Ownership

Hello, Dear Readers.  I’m checking back in with you all. I’m fine and I hope you all are, as well.

First, let me start by wishing you a very happy, healthy Father’s Day.  I know this holiday might feel a little different from ones in the past.  My Mother’s Day 2020 celebration consisted of me alone with a tuna salad sandwich and Facetime.  But it’s a small price to pay to keep children, grandchildren and grand-dogs safe from this awful virus.

(This is Lola- the newest addition to our family.  She’s a born helper.)

And now here’s my Father’s Day gift to all you guys.

Let’s just hope for a do-over in 2021.

And the second reason I reached out is that I want to get something off my chest.  Ever since these recent protests started, I’ve been thinking about something.

Life is not fair.

Equal rights and equal privileges have never existed.

For anyone.

Just ask any woman.  She’ll tell you how the world treats the sexes differently.

Sometimes better.

But sometimes worse.

My ex husband Bill and I used to argue about this.  As far back as 1977, He honestly believed that the gender playing field was level and there was no bias.

I heartily disagreed with him.

“What could you possibly know about it?” I’d ask him. “You are a tall, white, successful American male. The world automatically treats you with deference and respect.  You have NO idea how the other half lives.”

Case in point: We had a brand new Gaggenau cook top installed in our newly remodeled kitchen in Barrington Hills.  It looked great.  But one of the burners wouldn’t ignite.

I called Gaggenau to report the defect.

Nothing was done.

I called again.

Again, nothing.

Finally, I called and asked to speak to the head honcho in the maintenance department.  He listened to my complaint about the new burner that would not ignite and then, wearily and exasperatedly sighed and said, “Are you sure it’s a Gaggenau cooktop, lady?”

That tore it.

“You call them now!” I told Bill.  “Do you think he would have dared asked a MAN that question?”

It doesn’t sound like much but I won’t bore you with the hundreds of  other times that I have been dismissed, ignored, overlooked and felt invisible just because of my sex.

And don’t get me started on DIVORCED.

Going from a married woman to a divorced one is its own special brand of Hell. Snubbed, ostracized, uninvited by former friends- it’s terribly unfair.

But I bet every woman reading this – be she married or single- has hundreds of anecdotal evidence of her own to tell.

I was not born male, rich or famous.  And I was burdened with a mother who had serious mental health issues.  She took them all out on me.  I left home at seventeen and never looked back.

(Not a great Life Plan.  But hey.  It was better than the alternative.)

I was Jewish, too.  And trust me, living near Kenilworth and its “gentleman’s agreement” of “No Jews Allowed” was a bitter pill to swallow when I was a kid.

And it wasn’t just Kenilworth.  Many of the North Shore towns had unwritten rules about that ugly issue.

My best girl friend lived on a street in Wilmette that our family never would have been welcomed on.

My parents accepted this humiliating- and unlawful- injustice without a murmur of protest.  That’s “just the way it was” and they didn’t want to buck the status quo or make waves.  But I knew at twelve that this inequity sucked.  And I dealt with it in my own way later on in my life.

Hearts and minds don’t change just because it’s the right thing to do.

And I don’t have time to wait for Society to erase prejudices and correct injustices.

But I can take ownership over my own feelings and responsibilities.  I can control my own destiny.

Every single day.  On a case-by-case basis.

That’s the best I can do.