Landscape for a Good Woman / Carolyn Kay Steedman

 Word Count: 261

Parker Greene

From Landscape for a Good Woman by Carolyn Kay Steedman

" From a cotton town, my mother had a heightened awareness of fabric and weave, and I can date events by the clothes I wore as a child, and the material they were made of. Post-War children had few clothes, because of rationing, but not only scarcity... " (pg. 716)

Carolyn Kay Steedman grew up in a lower class family where the mother had dreams of a bigger lifestyle and the father had the opposing view from the mother. Growing up in a lower class family can have many negative effects on children and we see here that Carolyn barely had many clothes and could remember specific dates by what she was wearing because of the lack of clothes she owned. I grew up in a lower class family also and I understand what it is like to not be able to get new clothes for a while so you have to keep wearing things that might not fit correctly. I think that Carolyn Kay Steedman understood that she was in a family that was able to keep themselves alive but not afford much more beyond that and her mother really wanted to make it seem like they were in a higher wealth class in public. Growing up in a lower class family is hard for sure, but it take a toll on everyone in it as the parents don't want to struggle for their children but then the children get the negative effects from lack of other things.