Times have changed considerably since the 70s when I was a child. My mother was a housewife for the first 10 years of my life. She cooked, cleaned, and made sure my brother and I went to school every day. Although she didn't have an outside job, she, like many women, believed that being a stay-at-home mom was a full-time job. I remember my father regularly giving my mother money so she could pay utility bills while she cleaned the kitchen floor. . At the end of the day, my mother was usually too tired to care for my father due to the attention she paid to his household chores during the day. Ultimately, my father didn't understand why my mother didn't have the energy to support herself. Many traditional women faced the same challenges: balancing childcare and domestic obligations while satisfying their working husbands. “They were proud to have a clean, comfortable home and to be satisfied with serving a good meal because no one had explained to them that the only work worth doing is the work you get paid for.” (Hekker 277.) More traditional marriages have survived longer than modern marriages today; However, traditional marriages that ended years later left many housewives feeling abandoned. These wives, accustomed to staying at home without a career, had to try to survive while their husbands turned to younger, more beautiful, career-oriented women. The women who started attracting them were also less stressed women who could devote more attention to them at the end of the day. “Like most wives of our generation, we had considered possible widowhood, but we never thought we would end up divorced. » (Hekker 278). Traditional brides married for love and to follow the middle of paper...the best in marriages. I agree 100% with the author and enjoyed reading about how one was able to bounce back from a broken marriage. who she relied on financially and who managed to convince her husband to compromise and make the marriage work with equal parenting. I plan to incorporate these facts and opinions into my own relationship. Works Cited Edelman, Hope “The Myth of Co-Parenting” Writing and Reading across the Curriculum. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen, Boston: Pearson 2011. 283-290 Hekker, Terry Martin (The Satisfaction of the Housewife and Motherhood/Paradise Lost) Writing and Reading for the Curriculum. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen, Boston: Pearson 2011. 274-279 Tannen, Deborah “Understanding Mom” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum.Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen, Boston: Pearson 2011. 281-282