Very Few Women (Day 416)

Very few women my age 

worked with visionaries. 

We were too busy: talking, 

frosting birthday cakes,

mopping the floors to

a mirrorlike finish. Really, 

being a housewife was

a very big deal. Respectable. 

My friends and I grew up 

looking forward to keeping 

our own homes. Now, it’s 

called something different: 

domestic engineering.

These young girls today, 

they think they want it all: 

Dating, college, husbands, 

corner-office careers, and 

then the kids, and those 

ridiculous jogging strollers—

they don’t run enough?

We could have done it all,

too, of course, but we 

focused on raising our sons 

and daughters to be less like 

their parents. Well, I for one 

am just glad I was able to be 

there for my children when 

they came home from school. 

The world is different now, 

though, isn’t it? Too expensive. 

And dangerous—all these men 

with guns, shooting everyone! 

Who knows? My turn may be 

next. Or yours. So, we’ll see.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: ArtsyBee/Pixabay

Her Place in the World (Day 293)

She is small, 

barely tall enough 

to reach 

the first swinging hoop 

from the little metal platform 

welded onto the jungle gym. 

So, when the big 
blond-haired boy 
with the raspy voice 

taunted her, 

she froze. 

And when he shoved her 

out of line and 

she landed hard 

on the concrete, 

she remained silent, 

and the other children 

did nothing, 

their eyes averted 

in fear and shame 

and the mild disgust 

the world feels for victims. 

Later, she recounted the story 

while her mother and 

grandmother cooked dinner. 

When she showed them 

her scraped elbow, 

her mother said: 

"What did you do 

to make him shove you?" 

Her grandmother added: 

"He sounds like 

a very sad little boy. 

You should pray for him." 

That day she learned 

about her place 

in the world, 

about what she could 

expect, and what she 

should tolerate. 

So, when her husband 

screamed at her for buying 
creamy peanut butter 

instead of crunchy, 

she found herself 

thinking how sorry 

he must be, and that

she needed to pray 

for him.

Intimate-partner violence (IPV), or domestic violence (DV), affects all of us in some way. 

For example: mass shootings significantly impacted children: 25 percent of mass shooting fatalities (211) were children. This is primarily driven by mass shootings related to domestic or family violence, in which over 40 percent of fatalities were children. (EverytownResearch.org)

 For a wealth of information about IPV/DV, or to seek *confidential* help, please visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline website, or call the Hotline at 1-800-799-7233

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Andreas160578