Behind Every Good Man

by Sara Goodman Confino

“That’s the problem with your generation. Mine knows that you have to tend your own garden before you can tend anyone else’s.”

“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.”

behind every good man is an even better woman.”

For the first time in my life, I was speaking my mind for myself. Not someone else. And it felt like coming home.

“But you have to realize, her sole purpose in life isn’t to make you more comfortable. And I think you started taking her for granted.”

“I did what you told me with the washing machine, but now all my undershirts and shorts and socks are pink.” “Did you separate out all the whites and colors?” “I did. Then I put them in the washing machine.” “Together?” “Well, I only have one washing machine.”

Men liked to feel independent even if you couldn’t trust them to get the details right.

There wasn’t much an ice cream cone couldn’t cure.

Let me use the little transmitter in my uterus to ask all the other women.”

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

“No one asked you to be perfect,” I said. “I wanted you to be a good person.”

I sighed as Debbie snuggled in tight to me, her little body fitting itself perfectly into the nooks of my own. No. 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.

“That’s the secret, you know. You never stop being a mother. Even when your kids are grown.”

That was at least one little girl who would grow up knowing mommies could slay dragons too.