I would categorize this article in three categories: law, state, and church; family relationships and economics; and categories of difference. Abbott discusses the demands of families placed on the state, as well as the struggles felt by the state to provide for veteran families. She also discusses how this led to the creation of the welfare state. The article explains the strained family relationships between returning husbands and newly empowered wives in addition to children who view their father as an intruder/stranger in the home. Abbott also discusses the differences between the acceptance of change between classes. She talks about the integration of different races into British society and the issues created by homosexual couples which all represent categories of difference. Mary Abbott provides a very interesting and powerful overview of a transition period in British history.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Mary Abbott's "A Better World"
The post war era in Great Britain was a very tumultuous time. Not only did many families struggle with the reintegration of the father back into the home, but even uncontrollable factors like the weather caused problems for the British. Cold winters and low coal supplies hit families hard while floods ravaged the country once spring came. The societal trends in the post war years greatly shifted. For example, women went from wearing the boxy outfits of the interwar years, to wearing extremely feminine dresses emphasizing small waists. The television become a way to bring a family together. In essence, the British people wanted to forget the trends of the war, and revive the old world ideals. Abbott suggests a second wave of Elizabethianism occurred. However, women especially found it difficult to cope with the return to the old world. While the men were on the battle front, women had gained more power and influence on the home front. When the men returned, some wives complained that there husbands just expected things to go go to the way things used to be, which was a hard thing to cope with. The 1950's especially were a time of great change and uncertainty in Great Britain.
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I must say I found this article to have a much more positive view of post-war Britain. The article emphasized the new technologies that were becoming available and how they were able to help families, as well as showing how the country as a whole was in much better shape economically than before the war. The time after WWII was generally a time of promise and opportunity, where individuals and families could advance themselves. There were certainly strains as families had to readjust to normality after the horrors of war, but the years after 1945 were not completely bleak and depressing. New houses sprang up around the country and efforts were made to make Britain a more modern country - for example with the construction of Milton Keynes. These decades saw incredible growth and change in Britain's families.
I mostly agree with GoldenFox86. However, I don't feel 'normality' is the right word. After WWII a new social order arose, and that included families. I think a better phrase would be to 'reach a balance between old and new ideas of family,' or something like that.
Both goldenfox86 and Sharee bring up the fact that the outlook on the family was not as negative as some sources may suggest. Yet, I often wonder if we were to tell this to the Mothers and Fathers of that era, how would they react. I agree that many times one cannot see the forest through the trees, and that family life after the war may have been better than portrayed. However, those people still had to experience looking through all those trees and not knowing which way was up. The War had a tremendous affect upon the way in which families were defined, and I think sorting through such issues may have been just as horrific as we are led to believe.
Good point. I hadn't really thought of it like that. Along those lines I would bet in 50-60 years from now people will look back and say that the current economic difficulties, or the war in Iraq were not as bad as our media seems to portray.
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