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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 20, 2013 Sunday
Main Edition
Family's love is part of success
Veronica Buckman; For the AJC
I recently met with a group of young women from Alpharetta, Milton and
Roswell to speak about college and career options. I answered
questions about getting into top schools and spotting hot careers.
As I left, I worried the discussion was incomplete. These were
high-achieving girls who wanted a road map for career success. Ideas
on nurturing a family escaped their concern.
Before the meeting I had spent the holiday talking with my own young
adult daughters about college, work, marriage and kids. Their
91-year-old grandmother had come to visit, and brought strong
opinions. A mother of 12, she expressed how the women's movement had
left today's young women with false impressions of work done by wives
and mothers of the past.
"It was different in my time when I started my family," my
mother-in-law said. "Women could work, go to college --- it's just
that we didn't often aspire to such things. Most of us wanted to be
educated, but were very content as wives and mothers. The domestic
front was our focus. I know I was domesticated!"
She was being self-deprecating. In fact, she was a college graduate
with a degree in chemistry. Now the matriarch of an extended family of
more than 50, including surgeons, lawyers and business leaders, it was
clear she'd done an amazing job.
I thought about my own grandmothers --- Eleanor, a mother of German
stock in Minnesota, and Laura, a Norwegian farm mother nurturing
children, crops and livestock on the North Dakota prairie. Both had
hard-working husbands and homes filled with family.
I thought about my own mother --- Joan, the third daughter of six
children, whose Irish Catholic father, a railroad mechanic, died when
she was 17. Mom started working at 15, riding the trolley to a
Minneapolis meatpacking plant. She later was a manager at Montgomery
Ward, where she met my dad.
And this mother-in-law visiting us, Gladys, had quite a life as well.
Her parents had escaped Armenia to live in the Bronx, where her father
was a textile artist. He died when she was 15, leaving her alone with
her Armenian-speaking mother. They both worked, her mother as a
seamstress, and Gladys went on to Fordham University. That's where she
met my late father-in-law.
If you look at these stories, what might you think of these women?
Their hopes and dreams? Did they find success and fulfillment?
I see hope when I look into the faces of our energetic and creative
young people.Has there ever been so much opportunity for success and
happiness?
If we all take time to imagine the adversity faced by past generations
we can appreciate our situation, and remember that it is in the love
of family that joy most often resides. And that means remembering the
importance of being a good wife and mother.
January 20, 2013 Sunday
Main Edition
Family's love is part of success
Veronica Buckman; For the AJC
I recently met with a group of young women from Alpharetta, Milton and
Roswell to speak about college and career options. I answered
questions about getting into top schools and spotting hot careers.
As I left, I worried the discussion was incomplete. These were
high-achieving girls who wanted a road map for career success. Ideas
on nurturing a family escaped their concern.
Before the meeting I had spent the holiday talking with my own young
adult daughters about college, work, marriage and kids. Their
91-year-old grandmother had come to visit, and brought strong
opinions. A mother of 12, she expressed how the women's movement had
left today's young women with false impressions of work done by wives
and mothers of the past.
"It was different in my time when I started my family," my
mother-in-law said. "Women could work, go to college --- it's just
that we didn't often aspire to such things. Most of us wanted to be
educated, but were very content as wives and mothers. The domestic
front was our focus. I know I was domesticated!"
She was being self-deprecating. In fact, she was a college graduate
with a degree in chemistry. Now the matriarch of an extended family of
more than 50, including surgeons, lawyers and business leaders, it was
clear she'd done an amazing job.
I thought about my own grandmothers --- Eleanor, a mother of German
stock in Minnesota, and Laura, a Norwegian farm mother nurturing
children, crops and livestock on the North Dakota prairie. Both had
hard-working husbands and homes filled with family.
I thought about my own mother --- Joan, the third daughter of six
children, whose Irish Catholic father, a railroad mechanic, died when
she was 17. Mom started working at 15, riding the trolley to a
Minneapolis meatpacking plant. She later was a manager at Montgomery
Ward, where she met my dad.
And this mother-in-law visiting us, Gladys, had quite a life as well.
Her parents had escaped Armenia to live in the Bronx, where her father
was a textile artist. He died when she was 15, leaving her alone with
her Armenian-speaking mother. They both worked, her mother as a
seamstress, and Gladys went on to Fordham University. That's where she
met my late father-in-law.
If you look at these stories, what might you think of these women?
Their hopes and dreams? Did they find success and fulfillment?
I see hope when I look into the faces of our energetic and creative
young people.Has there ever been so much opportunity for success and
happiness?
If we all take time to imagine the adversity faced by past generations
we can appreciate our situation, and remember that it is in the love
of family that joy most often resides. And that means remembering the
importance of being a good wife and mother.