Female Supremacy Articles - Page 27

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After my father left the Navy, we moved to the suburbs of Los Angeles, and my mom eventually earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees, then went to work, first as a counselor at a local college, then as an executive at the phone company. She was good at what she did, rose quickly in her various jobs, and got a lot of satisfaction from her professional accomplishments. I didn’t always like it when my mom was gone, but I never doubted that what she was doing was important. At the time, most of the mothers in my neighborhood stayed home, so what my mom was doing was unusual. But my dad was supportive, and my sisters and I were more proud than displaced even when we had to eat dry macaroni and overcooked hot dogs every time it was my sister Betsy’s turn to make dinner. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t go to college and have a career as well as a family of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.

My father’s mother, Grandma Bernadette, also shaped my ideas about what women could accomplish, in ways I think she never would have imagined. Her husband — my grandfather — died of congestive heart failure (he had rheumatic fever as a child) when he was just thirty-seven, leaving her with five children: my dad, who was eleven, and his four sisters, ages twelve to two.