As noted elsewhere, when I was born, Dad was a Minister of the Southern Methodist Church, and Mom helped him in his work. He'd become a minister to make his widowed mother happy. But she died when I was 4 years old, and Dad returned to his real love, gardening in city parks. So Mom returned to her profession before marriage, dressmaking.

Much of the time, this was at home. But sometimes Mom worked in a shop or as adjunct to a dry-goods store. And I was what has become known as "a latch-key kid", fixing my lunch alone at home, and returning to an empty place after school.

This augmented the independence I had already developed in other ways and at other times.

Starting at age six, I learned "survival domestic arts", including "survival cooking".

This stood me in good stead after marriage and fatherhood, as I note in the file about "single parent", when my disabled wife was in the hospital or recuperating in bed.

Our daughters-in-law are grateful to me for the model I provided to our sons.

All this is so typical of the experience of many people, as not to deserve special "prototype" attention. But I believe the following is.

I became used to hearing adults, especially teachers, as well as neighbors and schoolmates, make remarks about my being the son of a "working mother". Such a happening is "common" now, but it was not considered so then.

But what always puzzled me was the remark by teachers, "He's the son of a dressmaker, you know!", followed by giggles or snickers.

Only many years later, when I discovered the anonymously written book, My Secret Life, did I understood. The book contained the memoirs of a Victorian gentleman who claimed to have made love to more than a thousand women.

When he encountered a likely prospect and wanted a convenient trysting place, he often "rented" a room, for an hour or two, from a dressmaker in the town. Being poor, they often needed the extra money. And sometimes, they were even more obliging.

So I came to realize that -- at least throughout the South of my youth -- dressmakers and milliners who worked in their homes were suspect.

This implies one more "burden" women have had to "bear"in their struggle toward equality.