Redstocking Grandma

November 12, 2007

Mary Virginia Nolan was born August 11, 1921 in Brooklyn, NY. She is the second oldest of 8 children; she has five brothers and two sisters. One sister, Veronica, died at 2 years old. She grew up in Queens Village, NY. Her dad, a lawyer, died when she was 17 after being seriously ill most of her teenage years. Mary was always the super-responsible oldest daughter, trying to help her mom anyway she could. She attended Our Lady of Wisdom Academy in Ozone Park. She has kept up with her high school friends all her life. She was an excellent student and planned to attend college; she wanted to be a journalist. Her father's death changed everything, and she instead went to secretarial school and worked as a secretary. In her early 20's she attended Queens College at night, but stopped taking classes after she contacted pneumonia.

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In the late 60s and early 70s, I belonged to Redstockings, a NYC feminist group. Becoming a grandma to 9 grandkids since 2007 has resurrected my 60s activism, but made me increasingly critical about what passes for feminism. My misgivings at age 25 have been prescient.

Feminists became the unwitting handmaidens of corporate capitalism. Once huge numbers of women entered the paid work force, wages stagnated. You were no longer able to support a family on one well paying union job. Women increasingly were forced to work. The option of staying home with your children became increasingly unaffordable. The government used to pay women to stay home with their young kids. The desirability of having one parent at home with young children has been derided as impractical.

Early activists emphasized abortion over child care. Now we psychiatric drug our kids into obedience to the most child unfriendly nation on earth. Upper and middle class women in the US are might be far better off. But poor women and children are worse off.

Being a full-time mother to my four brilliant daughters for 16 years and a nanny to my oldest grandson were the best years of my life. Being with young kids is my bliss.

Families are my passion. My parents were both the oldest of 7. I have 5 younger brothers, 4 daughters, 4 sons-in-law, 9 grandkids,10 and under. The oldest of 45 first cousins, I have 11 nieces and nephews, 12 great nieces and nephews. I have been an editor of psychiatric books, a children's and teen librarian, a childbirth educator, a breastfeeding counselor, a social worker, an internet educator, a full-time mother, a 24/7 caregiver of my mom, a social media activist. I spent three months at Occupy Wall Street as a volunteer social worker, informal mom, big sister, aunt, grandma.