A Side Note

The movie "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" made me feel like a bad mom. Here is this woman with ten kids, no money and a drunk of a husband in the (women are high strung and can't do much of anything) 1950's. So the kids will spill stuff all over the floor and she just smiles and states "it's actually a good thing." The husband drinks away all the money for milk and she just knows it's because he's unhappy due to an accident years and years and years before. She can't even go and meet with her other prizing gal pals due to one incident after the other and she just enjoys what she can. This is based on a true story ... and it makes me feel bad. Toward the end of the movie, they are about to lose the house. Her husband (who has drank away the moola for the mortgage) comes in the bedroom to comfort her and she says "if you can't stand to see me upset. Then just leave." And you know what? He leaves. Oh my. And then she stays with him the rest of her life and just doesn't do much of ANYTHING (never goes beyond Ohio or Indiana aside from one trip to Dallas.) But maybe she was so good because she was constantly in "survival mode" - much like the first generation of immigrants who work really, really hard just for the IDEA of grandkids living a better life. Either way - I do respect the way she made the best out of a really bad situation. I can try and emulate that - and hope that maybe once, just once she lit up with frustration and screamed at the top of her lungs. That would make me feel much better about me.