Brady Quotes

That's Bill Brady. He goes through months of withdrawal after football season is over. In order to cope with football withdrawal, he'll stand in font of his window that overlooks the street and look for pedestrians. After he spots one, he'll make a beeline to his porch, then pause for a bit to crouch down and yell out 'hut hut hike' before running full bore to tackle or sack the passerby.

He tackled a woman's baby carriage. After the seven-month-old baby skidded across the pavement and began bawling his eyes out, Bill Brady started shouting at the toddler, 'What are you, a pussy? Walk it off! Walk it off!' After the mother shouted out her baby's age and how he wasn't able to walk yet, Bill Brady started barking in the vexed mother's face like she was a referee who had made a bad call.

Have a care, Sir Tucker, lest you find yourself in the stockades." He scoffs and looks at Mr. Erikson. "She can't do that, can she? She's not the ruler of this class. Brady is." ... "You could strip him of his title," suggests Brady, apparently not minding at all that I have usurped his throne. "Make him a serf." "Yeah," says Christian. "Make him a serf. Being a serf blows." As a serf, poor Christian has already been killed several times in our class. Aside from dying of the Black Plague on the first day, he's starved to death, had his hands cut off for stealing a loaf of bread, and been run down by his master's horse just for kicks. He's like Christian the fifth now.

I’m heavy,” she mutters as my arms scoop under her legs and around her waist.  We leave Brady and Shithead behind us as I start the walk toward the locker rooms, where the first aid room is. “Shut up, Anastasia. You’re not even half my warm-up weight.

...Families are Forever, and wondered if the slogan was meant as a promise or a threat.

No guts, no story.

Irony and cynicism were just what the U.S. hypocrisy of the fifties and sixties called for. That’s what made the early postmodernists great artists. The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates. The virtuous always triumph? Ward Cleaver is the prototypical fifties father? "Sure." Sarcasm, parody, absurdism and irony are great ways to strip off stuff’s mask and show the unpleasant reality behind it. The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, "then" what do we do? Irony’s useful for debunking illusions, but most of the illusion-debunking in the U.S. has now been done and redone. Once everybody knows that equality of opportunity is bunk and Mike Brady’s bunk and Just Say No is bunk, now what do we do? All we seem to want to do is keep ridiculing the stuff. Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony’s gone from liberating to enslaving. There’s some great essay somewhere that has a line about irony being the song of the prisoner who’s come to love his cage.

You're my heartbeat, Brady.

In the years before I was abused, my family was the “Brady Bunch”.

Brady’s a star up there,” he says, “in some distant place where he doesn’t hurt.

Just my jersey Maggie. No one else's. Ever. I don't want anyone's jersey touching you but mine. Keep this one. Wear it all the damn time you want, but don't ever put Brady's on again. My girl. My fucking jersey.

For most autistics existing in a world not built for them, anxiety is the baseline and constant background hum that their daily life has to play over.

I can't say 'why me,' Brady. That's one of the big no-can-do's. Because if I do that now that bad stuff has happened to me, why didn't I say it about all the amazing stuff that happened to me before?

It's not good to have fears like this. It only makes it more likely that you'll die that way—a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You can't take your same old self into a bright new future. You would only darken it.

The only way to BE happy is to GIVE happy.

Our privileges are not for our pleasure but rather for our purpose.

You’re much too beautiful for tears.

Cula su naelektrisala vrhove prstiju kojim sam joj doticao kozu i pratio besprekornu liniju glatkih ramena, tragajuci uzalud za malom, najmanjom greskom. Mirisala je na Indiju, na breskvu, na izvor, biseri su virili iz tek odskrinute skoljke njenih usana, osetio sam u bradi laki drhtaj, jeku jedne davne groznice za koju sam mislio da umire kad te obuzme i da se vise ne moze vratiti ako je jednom prebolis. Da, zeleo sam je, jako sam je zeleo... Dodirnuo sam joj mali prst na nozi, bezuspesno pokusao da nadlanicom uklonim beleg iz detinjstva sa njenog levog kolena, udubio se u cudni raspored sicusnih mladeza na tilu vitkih ledja...I trgao se.Uplasen...Koliko to na njoj ima tajnih mesta koja bih zeleo da poljubim? Ali ne sad. Jednom. Mozda... Ja sam momak staromodan. Prevazidjen. Po mojoj religiji, moja zelja je samo pola zelje... Lepo sanjaj, mali misu nabareni. Ko zna da li ces mi ikad vise biti tako blizu? Mozda cu se kajati, mozda cu morati da se napijem svaki put kad se setim ove noci...Neka... Ako ikad budemo spavali zajedno, to ce biti onako kako sam zamislio. I kako Bog zapoveda. I niko nece spavati za vreme tog spavanja... Laku noc, njene pospane oci...

Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. In the case of William Jessup Brady, it’s been hand carved with a lever-action Henry rifle over his shoulder and a Smith & Wesson six-gun strapped to his hip.’ – Solace Walters

I love that name. A country named Chad. Sounds like somebody who lived next door to the Brady Bunch. But if Chad actually lived next door to the Bradys, Greg would be roasting over a slow fire and Marcia would be standing naked on an auction block, because Chad is one of the hungriest, craziest, most desperate places on the planet.

It's hard to be less than happy when you can be happy with less.

My Favorite Ring is Always the Next One

I'm truly living a very Brady nightmare.

A minute later he (Brady) collapsed next to me. "What do you say to the person who gave you the best orgasm of your life?" "Thank you, Keanu (Reeves)?

But in summer, welcoming summer, the rocks are soft-fledged with moss. The forest floor is bouncy with fresh shoots and enthusiastic blooms; the twisted angles of the branches are laced by bud and leaf.

Strange tale of Angelic guidance as this reluctant Female Rock Star hero brings the world back from the brink through her incredible Music!

we don’t come into this world all-knowing. That’s what life is for.” Brady

The concept of hell and endless torment is popular with those who believe they aren't headed there.

No one wants to hear you speak, Bradie Boy," Kitten said in that scratchy voice of hers. "Like that's ever stopped me. I can't believe we've got a bird and a cat in the car." Bradley chuckled. "I guess that makes me animal control. Nice." "I'm a Teran," Kitten said tightly, "not a cat. And if I hear you call me a cat one more time, I'll scratch your eyes out. Understand?" "Oh, I understand. I just don't think you'll like what I'm understanding, which is that you can't wait to get your hands on me.

I rested my head on the wall behind me and closed my eyes, wishing my life had a button: Ignore All.

When it comes to love, everyone is a liar.

A good book is hard to read, on account of how often it makes you stop and think.

My dad says stop thinking that way. “You be lookin’ backward all the time, Brady, you’re gonna have one heck of a crook in the neck.” He smiles when he says that. But I know what he means deep down, and it’s not funny. You can’t keep dwelling on the past when you can’t undo it. You can’t make it happen any different than it did.

A giant once lived in that body. But Matt Brady got lost. Because he was looking for God too high up and too far away.

Sometimes we self-sabotage just when things seem to be going smoothly. Perhaps this is a way to express our fear about whether it is okay for us to have a better life. We are bound to feel anxious as we leave behind old notions of our unworthiness. The challenge is not to be fearless, but to develop strategies of acknowledging our fears and finding out how we can allay them.

We use time machines to learn from the past,” Chris continued. “But there are still a few things that have been puzzling some of us, and maybe you can help clear up one of them. There’s a person called Kim Kardashian—someone born in your time, I believe. She has had thousands of regeneration and cybernetic enhancement procedures. But no one can seem to recall her purpose. Does she have any special talent or reason for being kept alive all these centuries?” Heads shook in bafflement. “Anyway,” said Chris, “you’ll be glad to know that Tom Brady is still slinging footballs as far as ever. And Brett Favre is considering another comeback.

I began to realize that life, despite moments of happiness and joy, is really about discovering priorities and dealing with unforeseen vagaries, differences, obstacles, inconveniences, and imperfections.

When you're problem solving with a team and somebody has an idea separate the idea from the person talking, because once in a while a jackass might come up with something useful.

No person is great in and of themselves; they must touch the lives of other great beings that will inspire them, lift them, and push them forward.

Jack narrowed his eyes. “Why can’t you be just a hundred percent good or a hundred percent bad? Why do you have to keep me all confused all the time?

both of them, then he leaned over and pulled back the raincoat for a second, and flung it back with the same fury. Now he was

The idea that meltdowns are manipulative is absurd and a cause of gross misunderstanding between autistics and the rest of the world.

That’s me, Brady thought happily. When they give your middle name, you know you’re an authentic boogeyman.

Because we were treated neglectfully and abusively in our young years—when we most needed self-love to be mirrored—it was difficult to hold onto…We take up the challenge of learning to love ourselves, through our highs & our lows, when we are finding acceptance from others and when we are being closed out and rejected.

She considered, maybe for the first time, how lucky she was to be able to pick up the phone and call her mother whenever she needed bad advice.

Power is confusing for us, perhaps even terrifying, because our relationship with it had an unfortunate beginning. Someone in a position of power over us used and abused us…It seems as if power were something to be wielded, always at someone’s expense, usually our own.

One should try to be honest with oneself almost as a daily devotion.

Being smart was key; being careful was critical. Being lucky didn’t hurt.

We do whatever we enjoy doing. Whether is happens to be judged good or evil is a matter for others to decide.

Got a buddy in the NOPD who says there’s a rumor you’re with some private agency. Who? (Brady) And I slice open chickens at midnight to sacrifice to the great gods of Santeria. (Terri)

We are what we believe we are at given times.

