An Old Wife's Tale: My Seven Decades in Love and War

by Midge Decter

"What has happened to me over the course of the past seven decades has in one way or another happened to many if not all present-day American women -- from the almost dizzyingly rapid ringing of changes to the discover of that in our lives which is never changing." This beautifully written book offers a memorable chronicle of American life since the 1940s that is hard to match in sweep, unconventional thought, and hard-won wisdom on subjects ranging from the relations between the sexes to the relations between America and the world. One of the nation's most renowned female conservatives, Midge Decter is known for her frequently controversial stands on modern social issues. An Old Wife's Tale is her thoughtful examination of the lives of American women and men over the last sixty years, as viewed through the lens of her own life. From stories of her youth during World War II -- when Decter and her friends learned that "only the class beauty and the class tramp had no difficulty with the dating system" -- to a surprising and often hilarious picture of what the 1950s were really like to an account of her later roles as a single mother, publishing executive, happily married woman, political iconoclast, and doting grandmother, Decter paints a singular portrait of a life lived on the front lines of American culture. By turns serious, wry, and deeply personal, An Old Wife's Tale brings us an important new perspective on twentieth-century American life.

Genres: Biography Memoir

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2001

Reviews

[Aaron Kleinheksel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first became aware of Midge Decter after reading perhaps her most famous single essay "The Boys on the Beach" https://www.commentary.org/articles/m... describing the nascent homosexual community as she experienced and observed it. It prompted me to explore more of her writing and I learned that Old WIfe's Tale was a great place to begin. Midge began her life as a liberal Democrat but eventually became an early "Neo-Con" and then pretty much a full conservative as her views evolved. She was married to Norman Podhoretz, another conservative public intellect of talent and regard.

OWT is a collection of her writing arranged in a mostly chronological fashion covering the years of her long life (1927-2022). She is delightful and engaging as she deals with the vast societal changes that we have undergone in America from the Depression to our post Cold War era. She focuses much of her attention on women's issues, and I have to say it was enlightening as a man to enter into this world in a way I really haven't up until now. She directs a fair amount of venom towards feminism and the Women's Lib movement, detailing the damage she feels it has done to both women and men. It is difficult to argue. She also spares no mercy for her own generation and their failure in how they raised their children (the Baby Boomers), regarding the Boomer's foolish radicalism and its deleterious effects on society and politics largely a result of their poor upbringing. Midge closes out this book with insightful observations about modern marriage and raising children, both boys and girls. She casts doubt on the common practice of prescribing Ritalin (effectively amphetamines) to boys for "being a boy." She also highlights the frightful way we are sexualizing children at ever younger ages... I'm not sure when she wrote this (OWT was published in 2001), but she was writing from the perspective of an East Coast "elite" at that time, and was she ever correct! That is a cancer that has spread seemingly everywhere across the country now and is playing a significant role in our present political moment (2022).

4 excerpts to provide some taste of her writing:

pgs. 82-82 "Betty Friedan would no doubt take angry issue with my description of women's studies courses - just as she began at some point to deny that the movement was hostile to men - but perhaps had she interviewed as many women's studies majors who were looking for a job as I have, even she might have begun to wonder just what, aside from burnishing the young women's various hostilities, such courses are really doing for them. Needless to say, their professors are doing nicely, thank you.)" YES.

pg.115 (as a life-long reader, this opened my eyes about the book publishing industry and connected many dots, while also prompting a rueful laugh) "Because it was an axiom of the business that women were predominantly the book buyers (and Jewish women at that), and because the majority of the young women employed in publishing were graduates of the 'better' colleges - where feminism reigned - the movement had moved in on the industry in a big way. They managed to convince the powers that be that what displeased them would be bad for business, and what is in a sense at least as important, they managed to take control of the English language. They issued guidelines of acceptable usage which made their way into every copy department and thus positively barbarized the language of a large number of books, especially in the fields of psychology, political science, and social analysis."

pg. 207 "...one very common substitute for genuine pride is the appearance of defiance." This helps to explain much of what we witness among the activist and SJW groups today.

pg. 220 "...'feminism' is a game that is played in comfort only by the members of the upper middle class." So true, and this observation can be equally applied to many other of our modern, frivolous affectations.

[Lexi Wachtveitl · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I wasn't too crazy about this book. Given I was on vacation and had a long plane ride to read into it, I started to see where the author was coming from and where she was taking the reader. After finishing this book I thoroughly enjoyed the perspective of the author and the insight the book created to a topic I never have much thought to.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rereading and enjoying it again as of March, 2010. Her commonsense approach to social upheaval and exposure of the great errors wrought by the feminist movement have always delighted me. A great glimpse into the early days of neoconservatism and its great personalities in NYC.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written, colorful memoir by an important contributor to American conservatism (among other things).