams.
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