Fractured fairy tale

My mother goofed again. Granted she was busy at the make-up counter of Saks, and shopping the sales at Bonwits but this information would really have helped me out. I hate hearing "pearls of wisdom" from a woman half my age on the Today Show. This makes morning programming too much like televangelism instead of background noise. I picked my head up from the newspaper upon hearing, "Three out of four women will be widowed by age 75". Huh? She went on to "prosletize" that women should marry for love and not as a financial alternative. Mom, are you listening? This is interesting news that came about 35 years too late. She also went on to say that I should be actively involved in financial planning as I could end up a poor widow or just plain poor and alone. Now I'm a little panicky because I re-joined Match.com which set me back the $70 I should have invested in the stockmarket and the double whammy is, even if I met someone he'll be dead soon. I run to the closet to make sure I have a clean black dress.

I can't blame it all on mom, and my obsession with Cindarella. I was from the generation of women on the brink; so close to reality and yet so far. I wasn't raised to work . I don't know what I was supposed to do with my time but it wasn't earn money. If mom was my role model I was supposed to spend my husband's money, a reasonable plan with good perks like: a new car, charge cards, weekly hair appointments, clothes and a maid. Career woman was an option still a few years away. I only got as far as birth control pills, bra burning, and political protests, but no income. I quit taking the pill when they determined they could cause strokes, my breasts are no longer defying gravity so I need the bra, and political protests have morphed into, let's wait for the next election, complacency. So with no words from mom about how to support myself, I married a rich man and thought I solved the problem. Although, let's not place all the blame on mom, afterall dad had a career, and could have mentioned the "c" word as something I just might want to consider. He forgot. Or was working. .

I have a career now, it took two divorces and two questionably small divorce settlements to shock me into the work force but I parlayed art collecting, into art advising/selling. Although starting so late I will have to work until about ten minutes before I die, or just enough time to look around and wish I had started saving sooner. Since I didn't have a daughter I didn't have the chance to instill in her more than the Prince Charming option; a storybook which would have been banned from my household along with the movie "Pretty Woman". I probably would have sent her off to medical, law, dental, business, and veterinary school, just to make sure she could buy her own horse and not have to rely on the Prince.

Mom, it's not your fault for not sending me to the aforementioned professional schools; I was terrible in chemistry so it was never in my future regardless. You only wanted the best for me, and thought a husband should provide it. I wonder however if my $70.00 is deductible?