Therapy at the Fence

Author: Yvonne Pierce

Therapists are thrilled that the era of the 50’s is gone. Their business is booming now that self-therapy is a thing of the past.  Self-therapy? What is that, exactly?  Well, it’s what you saw in the Snuffy Smith cartoons.
 
It's standing at the fence with your neighbor, who was also your friend, to hash out the struggles of life.  It’s sharing and caring, with a little humor peppered in for good measure.

The housewife of the 50’s was busy, no doubt. She scurried about her home, sometimes in an apron and pumps, doing much the same of what women do today:  dusting, laundry, cooking. She probably didn’t have some of the advantages of today:  microwaves, automatic dishwasher, and perhaps not even a dryer.  But, she did have one advantage that women today are missing:time. The housewife of the 50’s saw her husband and her children off to work and school in the mornings and then she got down to her own job: working in the home.  No soap operas and chocolates for the successful housewife.  She was busy with taking care of her home and seeing that her family was happy and healthy.

The 50’s housewife could take her problems to the fence.  She could tell her neighbor of her struggles and her dreams. With clothes flapping in the breeze on her clothesline, she could share and she could listen. And then, feeling better about herself and her world, go back to her kitchen and whip up a homemade peach cobbler and vacuum the floors.

The housewife of today doesn’t have time for fence chatting.  She may not even have been in her backyard in months, except to step out to call in her children (assuming they are not glued to the latest in video games in their bedrooms). She runs to change out the clothes when the dryer buzzes and unloads the dishwasher when it finishes it’s cycle.

Putting her convenience box meal on the table, she checks the caller I.D. when the phone rings and decides she just can’t talk to her friend right now.  She’s been at work all day with a boss who puts impossible demands on her, runs errands on her lunch hour, chokes down her sandwich at her desk, then leaves work to rush to the sitter to get the children before she’s charged an overtime fee. Once home, she has to micromanage homework and science projects while listening for the microwave to ding signaling that dinner is ready.

By the time dinner is over and the dishes are cleared, baths are taken and children in bed, there is just no time for therapeutic conversation. Not with the husband nor with a friend.  Maybe the housewife of the 50’s has a place in our minds as having not a care in the world.  But, instead of seeming at peace because her world was simple, maybe it was actually a peace from making time for talking and communicating.