I started this post as a comment on Dr. G's blog about her take on "The Girls Who Went Away", but it grew out of the box there, so I'm planting it here instead.

I don't see the interviews as anything like sour grapes, nor do I read it as a stepping off point for discussion of a perceived backlash that now has women forced to parent. (Although broadening the scope may be helpful to those in 2006 and beyond.)

For me, it's a period piece ... painful pun, I know ... and it's the history that gets me. The history presented, for the first time as far as I've seen, in a context that speaks to those who were victims of the times.

The issue for me was obviously different from the women in the book, as I did not go away, nor did I relinquish.

What hit me so hard was the brand new understanding I got from it of just how set up my generation was, and how until now, age 55, I'd not grasped that fact.

Realizing that so much that happened to us was NOT OUR FAULT, has been a epiphany to many, I would guess. Actually being able to point at blame and say, "Hey! A-holes! You own this cr-p, not me. I didn't screw up. You set me up!" is an amazing feeling.

It's like we've been doing a life sentance for a crime we confessed to, then find out we're not guilty AT ALL ... never have been.

Relief and anger. Anger and relief. Wow.

(And, yes, I do know that anger is often very positive and constructive.)

Everyone, from Life Magazine to Chet Huntly to Miss Nancy of Romper Room Fame, insisted since we were born that we came into the world lucky ... the war was over, having been fought on our behalf (lucky us) by the generation ahead, rationing was finished, the economy was booming so we were baptized in stuff, stuff and more stuff ... and weren't we lucky? No one ever had it as good as we did, and My! God! we were lucky.

I don't know about everyone else, but I would venture a guess that many of us never thought to question the quality or reality of the wonderful luck of the timing of our appearance on the planet or the oodles of gratitude we owed. It was simply part and parcel of the 50's ... sloshing over into the 60s.

Then, of course, things started going wrong and whole bunch of us got knocked up, therefore getting our futures amputated (and horribly disappointing our parents ... how rude, after they'd won that war and all), and another bunch got shipped off to a stupid war (There's no such thing as a stupid war!) and lost other parts of themselves or died, but the perfect kids in the perfect time weren't to focus on all that ... NO! We're the Cleavers and the Nelsons, and eventually the Bradys and knocked up and limbless aren't options.

Any, hey! We're still that lucky generation ... aren't we.

Sure we are! We've got nothing to complain about, and we were raised to have perfectly good bootstraps.

Eventually we were called spoiled brats by those older because, after all, we'd had it so easy ... no capital 'W' war, and all ... and when it came our turn to step up and fight and die, we threw little tizzy fits and protests. The nerve!

And as for sex, were we stupid, or something? Yes, of course, sex was everywhere and really taking off as a marketing tool, so was rammed down our throats every day (Pardon the wording, but it seems to fit.), but it wasn't meant for us to take seriously: Just buy the goods, but keep your knees together. Good girl! And don't even think about asking for a way to protect yourself, because we can't have that ... it would send the wrong message!

I was a special time, no doubt.

This, I think, is why the book hasn't hit the good Doc upside the head with the sack of nickels it pounded me with. It wasn't her time. She wasn't set up, and she never had to take the fall for a world that was just plain wrong ... smiling and waving like a Prom Queen in a Caddy convertible the whole time.

She's not angry because she doesn't have this to be angry about. Fair enough.