expectoration

MScoleman at aol.com MScoleman at aol.com
Mon Sep 14 02:58:33 PDT 1998


Paul Rosenberg mentions memory differences with his sister -- I just want to say that in my family, we have huge gaps, chasms, in how we remember the same events. In a piece I wrote for FEMINIST ECONOMICS about blue collar work, I mention at the beginning that my family had been on and off welfare when I was a child. When the article was published, I sent a copy to my mother who went ballistic, calling me and chastizing me, telling me that we had never received welfare. For a bit, I was doubting my own sanity. Then I called one of my brothers and asked him if he remembered receiving welfare when he was a kid, and he clearly remembered more or less the same things I did -- bulk food, temporary assistance, all that. Then we realized that since we had all grown up and moved into more or less respectable careers our mother had rewritten her personal history to match the careers of her grown children. So, I figured that with respect to my mother, nothing I publish from now till her death will refer to receiving welfare -- who am I to burst her happy rewrite at this late date. maggie coleman mscoleman at aol.com



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