Tough Women

Everyone has pet peeves and I have mine. Occasionally I will have a discussion with other women in which they imply that somehow women had no real internal strength until the coming of 1960's feminism. Usually it is a young woman speaking and she expresses gratitude for being born in an era when she is allowed to be 'a strong woman."

Um...have these ladies never read books written by women prior to the 1960's or studied history? Simply because our fore mothers' daily lives were not written down in history books does not mean that they were weak, helpless creatures. In fact, I would imagine that our female ancestors had more internal fortitude then any modern young woman today.

The majority of our fore mothers were not sitting around bored, drinking tea and embroidering beautiful tapestries. They were resilient women who endured a lot of suffering without complaint. I dare say that they would be a bit contemptuous of their descendants for having become so weak and whiny.

Think logically for a moment about life before the twentieth century. Poverty was common. Not simply the belt tightening kind of poverty but intense suffering and hunger. Men and women both were expected to work hard for their bread. Even those women who did not have to work outside the home had to do household work without the appliances that we depend on today. There was no washing machine or bread maker. You couldn't just turn on the oven. You had to heat up a wood or coal stove. Your child needs winter clothes? Sister, you better know how to sew.

In 1853, chloroform was invented and it was administered to Queen Victoria for the birth of her seventh child. Up until that time, women often went without any pain medicine during labor. Pain was a fact of life and you simply endured it. By the way, Doctors did not understand that they should wash their hands before attending a birth until 1840! I remember my grandmother telling me that her mother-who was a midwife early in the twentieth century- told her that 'a woman in labor is a hair's breadth from death. '

Even if you did give birth safely, there was a real possibility that your child might not make it to adulthood. There were no antibiotics before the twentieth century. Imagine all the times that your child has needed antibiotics today. One of my own children suffered a bout of pneumonia as a toddler. If we had lived a hundred years ago, my son might not have reached his current age.

Due to the fact that hardships was common, you would not be aware at how difficult your life was. In fact, if you had shelter, adequate food and clothing, you would count yourself highly blessed no matter how hard you had to work. Society before our modern age seems to have disproved of excessive complaining and so you would probably not consider venting your problems out loud. You couldn't even complain that your life as a woman was harder then a man's because your husband's life would have been as difficult as you.

We tend to only appreciate those individuals who make it into the history books. Let's face it, before the modern era there were few women philosophers, painters, explorers or scientist. Some of this was no doubt caused by sexism but I think that females of long ago were simply too darned busy to do the types of activities that get one immortalized by history. That doesn't mean that they weren't tough, capable females who could probably whip the stuffing out of us modern women.

So the next time you hear a young woman say, "Women who were born long ago weren't allowed to be strong women." Or even worse "I wish that I lived long ago so I could have teas and sew quilts." Throw one of these books by women writers at her and tell her to actually learn something about the hardy women who came before us.

David Copperfield

I remember clearly the first time that I discovered Dickens-a writer that I have developed a life long love affair with. I was a geeky(not much has changed), shy high school girl who spent most of her free time wandering the school's library in search of something to read. It was a hard choice for me, I wanted to read everything but I dreaded checking out a book only to find out half way that it was a boring read. What compelled me to pick such a thick novel as David Copperfield, I don't know. I suspect that I chose it due to its thickness. After all, I wasn't likely to finish it in one study hall.

Thanks to a very thorough public school education, I had never heard of Dickens. So, I had no preconceived notions about him or his writing. Yes, I had heard of Scrooge but I certainly didn't know who had written A Christmas Carol.

I fell in love with the novel. Few authors have made characters come as alive or seem as real as Dickens manages to do.

Here are just some of the wonderful, vibrant characters that will remain in the readers memory:

David's faithful nurse Peggoty

the obsequious and sneaky Uriah Heep

the two women who loved David. First the spoiled and immature Dora and then the wiser more worthy Agnes.

The Micawbers-based on Dickens own family. They end up in debtor's prison just like Dickens own father did

The eccentric Betsy Trotwood, David's aunt and eventual guardian

The books plot is simple. It starts with David's birth, his mother's marriage to his cruel stepfather, David's difficult youth and his eventual escape to his aunt Betsy. From there he is educated, marries twice and becomes a novelist. It is a plot summary that on the surface, doesn't sound very exciting. But the book is wonderful.

Parts of the novel are dark. Dickens deals with the very real problems of child abuse, cruelty, poverty and debtor's prison. Yet, Dickens also has a strongly developed sense of the ludicrous and therefore, is able to find humor in even the darkest parts of his novel. He points out the hypocrisy of the Victorian age and yet is sympathetic to his characters weaknesses.

Overall this is a great novel and one that I think is underrated today.

History for my 4th and 6th grader

I teach my nine and eleven year old from the same history curriculum. This saves me both time and money. I simply require a bit more work from my oldest daughter in terms of research and writing then I do the younger. This year I am trying something brand new. Instead of purchasing a ready made curriculum I created my own using books that I purchased from Amazon. We are studying ancient through the Roman period along this year.

I started with a basic but enjoyable history book. I wanted one that was fun to read as well as informative. So, I chose M.B Synge's History series beginning with On The Shores Of The Great Sea. This book was written in 1903 and is religious in nature. I have to add that I only use this book as a springboard for our study.

After reading Synge's book, I decided to get several supporting books. These good easily be purchased from the library. I split our year into several historical sections that I thought would interest the girls. Thus far we have studied ancient Egypt, and the Phoenicians. We are currently beginning a unit on ancient Greece and will study Greek myths.

Egyptian History Books For My Daughters.

This is a list of the books that I used to support my daughters study of ancient Egypt. If you have an older child I would recommend having your child do research and write a short essay. Kids learn a lot from research.