NewWork Opinion
					Home

I was raised by Swedish women. Staid and strong Swedish women. Women who hefted in at thirty and forty pounds over fashionable weights. Women who put on shapeless house dresses in the morning and added colored bib aprons for supper time. Women who said complex things first in Swedish, and then translated themselves for the sake of little boys. That is who raised me: Swedish women.

The tone setters were in their sixties when I was five. They had come from the farms of Sweden, married the boys down the road, allowed them to settle Minnesota farms, and then pushed them to the big cities. Two of them were my very own, Anna the great aunt, and Amanda the grandmother. The others appeared from time to time, as nameless as they were shapeless. "You remember me," they would say, although I did not remember them, or I remembered all of them, not as individuals but as a species, with their floating vowels, their down turned, placid, beaming faces shining on me with the warmth of secondary suns.

"This is my cousin," Amanda would say. Or "our neighbor from Milaca." "She goes to our church." Or "we knew each other in the old country." And they would beam at each other in joy that they should have been so fortunate to know each other then and still know each other now.

The next generation of Swedish women was in transition. Not quite the same heft to their bodies. Physically they resembled their mothers, but what their mothers thought a woman's destined shape, they referred to as "overweight," and dieted to correct. Although the housecoat was still the preferred garment, they enjoyed dressing fashionably, went out to supper for pleasure. My mother, my aunts, a peckish flock more in tune with the new world than the old, Swedish spoken a little more slowly and only for the sake of the old folk, or to keep something secret from their children.

But they were true daughters of that first generation. These women could pinpoint the center of the universe. In a world that had moved from horses to automobiles, from slow moving mail trains to airplanes, from the backyard fence to telephones, from stilted newspapers to fluid radio, these women never lost their orientation. They knew there was one purpose to all of the technological advances, military forays, governmental upheavals. That purpose was the good of the family. And they, the ultimate guardians of that good, were the rulers of the very center of the universe.

Men were useful. They could be sent out to do peripheral tasks. It made little difference in my Swedish family what the men did. I only found out about their jobs by accident. It was unimportant. It was a task on the edge of the universe. It made money, which money would be allocated by the woman for the good of the family. The women would discuss these decisions with one another, offer advice, criticize each others judgment, and then make and announce to the men their decisions. "We will be having new curtains. Anna thinks we should." "Agnes and mother agree. It will be a good idea to find a new house." And the ultimate line, the final word. "Ruth says..." My mother has spoken. No one in the family argues with that. All men retreat to workshop corners. Even the old women defer to that opinion.

As a small boy I accepted without question this cosmology of feminine dominance over a home centered universe. It suited me well. My father and uncles never complained. They saw their task in life as "bringing home the bacon," or "putting bread on the table." You did that and your children honored you. After a plentiful supper you snoozed in your very own overstuffed chair, and on the weekends you could go fishing, visit the cabin, or, at the very least, proudly and slowly cut your own plot of grass, water it with arcing sprays from the dignity of the porch.

You did that and the women appreciated you. "Ruth will like this," Charlie would say. So we did whatever the task was, courting her favor. Since the queen is pleased at what improves the home, we men will please the queen, not for the sake of the queen, but for the sake of the home.

Then, I grew up and found myself in a different world with a different orientation. Business was the center, the family peripheral. What the men did was important, and being "just a housewife" did not provoke much interest or respect in social gatherings. Home was a stopover and resting place. A person, male or female, was home only long enough to recover, for the business had to prosper, or if it was already prosperous, had to increase its marketshare. If I am clever enough to run one successful coffee shop, then I must run a small chain of coffee shops, and then I must franchise my coffee shop. If I am a salesperson, then I must be the best salesperson, unless I am already the best salesperson, then I must become an even better salesperson.

In all of this a shift has occurred of earthquake proportions and I do not think we have noticed. The center of the universe has been moved one hundred trillion light years, and the astronomers are blind to it. The sun has begun to rise in the west, and there has been no comment.

We no longer are engaged in business in order to take care of ourselves, live lives of loving fullness, bask in the richness of community warmth, and be able to afford a remarkable piece of apple pie. We are engaged in business for the sake of the business. I don't want to do business, for the sake of doing business. I do not want to earn money for the sake of making money. I am willing to do any of it and all of it, for the sake of the center of the universe: the home. I want time and resources and energy to go to a great play, sit forever at a track meet waiting for David to take third in the conference at the pole vault, turn up the stereo and soak in Paul Simon from the couch, have four people over for a breakfast that lasts until after lunch, devote a day to cross country skiing and three days to sailing a boat.

This is not simply a matter of predilections, desires and tastes. It is a matter of cosmology. Where is the center of the universe? Is business a way I support my personal life and provide products and services for the good of other people and their personal lives? Or is business the primary entity, and I and my family fuel for its machine?

Oh how they would wonder at the question, the women who raised me. Hands would flutter under aprons at the very idea that I am pondering this. They would shake their heads, tuttle to one another about my ignorance, express concern for my sanity, remark on how little I had learned from all that they had tried to teach. Eye would meet eye in womanly understanding and disdain for chronic male obtuseness.

But they would not hurt my feelings. Whatever they said, they would say in Swedish.

The author of this essay is John Cowan. He has written two books of similar essays: Small Decencies and The Common Table Each is approximately 160 pages in paperback. To purchase either book by mail send a check for $10 per book to him at 1498 Goodrich, St. Paul, MN 55105. Price will be negotiated for any order over 20 books. If you wish to discuss consulting or speaking engagements or attendance at a workshop he may be reached by e-mail. His address is Johnedie@aol.com

More essays by John Cowan

Home

---

Copyright © 1995-2007 Gary Johnson Communications. All rights reserved. BraveNewWorkWorld, NewWork, NewWork News, Careers in the NewWork World, WITNE, and WITNE: Women in the New Economy are trademarks of Gary Johnson Communications.