The ERA

I remember when I was young, there was talk about the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). Looking at the timeline, I think that it was around December 1982, when the US Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s decision, thus signaling to the legislatures of still-unratified states that they may continue consideration of ERA during their spring 1982 legislative sessions.

I believe it was then, because my teacher at the time was Mrs. Pooler, and she talked to us about the decision and why it was important. I remember that she was passionate about it. She explained very clearly to my 1st grade self and my mixed 1st & 2nd grade class what this amendment to our Constitution was about.

To my 1st grade ears, it was kind of mind blowing. Girls, like me, who had grown into women were not being paid the same as men? How fair was that when they were as smart as men, worked as hard as men, but were not being paid the same as men. I think that we might have had a rather lengthly discussion in class that day, but I can’t be sure where what she told us began and where my learned knowledge begins.

Sometime later, my mom and I were probably in the car driving somewhere, I heard the news and was reminded about the discussion. I must have told my mom about the discussion. What I told her, I did not know. I just remember that her response was unsatisfying and left me very confused.

She was against the ERA, part of her argument had to so with ‘if women were paid the same’ it would somehow hurt the men that held jobs and had families. I remember being so confused and clearly thinking that my mom was wrong.

At that point, my mom had separated and divorced my father. We lived with my Grandma, she was also divorced and she and my mom both worked in a factory. Money was tight for us, and I knew, because of the discussion I had had in school, that this amendment would help both my mom and grandma out. It would make a difference in their lives if they were paid more. As a first grader, I did not have the words or the wisdom to explain this to my mother.

In the last fight I had with my mother, she was crying and I was angry. She cried and said that she thought that I thought she was stupid. I do not know where this came from exactly. I know that my mom didn’t have a lot of respect for her own mother. My mother found her mother weak; because my grandma did not discipline anything. I think that she also didn’t think that her own mother was very smart.

My mother seemed to also have issues with people that she knew went to college. She never really felt comfortable with my mother in law. My mother never felt that she was a good book learner. She wasn’t, she rarely read for enjoyment or entertainment. Unfortunately, reading is revered as an important pathway in education and in relation to your ability to succeeded in education or anything in life.

Recently, we went and met two long lost cousins that were brothers. Brother 1 was college educated, brother 2 worked in a factory. She preferred brother 2. Even going so far to express a discomfort with Brother 1 that received more education. She saw the less Brother 2 as an underdog because of what he shared with us.

He told us that when the brothers were children, the father always had him outside fixing things and working. His brother would stay inside and read. His father, is seems had made a decision about the boys. It was one that Brother 2 did not complain about. He admires his brother and does in fact think that his brother is smarter.

We were all wrong; the educators, the government, and everyone that bought into how reading is such an important indicator in success, ability and intelligence. So, I can read a book and write a story and be good at it. You know what, I don’t understand how an engine works. I have no clue. So, now how does reading help me? Sure I can read about an engine, but for me, the words could be in Chinese, because I still would not understand how to fix an engine.

We are seeing this reflected now in our society. Good trades people are hard to find. For 30 some years now, our children have been pushed to go to college instead of going into trades. Now we know that not everyone needs to do their education on a college, that there are other talents then just reading a book.

My mom was brilliant in other ways. She knew how to sew. My mom worked for a seamstress for a few years after high school. She was a good seamstress, so good that the woman that owned the business wanted her to succeed her. My mother did not envision that for herself. So, she did not stay working for her. I think my mother then worked in an insurance office for awhile as well. My mom sewed things on and off in her life and always had a sewing machine. When I was little she made a lot of my clothes. When I was a teenager, she made me the dress I wore to my first formal dance. When my first son was baptized, she made him a baptism gown that all my children used. I know that she was intending to make a quilt, the project is still down in her sewing room along with some other things that I spied.

My mother was also a good gardener. She could grow almost anything. I do not remember her killing really anything that she tried to grow. She was also very creative and crafty. She had a very artistic side.

After our big argument, I tried hard to honor my mom’s feelings. My mom and I did not agree anymore about politics. I think that in her own way, she still needed me to need her. I made it a point to ask her opinion on things that I knew that she would feel comfortable advising me about. She needed me to do that for her and I needed to do it for her and for bigger reasons.

My only regret for my mother, is that she would have tried to show her own mother the same type of respect. It is hard for me to respect my own mother when she had problems respecting her mother. The lack of respect has unfortunately seemed to filter down though to me and my sister. I am now working hard to not make the same mistakes with my own children. I do not want to repeat this generational cycle that seems to have started. I do not want my children to think that I am ‘dumb’. Like my mother and my grandmother; I have talents, passions, and intelligence.

This has also made me take a step back and look at this in relation to my own children. They all have their own talents and passions. Success does not mean going to college to find a good job and to be happy. Success comes in different forms than we have been packaging in.