Behind Every Good Man

by Sara Goodman Confino

Today, I want you to realize that women don’t want to just do what their husbands tell them to.” “Then what do women want?” I thought of my mother, moving out under the pretense of helping me. Would she have left my father if my life hadn’t imploded, providing the perfect opportunity? And of Nancy, who had to hide her handiness from her husband, lying to protect his fragile ego and pocket the money a repairman would get. Of Fran, who was now struggling to get by on her own. And of myself. My situation could turn on a dime once we went to court and I knew it. “Freedom. Self-sufficiency. Respect for who we are, not who other people want us to be. The same life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that this country promises men.”

“Don’t underestimate what determined women can do.”

I did this for her as much as for me. Because I wanted this little girl to grow up to know she could do so much more than just marry well and make the perfect brisket. I wanted her to see that she could do anything, be anything, from a wife and mother to an astronaut. Okay, maybe not an astronaut. I’d worry too much. But the doors that had been locked for my mother’s generation were merely shut firmly for me. And by the time Debbie grew up, I wanted them open, so she could walk right through, to whatever future she wanted. Because she deserved to be the person she wanted to be, not just who the world expected her to be.