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Valium wasn’t a huge hit among American housewives in the ‘60s because they were loving every minute of it.
Wow, I'd forgotten about that. Back then, it wasn't uncommon for married women to need valium just to get through their day and week. Instead of advising women to get out of a bad marriage, doctors simply prescribed valium. Because "everyone" knew, that women didn't have options. No careers in many cases, no job skills hardly, if at all, no place to go. There weren't women's shelters back then. And even if divorce were an option, there was a strong stigma about it. So women were trapped, and valium was the solution. OY!
Not really. Subsequently divorces were way up in the 70s and 80s, since then divorces have dropped off.
Before you were expected to get married in your early 20s, and you don't really know what you want at that age. So a bunch of people ended up in unhappy marriages, with little way to escape.
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Wow, I'd forgotten about that. Back then, it wasn't uncommon for married women to need valium just to get through their day and week. Instead of advising women to get out of a bad marriage, doctors simply prescribed valium. Because "everyone" knew, that women didn't have options. No careers in many cases, no job skills hardly, if at all, no place to go. There weren't women's shelters back then. And even if divorce were an option, there was a strong stigma about it. So women were trapped, and valium was the solution. OY!
My Mom was into amphetamines. I don't think that whatever she was taking was necessarily legal, but it was easy to get. Uppers to get you through the day, downers to get you to sleep at night. Everybody chain smoked. I have a photo somewhere of me around age 5-6, standing by the ugly yellowish sofa smiling for the camera and my Mom is lounging on it behind me smoking a cigarette and looking in another direction with a cold frown on her face.
But that was more late 70s through the 80s.
One thing I can say about mid-20th-century marriages is that there was a lot of "pretend everything is fine." But more honest perspectives are not at all hard to find, if you peel back the very surface of matters.
And then there were the gelatin based atrocities... These should have been a sign of the apocalypse. Sane women who are not doped out of their minds, don't suspend random food in jello and refer to it as "salad."
(LOL OK I admit, that one is just my trauma talking. But seriously bits of uncooked hot dog do not belong in a bundt pan shaped jello glob. It's a cry for help.)
Before you were expected to get married in your early 20s, and you don't really know what you want at that age.
I'm not sure this is something that improves with age. It seems like a lot of people don't know what they want, but they stick with something because they either don't, or think they don't have other options. And also because they've been taught to tough it out. Sometimes things don't get better, but the unknown is scarier.
I'm not sure this is something that improves with age. It seems like a lot of people don't know what they want, but they stick with something because they either don't, or think they don't have other options. And also because they've been taught to tough it out. Sometimes things don't get better, but the unknown is scarier.
I totally agree that can happen. But I think overall, and based upon marriage/divorce numbers/trends, that marrying later works out better overall.
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I'm not sure this is something that improves with age. It seems like a lot of people don't know what they want, but they stick with something because they either don't, or think they don't have other options. And also because they've been taught to tough it out. Sometimes things don't get better, but the unknown is scarier.
I think it might be useful to consider a distinction between feeling that you are at a crossroads to make a decision, versus just dealing with whatever is in place day after day. In deciding whether to engage in a new relationship, or to take a next step in escalating one, those feel like decision points. Just going with an established (in one's youth) relationship is choosing NOT to change the status quo, it's a passive thing and it doesn't feel like a decision being made.
When I became single again at 36, I would agree with you that I didn't really know what I wanted. But I sure as heck knew a lot about what I did NOT want, and I exercised more care not to end up letting it into my life. I didn't expect to marry again, and it took an unusually good match with a very good man to convince me otherwise.
The past was neither easier nor more difficult than the present, but it was more formulaic. A graduate from a top-tier school, with a good GPA, would likely have no difficulties securing a good job, right out of college. It wasn't necessary to further "distinguish" oneself. Today, such graduates are not only common, but often regarded as being inferior to those of worse schools, with worse grades, whose resumes are more "interesting". And what is true in one sphere of human relations, is largely true in others... starting a business, finding a romantic partner and so on.
Being less formulaic, today's society values far more, the charisma of the individual: how he or she presents him/herself, the soft-skills, the extra-curriculars, the pithy and the piquant. Whether trying to get into grad school, to get a scholarship, to get a job, to get a promotion, to be elected to the city council, to get a date and to reach the second date... it's not our money, our measurements, our diplomas, our list of publications, but how we carry ourselves.
