Can any mother help me? I live a very lonely life as I have no near neighbours. I cannot afford to buy a wireless. I adore reading, but with no library am very limited with books. I dislike needlework, though I have a lot to do! I get so down and depressed after the children are in bed and I am alone in the house. I sew, read and write stories galore, but in spite of good resolutions, and the engaging company of cat and dog, I do brood, and ‘dig the dead’. I have had a rotten time, and been cruelly hurt, both physically and mentally, but I know it is bad to brood and breed hard thoughts and resentments. Can any reader suggest an occupation that will intrigue me and exclude ‘thinking’ and cost nothing! A hard problem, I admit. (P.5)
The above was written by ‘Ubique’ to the ‘Over the Teacups’ column of The Nursery World magazine in 1935 but how timeless the sentiment! It is the curse of modern society, I suppose, that we have too little purpose and too much time (though it is far preferable to the alternative) and, while men historically have had jobs outside the home to distract and engage them, women, even now, are left with dirty dishes, soiled nappies and a sense of squandered potential. And to live remote from society on top of that, to have no library to seek solace in, no WI or other club to meet with, must make it particularly hard.
This fascinating book, a collection of letters written over several decades by members of the CCC (Cooperate Correspondence Club), formed in response to Ubique’s letter above, was the result of a thesis project Jenna Bailey worked on at the University of Sussex in Brighton, where she stumbled across the CCC’s magazines in the Mass Observation archives. As soon as I read the author blurb on the jacket, I felt a particular affinity for Bailey. A native of Alberta (where I currently reside), she studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (my alma matter as well) before going on to the University of Sussex (where I spent many happy hours studying and using the MO archives while on an academic exchange). Even if I had not been terribly interested in the topic, I would have felt it was my duty to read a book by someone I felt was a kindred soul.
The women of Can Any Mother Help Me? may have had very different backgrounds, politics, families and approaches to life but they shared the need to connect with a community and to be able to share ideas beyond the daily tedium of motherhood and wifedom; basically, to remind themselves that they were intelligent, capable women who were more than a sum of their parts. They found this outlet, this fulfillment, in the CCC.
It is very easy to sympathize with these women. Through children’s ailments, dangerous pregnancies, unhappy marriages, and difficult careers, all the way through to the shock of widowhood and the terror of fatal illnesses, you see how their lives progressed and come to identify closely with a special few. They may remind you of yourself, of your grandmother or great-grandmother, of every woman you’ve ever known. I wonder what men get out of reading this book? Do they understand how much the below still rings true?
…I think that one of the hardest things for the educated woman to do is to accept the almost purely domestic role that marriage, childbearing and the modern lack of domestic help forces her into, whilst her husband goes from strength to strength and inevitably has less time to be at home and to be a companion to her. (P.167 – ‘Accidia, 1952)
I suppose blogging is the obvious modern-day counterpart of the correspondence magazine (of which the CCC was only one example) and yet, as much as I clearly support blogging, I’m not sure it’s truly an apt comparison. How likely, really, are the friendships formed online today to still be strong in twenty, thirty years? How many twenty-something bloggers will still be actively blogging when they are fifty? I’ve grown up in the digital age but I still view it as a very impersonal, self-serving medium. And that’s fine and if there are communities that give support in the here and now to modern-day Ubiques, that’s wonderful. But what really impressed me about the CCC was its longevity, how the friendships sustained the women through so many phases of their lives. Is that the kind of intimacy people are looking for on the internet? If so, are blogs likely to sustain it?
I think the short answer to whether blog-friendships will stand the test of time is that only time will tell. I’m 28, and have had access to the internet since I was 14. In that time I have met people, who I’ve gone on to become firm friends with in real life. Saying that, though, I do also *see* them in real life – our friendship is no longer limited to through the computer.
I don’t think, though, that because a correspondence is online rather than on paper it is less valid or less real. But I do miss writing letters.
Thanks for the tip about the book. I’ll look out for it.
Excellent points. I’m rather jealous that you’ve got to meet up with your online friends in person – most of my online friends live on different continents and we’ve never had an opportunity to meet fact-to-face.
I bought this book maybe 2.5 years ago, desperate to read it RIGHT NOW and still haven’t… but I’m even more likely to now!
I’ve had online friends going back six years, the same group, and it’s been wonderful so far – we have met up four or five times, but it’s mostly online. And Kirsty, you had access to the internet in 1990?! I didn’t know that anybody had access to it then! My school first got it in 1997, and we didn’t get it at home until 1999.
Simon
I hope you enjoy the book as much as I do, when you find the time to read it!
I have now read it! Will be blogging on it soon. I kept thinking it was just like a bookish Yahoo Group I’m in – which is obviously more community-orientated than a blog is. I’ve been in it for six years now (a quarter of my life!) and have met up with many of them. Even those I’ve not met feel like fairly close friends, and I imagine we’ll keep going for a fair few years, even if not as many as the CCC did.
So glad you finally had a chance to read it! I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts.