55) When I was young

 When I was young, about six or seven I should imagine my cousins came to stay often. Their mother, my mother’s sister Elfina was not well and the boys Paul, Laurence and Eric spent quite a lot of time with us.One day my cousin Paul, who was a couple of years older than I was, fell and scuffed his knee. I remember the terrible fuss that he made. I remember that my mother responded by making an equally big fuss over him. She got him inside, gently cleaned the wound, gave him a sweet and sat him in a chair beside the fire to have his tea with his leg up on a chair with a pillow under it.I was incensed, a few days previously I had had what I thought was a much bigger accident, with lots of real blood and the only treatment I got was to have it cleaned with iodine. I wonder if any of you remember how much iodine used to sting. Mom had just put a sticky plaster on it and sent me out to play again. I still had the scar to prove it, in fact I bore that scar for many years. When I protested to my Mom that this was surely unfair treatment she excused her behaviour by saying that as Paul’s mother was very sick we should be extra kind to him and after all he was a boy and we all knew how boys were such sissies when it came to a little bit of pain. I often wonder how much this incident has influenced my attitude to ‘Woman’s Rights’. I am a firm believer that woman should have the vote, be allowed to own their own property, have equal pay for equal work and not be treated as possessions but I am not sure that I want equality with men. I think women are far superior to men and it should stay that way. But of course to get men to do all the heavy lifting and labouring we need to appeal to their egos and butter them up and let them think that they are really in charge. Seriously though I often wonder why women are so determined to be treated the same way as men are. We are different and I think we should be celebrating our differences and making the most of them.