Porch Talk

On this beautiful January-spring day, Kate made a great lunch and dessert for Gerlinde, Charlotte, and me to celebrate Gerlinde's birthday. We sat on the porch, we four seasoned women, vintage hippies, and talked about men, the changes we've seen in San Antonio, and our early marriages. We didn't even talk about politics, all four of us on the same page.

Love's a timely topic, always, no matter your age.  As young brides (17, 18, 18, and 22) we were clueless.  About everything.  We were, as Kate said, a generation of women in the crack between Ozzie and Harriet and the feminist movement.  "Obey" was still in the now-archaic wedding vows--but only for women.  Men took care of the cars and had the higher paying work; women took care of the house, the laundry, shopping, doctors' visits, the kids.  We were not allowed to work when we were pregnant and "showing," so the men we married had better career momentum.

The four of us on Kate's porch talked about our treatment from men in those days ("Clean up the G.....d....  house!" or "Wash those dishes!" or less than happy welcome-homes after giving birth to babies).  We talked about our models of manhood, the few happy long-married couples we know, and whether or not love the way we once envisioned it is even possible.  We talked about how we wished we'd had older friends, mentors, and family nearby to help us navigate those early years.

Back then, we were mostly alone to figure it out by ourselves.  I had to walk to a phone booth to call my mother or wait for their visits to Texas or ours to Georgia, but I had no friends who knew one bit more than I did.  With a few variations, we four navigated many of our rites of passage alone.

We remembered our deferential attitudes toward doctors (mostly men) in childbirth.  We talked about the role of religious beliefs and media models in shaping our attitudes toward husbands, marriage, and authority figures who made the rules.  We were all here in San Antonio at the same time, but we hadn't met each other yet.  "If we had," Kate said, "We'd have all been free much sooner."

We had to wait decades to find older wise women (until we became older wise women ourselves), but it's way better late than never.