The women in my family were inherently carers and people pleasers… This meant that they were charming but vulnerable to abuse… My mothers example during my formative years was one of the feminist generation. She worked full time and ran a home. She took a partner, but never married or lived full time with anyone. This meant that as a young woman I saw that women could raise children work and create a home…However the one thing that she did often was to please people, make herself smaller because no one on our street in our lives, had her situation. The male dominance endemic in English society as time passed meant that she was presssured to make herself smaller, more likely to try and please others. This was often at great personal cost to her. She sometimes sought solace in alcohol and promiscuity. Neither do I judge her for this as she was carrying a huge responsibility and outer judgement alone… However the sadest moment that I never will replicate was she married a man later in life who had openly called her a whore in my younger years…She raised his children, worked full time and sacrificed for a Catholic man who disrespected her. This I could not replicate. I understood her reasons, her isolation and her need for support after I had reached adulthood. However it is the one thing that I do differently. I suffered abuse and disrespect and left… She sadly did not… I never spoke to her before she died, the Catholic refused permission for me to do so. She died prematurely, denied treatment and every last possession taken. The Catholic even refused to purchase proper flowers for the funeral. There were many people there, I never went into the service and afterwards as crowds of people laughed and joked wearing pink, I stood quietly alone with my husband. All of her people pleasing rewarded by a party to celebrate her death. Afterwards her appeasement of these people meant that the Catholic man threatened to kill me…..
Within 15 years in England my daughters were murdered, my husband passed away… Yet still I have not followed that one aspect of her beautiful character…