Interview with my mother

        For my interview project I chose to interview a family member, my mother Debra.  I did a face to face interview as I thought it would be more personal.  I really wanted to focus on my mother’s childhood experiences growing up in the 1960’s and what some of her greatest accomplishments and regrets were throughout her life.

        I will be summarizing the interview and what my questions and her responses were.  I asked her what her family was like growing up.  She said that she was the oldest of four children.  Her mother was a stay at home mom and her father worked two jobs to support a large family.  They lived in a small one story house.   Her mother was very loving and took in foster children occasionally.  Up until she was 12 years old, she spent every weekend at her great aunt and uncle’s house who were like second parents to her, they lived a half mile away.  I asked her if she had a good relationship with her father since he worked two jobs and she said not really because she never saw him much, her mother was the primary parent.  But, she said this family life was quite typical in the 1960’s and 70’s.

        A second interview question I asked was if she enjoyed school.  She said her school years were mainly in the mid 1960’s and 1970’s.  She said that in seventh grade, girls were allowed to begin wearing pants.  Up until that point, girls had to wear dresses.  She remembers that girls had to take home ec and boys had to take shop, it was not weird to her at that time, it was normal.  She also mentioned that until she got into high school there no girls sports what so ever so she was never in sports.  I asked her if she was happy that girls were able to wear pants to school and she said she loved it although for a while some girls continued to just wear dresses.

        A third interview question was what where some of her greatest accomplishments and regrets.   She said her number one accomplishment was having her two children.  Her next greatest accomplishment was being able to get a great job at nineteen and stay with it for thirty six years.  She said one of her regrets losing her mother at a young age.  Her mother died when she was seventeen years old.  Because her mother died and her father remarried within the year, she said she married at nineteen.  She says sometimes she wishes she would have dated more before marrying so young.  I asked her if marrying that young was normal at that time.  She said yes, it was normal.  She said today, people are waiting a lot longer to marry.   She thinks society is more accepting of waiting to marry these days.

        My reaction to some of these questions was shock, especially when she talked about her school days.  I grew up hating to wear dresses and I don’t know how well I would have done if I had to wear them in school all the time.  Plus, I have always felt equal to the boys in school since we were able to dress the same.  Also, when I was in school, most of the other students had parents that both worked like I did.  Although, I think it would have been nice to have a stay at home mom.  I cannot imagine being in school and girls were not able to play sports.  Sports for girls was always encouraged and I remember being on a basketball team in sixth grade.

        As I was listening to the stories my mother told about her school days, it made me think about Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards reading “A Day Without Feminism.”  These women talk about a day in 1970 when girls took home ec and boys took shop, my mother lived this and it amazes me.  This reading also talks about how girls could not play little league in elementary school, this is also similar to what my mother told me in the interview.  At this same time, women were homemakers while the men worked, this is the life my mother knew and lived, to her it was normal.  This was the age in which she grew up.  At this time, men had the upper hand and it showed both in the school systems and at home.

        Throughout this interview I am also reminded of the reading “The Social Construction of Gender” by Judith Lorber.  My mother was gendered from birth.  From the moments her parents found out she was a girl, it was dresses from there on out.  Dolls were given to her as gifts and she was cuddled and talked to gently.  This was much different from her brothers who rough housed and were given trucks and toys suitable for boys.  Through my mother’s name, her dress and toys for girls she went from a sex category to a gender status much like Lorber spoke of in her reading.  Although my mother was born in the late 1950’s and I was born in 1981, this same tactic was used for me.  I was given a girl’s name and was bought many dolls.  The only difference was that I did not have to wear dresses if I did not want to.

        This interview made me realize how my mother and I grew up in two very different generations.  Because of this interview I am hoping to hear many more stories of her youth and I enjoy seeing how different her life is today, the possibilities are endless!

Interview with my mother Debra

Baumgardner, Jennifer.  Richards, Amy.  “A Day Without Feminism.” 2000.

Lorber, Judith.  “The Social Construction of Gender.” 1994.