This is an opportunity for some, but a curse for others. How we react to modernity, depends on which side we personally find ourselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fleetiebelle
...this mid-century idea of the happy housewife really only existed for a short time. In the past men *and* women worked very hard to take care of home and family. ...
Quoting out of context (with apologies), to note that the mid 20th century was something of a bubble of prosperity for the Working Classes in the Western world. It began with broadbased unionization and the emergence of labor-saving technologies (electricity, in particular), sometime maybe around 1920. It concluded, or at least abated, by the 1970s, when the Third World started catching up, and Western working-class salaries started to slip. So much of our modern beliefs about family dynamics, dating and relationships, work and retirement and so on, are rooted in this mid 20th century bubble. Perhaps as the 21st century continues, we will find a return to the mores and pressures that resemble those of our great-great-grandparents and prior.
The past was neither easier nor more difficult than the present, but it was more formulaic. A graduate from a top-tier school, with a good GPA, would likely have no difficulties securing a good job, right out of college. It wasn't necessary to further "distinguish" oneself.
Though I don't agree with everything you posted, you raise a good point. What would happen if some people actually saw statistics for what they were, in the proper context? I'll never forget meeting someone with a great salary who only had a GED. It was nice meeting someone who earned a liveable wage w/o higher education, but my first thought was, "They'd never look at my resume if I had a GED." I was amazed; other people would be upset and envious. It is what it is. Stuff like that is why employers don't like employees discussing salary and background.
I love it when I see a headline about a place revamping their hiring process. One group almost always thinks they'll be on the losing end of this, but if you read between the lines, it's usually a step back under the guise of progress. A step back for some--the stats quo for others.
Some people would rather a good thing end than to allow others to share in prosperity.
The past was neither easier nor more difficult than the present, but it was more formulaic. A graduate from a top-tier school, with a good GPA, would likely have no difficulties securing a good job, right out of college. It wasn't necessary to further "distinguish" oneself. Today, such graduates are not only common, but often regarded as being inferior to those of worse schools, with worse grades, whose resumes are more "interesting". And what is true in one sphere of human relations, is largely true in others... starting a business, finding a romantic partner and so on.
Being less formulaic, today's society values far more, the charisma of the individual: how he or she presents him/herself, the soft-skills, the extra-curriculars, the pithy and the piquant. Whether trying to get into grad school, to get a scholarship, to get a job, to get a promotion, to be elected to the city council, to get a date and to reach the second date... it's not our money, our measurements, our diplomas, our list of publications, but how we carry ourselves.
This is an opportunity for some, but a curse for others. How we react to modernity, depends on which side we personally find ourselves.
Quoting out of context (with apologies), to note that the mid 20th century was something of a bubble of prosperity for the Working Classes in the Western world. It began with broadbased unionization and the emergence of labor-saving technologies (electricity, in particular), sometime maybe around 1920. It concluded, or at least abated, by the 1970s, when the Third World started catching up, and Western working-class salaries started to slip. So much of our modern beliefs about family dynamics, dating and relationships, work and retirement and so on, are rooted in this mid 20th century bubble. Perhaps as the 21st century continues, we will find a return to the mores and pressures that resemble those of our great-great-grandparents and prior.
I don't know that I agree charisma was less important, but its a really interesting observation. Definitely we are in less structured world. That makes dating/relationships more complicated.
The 50s and early 60s were relatively easy for the blue collar middle class as the rest of the civilized world was in ruins from WWII. We really had no serious competition.
I think we thought our issues with dating and relationships were complicated at the time. They are universal.
But today's young have so many more choices than we had which must complicate their decision-making process.
Agree. But the fact remains, my generation (the Boomers) did not "date." At least in Southern California we did not "date." We never learned how to date. When I entered college in September 1969 we "hung out." We did things too early in the "relationship" and only occasionally did it lead to a real relationship. 25 years later when I re-entered the dating scene (or tried to), things were worse. Then with online dating things got even worse. So in that sense, dating and relationships were "a lot easier" than now, but they've never really been that easy. Maybe in the 50's, but in my experience not in the 60's. Not at all.
The way I look at it now, we should have insisted on more formal dating back then. A longer period of dating. Getting to know someone instead of jumping in too soon. However, the times were nuts and we were figuring things out based upon what was happening in the culture, which was largely chaos IMO.
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