Bea V. Larsen . . . .Commentaries

Bea V. Larsen is a Senior Mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in
Cincinnati, Ohio 
Bea V. Larsen

For a number of years Bea V. Larsen, senior mediator at the Center for Resolution of Disputes in Cincinnati, Ohio [www.cfrdmediation.com], presented weekly commentaries on WVXU radio, both on her professional work as a mediator and on more personal or general experiences. These broadcasts reached thousands of listeners in a number of midwestern states and elicited many comments. This new series of online commentaries will continue that tradition, now broadcast to the world via the internet. Comments, which can be posted directly to this blog, are warmly encouraged. More personal background information can be read in the "Introductions" category below.
 

A Missed Opportunity

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This entry was posted on 5/24/2008 10:00 AM and is filed under Generally Speaking.


    I had an unusual experience last week. In honor of the remarkable life lived by a former high school classmate who recently died, I, along with three other old friends of his, spoke to an audience of young people now attending the same school. Looking back on that occasion, I realize I missed an important opportunity.

    The only woman on the panel, I decided to comment on how the aspirations of boys and girls differed when I was in high school in the 1940s, and to mention and pay homage to two of my high school teachers who caused me to wonder whether my future was actually as limited as I then assumed it was.

     The men with whom I shared the platform, a doctor, a lawyer and an architect, all had made major contributions to the public good. From their earliest days, they could answer the ubiquitous question: and what are you going to be when you grow up? Perhaps when very young they said fireman or policeman. Was I ever asked the question or was there no need to ask a little girl? But had I been asked as I entered my teen years, what might I have answered: teacher? nurse? And, of course: wife and mother. They, in teen years would likely have said: doctor, lawyer or architect. We looked at our place in the world differently. I knew no women lawyers, architects or doctors.

    The message I received from my parents and the world around me in those pre-college years was clear:

    •    Be smart and get a good education, for you may have to support your family if          your husband dies or falls ill.
    •    Be good, which meant no sex before marriage.
    •    Be pretty, and don’t act too smart, so you can attract the right man and marry by          twenty.

    These early messages were not easily discarded, and I married at twenty.
In my mid-thirties, as the mother of three, I was swept along by the 1960s woman’s movement and entered law school. But when quizzed by friends about how I would use a law degree, this Perry Mason devotee responded: well, if I were a man I would practice criminal law.
   
    Was this personal story I told my young audience meaningful as anything other than a history lesson?  Do girls today see themselves standing on equal footing with their brothers? Is the message now the same for sons and daughters?
   
    •    Be smart and get a good education.
    •    Practice safe sex.
    •    Attractive people get ahead faster and go further in life.
  
    With hindsight, I missed an opportunity to pose some important questions:

    Are young people today contemplating how in the years to come they will balance a career and raising children? Are they thinking through and talking and talking and talking to their future life-partner about the parenting role each will play?

    Are they reading the stories that appear each day that glorify women who’ve decided to abandon careers and stay home to raise their families? And do they then ask themselves the what ifs . . . ?

    And do they know the less frequently told stories about women, more numerous by far, who are left to essentially raise children on their own?

    Perhaps this was not the occasion for me to pose these questions, yet I regret not doing so. I hope someone is asking them whether being on equal footing in their teens carries a promise of balanced lives when children arrive.

    And not just asking the girls.


 

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    • 5/24/2008 10:57 AM regine ransohoff wrote:
      I think my grandchildren really don't think about all of those things. I call them millenials, but by definition they are too young. They just never talk about limitations. In a way its got its downside because the sky's the limit and that in itself is a problem. And I think the boys and girls think the same way. That also is a problem because they really aren't the same.  A dilemma
      Reply to this
    • 5/25/2008 11:32 AM Ruth Kaufman wrote:
      My two female grandchildren who are in college or looking for colleges ages 19 and 17, don't feel limited in looking at career options. At the same time they don't know yet what they want to major in. But from my view point young couples are now much more egalitarian and share parenting responsibilities.
      Reply to this
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