Thoroughly Modern Mummies - The Prologue
Circa the late 1980's. Thatcher is in power. Bros are about to get us asking when will we be famous, and wearing beer bottle tops on our shoes. Prince has got us strutting about the sign of the times, doves crying and purple rain. Eastenders is cool cos its about real life and Saturday morning is Going Live.Judy Blume's Forever is read and passed around the class during Geography class like seditious literature about to start a revolution. Talking of which Tracy is about to start talking about one,Spike wants us to do the right thing, though Salt N Pepa want us to Push It. And Kylie sings our hearts out telling us we should all be so lucky.
We are not Generation X just yet, without a meta narrative and all that stuff "they" say... yada, yawn, blah, yada. Though we are just as angsty, insecure, Xers in budding form. It's just that all we care about is Have You Started Yet, and boys and cheap alcohol and ciggies. And friends. And what we look like, and what people think of us, and whether we are popular and fit in. We are comparing ourselves with the winner and the losers in life in our class and competing to stay in the race and go further up in the rankings. And perhaps that is all that comes to mind when in school assembly we are told we can have it all. Winning, and not being such a loser. And for a sacred few, maybe even becoming Prime Minister.
By some strange miracle we make it through.
Many of us get to uni, then get jobs that mean you can afford clothes, rather than Saturday jobs that give you clothing discounts. By this point Eastenders is cool because when you were young you thought it was real life. Saturday morning TV is still essential. As is Jerry Maguire and Bridget Jones. And Friends, because - its just like real life?
We're in a global village now, so we start to explore it,Dublin, Crete,OZ, NZ, Phuket - its ours to enjoy, consume...
We've learned, sometimes through tears that even if we should be so lucky in love,its not always forever.
We have a man for a prime minister with a wife who is a top lawyer type with kids, many kids.
Even if no one is telling us we can have it all, we have somehow come to expect it. The man, the job, the life, the body, the house, the friends. They are like our birthright, part of the package. We've seen other people do it. We've seen Superman, why not Superwoman? Something about being 20something feels invincible, like you're arriving at your destination.. winners, not losers ...don't you just love it?
One by one we begin to get all we hoped for. Or do we? Well no, not exactly. But she - someone else - a friend - an enemy - a fine line - did.
A pang of self doubt. We might have succeeded in the workplace, but are we doing well in life?
Better than her? Worse than she? Does it matter...its like being back in the classroom, comparing and competing, but this time its not Grades, and hopefully we moved on from boys to men. Its about bigger stuff now.
Little did we know it was just the beginning.
We are not Generation X just yet, without a meta narrative and all that stuff "they" say... yada, yawn, blah, yada. Though we are just as angsty, insecure, Xers in budding form. It's just that all we care about is Have You Started Yet, and boys and cheap alcohol and ciggies. And friends. And what we look like, and what people think of us, and whether we are popular and fit in. We are comparing ourselves with the winner and the losers in life in our class and competing to stay in the race and go further up in the rankings. And perhaps that is all that comes to mind when in school assembly we are told we can have it all. Winning, and not being such a loser. And for a sacred few, maybe even becoming Prime Minister.
By some strange miracle we make it through.
Many of us get to uni, then get jobs that mean you can afford clothes, rather than Saturday jobs that give you clothing discounts. By this point Eastenders is cool because when you were young you thought it was real life. Saturday morning TV is still essential. As is Jerry Maguire and Bridget Jones. And Friends, because - its just like real life?
We're in a global village now, so we start to explore it,Dublin, Crete,OZ, NZ, Phuket - its ours to enjoy, consume...
We've learned, sometimes through tears that even if we should be so lucky in love,its not always forever.
We have a man for a prime minister with a wife who is a top lawyer type with kids, many kids.
Even if no one is telling us we can have it all, we have somehow come to expect it. The man, the job, the life, the body, the house, the friends. They are like our birthright, part of the package. We've seen other people do it. We've seen Superman, why not Superwoman? Something about being 20something feels invincible, like you're arriving at your destination.. winners, not losers ...don't you just love it?
One by one we begin to get all we hoped for. Or do we? Well no, not exactly. But she - someone else - a friend - an enemy - a fine line - did.
A pang of self doubt. We might have succeeded in the workplace, but are we doing well in life?
Better than her? Worse than she? Does it matter...its like being back in the classroom, comparing and competing, but this time its not Grades, and hopefully we moved on from boys to men. Its about bigger stuff now.
Little did we know it was just the beginning.
Labels: Thoroughly (Post) Modern Mummy
posted by Jo Saxton @ 9:20 PM
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