Mid-Century Moderns and Our Mishegas With Takes from the Twenty First Madness

.A (mostly) light-hearted "sociological study" of decades-old dilemmas about American lifestyles and how we resolved them. Or not."Mid-century modern" women expected to be supported by husbands while nesting in the suburbs and birthing babies happily ever after. Feminism and its mirror to our discontents were not yet on the horizon. But soon we were wading into women's lib waters and swimming with the tide as the Second Wave of Feminism crested--- only to find ourselves confused and bemused, as we were being swept back by strong countercurrents, turning the term feminist into the "F" word by the turn of the 21st Century. In the manner of Nora Ephron, Ellen Zelda Kessner shares, with humor and insight, her reflections and those of contributors Judi Culbertson and Sally Wendkos Olds, on Come-and-Go Fashions in: Natural Childbirth; Teaching While Pregnant; Breastfeeding Babies ; Eclectic Home Decorating; Girl Scout Cookie-Mommying (now a 700 million dollar industry); Surviving Kitten Explosions (via a feline fatale); Female Orgasms (As the controversy over the G-Spot continues, French and Italian scientists' ultra sound vaginal scans give "le point G" an ooh-la-la.) In MID-CENTURY MODERNS & OUR MISHEGAS (MADNESS), Kessner also relates her Getting-Out-of-the-House Adventures with both popular and unusual Try-On Careers and Pastimes like: Selling Real Estate (A funny thing happened on the way to Contract---her customer bought another house); Substitute Teaching(She opened the closet door and two bodies, locked in an embrace, fell out); Writing Faux-True Confessions (Even Tennessee Williams did it); Acting in Little Theatre (Where most men prefer the role of the heavy-and most women, the hooker); Founding a Feminist Family Theatre (Getting schoolboys to be inspired by heroines like Eleanor Roosevelt, and willing to tackle the Brontës). With the thought -provoking "Look who's coming to live next door to you?" story,"SPLIT FOR SALE, DESIRABLE NEIGHBORHOOD. . .," she goes into more profound sociological territory ---a scene from l960's suburbia--- then its actual millennium counterpoint. Enjoy samplings of Mid-Century Madness and what follows in chapters like:I WAS A NATURAL CHILDBIRTH DROP-OUTTO BREAST FEED? OR DO THE NATURAL THING-GIVE THE BABY A BOTTLE?WHAT DO WOMEN WANT? THE GREAT ORGASM KERFUFFLEHOW TO KEEP YOUR HUSBAND (WHO'S JUST HAD A RAISE IN HIS CONSCIOUSNESS) FROM SENDING YOU TO WORK "PITY THE POOR SUBSTITUTES-THEIR PROBABLY SOMEONE'S MOTHERGUILTY SECRETS-THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A TRUE CONFESSIONS WRITER