Back Story 1

I was a dinosaur from day one. Less than three months after completing my undergraduate degree in three years (Phi Beta Kappa), I was not heading to graduate studies, a high-paying job, or a clinical internship. No, I was off to a small, furnished apartment with pink walls, orange carpet, and a green sofa as a twenty-one year old cultural anomaly: a stay-at-home wife with no children and no disabilities.

Honestly, who can relate to that?

Whatever were we thinking, my fresh-faced young husband—who had to go prematurely gray before people stopped asking if the “man of the house” was home when he answered the door—and I?

Didn’t we know I would be bored sitting at home all day with nothing to do? I mean really nothing to do, because in another swing at radicalism, one of our pre-nuptial agreements was to not have a television for at least three years—the better to spend time together, my dear.

Didn’t we know we’d need more money than he would make? I mean really need money, because another pre-nuptial agreement/experiment was to not go into debt for items like cars or refrigerators or sofas or vacations.

All we had was an eager, vibrant expectation that home was vital for society, and we wanted to give it full-time concentration.

Thus began our adventure as a single-income family with, eventually, eight children and a salary with a current buying power that is still less than the buying power of his first salary. If “our kind” was an endangered species when we started, the group is probably code red extinction level by now.

Our chosen path is unlikely to resonate with, or even appeal to, virtually anyone old enough to read, so my quixotic investment in time, the home and its processes may very well sit dusty on the cyber-shelf. A receptive ping or two bouncing back from distant reaches or mindsets would, of course, not be unwelcome. Even dinosaur bones generate their share of modern discussion.