How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [54]
She shook her head as she bent over the dishes again. “You no like me,” she muttered. “No can cry ’bout everything. People hurt you too much.”
She was right. I did cry too much. I was weak.
This particular article was about birth control. My parents wouldn’t sign the consent form for sixth-grade sex ed class—nor did they give me an alternate education at home. They thought that if I knew about the mechanics of condoms, then I would run out and sleep with the entire middle school lacrosse team.
Or maybe my parents were all too aware of the hot intent lying beneath my demure surface. My friends’ parents—even the one whose family never missed Sunday Mass—let them have posters of Patrick Swayze or half-naked military men on their walls. I hid my perversions, photos from TeenBeat of Michael J. Fox and Kirk Cameron, under the paper lining of my dresser drawers, the only place my nosy mother would never look.
What was it that my parents wanted for me? To go to college, pristine as the day I was born, and find Prince Charming hiding in a biology class. A future M.D. snagged while young and geeky.
But what I wanted was to live on an island in the South Pacific like Margaret Mead. Or to be Anaïs Nin living with Henry and June, or the notorious Bettie Page pinned up on soldiers’ lockers. Mata Hari using her wiles to spy for the government, or a scientist like Rosalind Franklin, who helped discover DNA—only I’d make sure I got credit. I grew up counting the days until childhood ended, when I would no longer have to be good.
I needed to learn about condoms.
The birth control article was easy to find, tucked away among scraps of papers in the daily mail nest my father piled up by his easy chair. Its glossy page was a beacon. I slipped it under my shirt and went into the bathroom to read it. It’s only information, I reminded myself. I futilely pushed down on the broken door lock.
I heard my mother in my head. “Baka-tare! Stupid girl. What you doing?”
“Shut up,” I told that voice. “I’ll do what I want.”
I read the article, my heart beating so hard I could feel the pulse in my tongue.
A knock sounded on the bathroom door. “Just a minute!” I called out.
“What doing?” Mom’s voice was suspicious, and I knew I’d been found out.
“Going to the bathroom, of course. Can’t I have a little privacy?” I said anyway, sticking the magazine under the sink.
The door opened. Mom’s eyes went to the sink cabinet, which she must have heard shut. She opened it up and took out the article. “I knew you go find this when I tell you no.” Mom gasped as her eyes fell on the photos of a condom being placed over a banana. “You no-good sneak. What’s matter you?”
“They teach this stuff in science class!” I yelled. “It’s no big deal.”
She looked at me like I’d been caught robbing a bank. “You gonna be bad, huh?” She shook her head, then shut the door.
From then on, I was more careful. Dad, for all his blustering, was easy to fool. He forgot why he was mad in an hour. My mother did not. For a week, I didn’t exist to her. She refused to talk to me.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, Helena, I made a list of Things I Would Not Do Like My Parents. Number One: I would not freeze her out to punish her. Number Two: I would teach her to do anything a boy could do. And more.
I finished high school without incident. I got good grades. I did my chores. If I ditched class, it was because I was an office monitor and doctored the records so no one found out.
I married the first boy I ever kissed. Exactly as my mother had told me I should. Because I, Suiko Morgan, also known as Sue, was a good girl. With morals that meant nothing to me.
And then everything really went to hell.
In the majority of instances, working outside the home is frowned upon. If your husband wanted to have an independent, working woman, he would have married an American. The Wife lives within the home, keeping it tidy and organized, preparing meals for the family, and keeping the children clean. In this way, you must live