I was continually over-identifying with fiction to try and find a template for myself and my story (143)

What if souls could cross over at the point of life and death...?

Could there be a connection between these two completely unlikely connected people...?

What if your life was pre-ordained as a result of such a meeting as you were entering into the world...?

From what I've been able to figure out, all of us are here together and we need one another. We must celebrate each other's differences. Learning to ask for help is as important as learning the value of helping other people. I believe all the people in my life have been there for a reason, and I hope I have been in theirs for a reason as well. It's taken me a while, but I feel truly blessed. After all is said and done, I love life, I love people, and I love being me.

For most affairs, this eventually becomes the most fundamental of questions, the only one that matters: Do we love each other more than the lives we already have? It is the question that hovers in the background of every secret phone call, flavors every tryst with the head of possibilities of apocalypse and renewal; and it is the answer to that question, or the lack thereof, that so often dooms an affair to failure.

In order to survive our youth, many of us became sensitized to which conditions we had to play to, to receive attention. No wonder we mistook this attention for love. We thought love came in finite quantities—it had to be competed for among siblings, or it had to be paid for with exacting dues.

For change to occur in us, we must be willing to enter the wilderness of the unknown and to wander in unfamiliar territory, directionless and often in the darkness....We do not need to keep every little thing under control. In fact, we find ourselves only by allowing some falling apart to happen.

Your instincts may tell you that you can’t survive if you experience feelings. But they are leftover child instincts. They’re the ones that first told you to freeze your feelings. They themselves are frozen and haven’t grown with the rest of you. These instincts don’t know that you’re far more capable of learning to cope with overwhelming emotion now than when you were a [child].

It’s more common for people to get fire tattoos. Symbols of passion, transformation, change. But I wanted smoke because it’s what remains. After the fire, after everything is destroyed, you’re left with smoke and ash. You’ve gotta make somethin’ out of it.

I couldn’t breathe when I was away from you. It felt as though each breath was just enough to sustain me, but I was slowly dying. When I saw you again, I had a reason to breathe and then I messed up. I’m so sorry for everything I said to you on the pier, and for all of the pain I’ve caused you. I swear I will never leave you again." - Brady

What? Get tired of the way he looks at me as if I'm his entire life? Get over the fact that for the first time ever, someone wants me for me? That the man somehow actually enjoys making me happy?" Jade stared at her. "The ice cream..." "I'll buy a lifetime supply of ice cream. Hell, I'll even pretend he's right some of the time... it's worth it. He's worth it. And you know what? So am I.

Good laws left to the interpretation of evil men are no longer good.

I leveled the gun and fired until it was empty.

I could talk food all day. I love good food.

I suppose it was obvious that The Loathsome Couple was based on the Moors Murders, which disturbed me very greatly for some reason.

It's not good to have fears like this. It only makes it more likely you'll die that way---a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.

I was continually over-identifying with fiction to try and find a template for myself and my story.

I now understand that an aversion to holidays is extremely common in autistic people – the disruption to routine, the unpredictable nature of travel, the lights and noise of the airport and the extreme temperature change on arrival creates a special kind of sensory hell. Sameness is what I thrived on. I’m told that the appeal of holidays for most people is the novelty and break from the humdrum of everyday life. My family concluded among themselves that I was an arsehole. I didn’t know why I was so unhappy on holidays either, so I had no other option but to agree with them.

We each have our own ways of sabotaging & keeping ourselves down…Do we need to remain the victim so strongly that we pull the ceiling down upon our own heads? There is a comfort in the familiar. Also, it is important to us to be in control because as children being abused we were not at all in control. In self-sabotage we can be both the victim & the victimizer.

Based on my own experience, I believe the brain is as soft and malleable as bread dough when we’re young. I am grateful for every class trip to the symphony I went on and curse any night I was allowed to watch The Brady Bunch, because all of it stuck. Conversely, I am now capable of forgetting entire novels that I’ve read, and I’ve been influenced not at all by books I passionately love and would kill to be influenced by. Think about this before you let your child have an iPad.

When we are ready to let go of our old controls, we admit that we were powerless over the incest or abuse...We have often thought, 'If only I could have stopped it,' but we could not have stopped it. We let go of the 'if only' now and sit still with our stark powerlessness…In our surrender to powerlessness, we touch ourselves with the gift of truth.

Without news to feed it, the biggest story starves.

I'm a pretty good winner. I'm a terrible loser. And I rub it in pretty good when I win.

You don't know what you don't know. That's why you don't have. Because to know and not to have is not to know.

You are a different kind of Irishman, Goll," was all she said. "Every Irishman is a different kind of Irishman," said Goll.

Just you wait, I thought. I’ll think of something really clever to reply to you in about a decade, just as soon as I replay this scenario in my head dozens of times.

sheer panic at any kind of uncertainty

I like meeting new people as it means every day is a new opportunity to redeem yourself, to make a fresh start at being seen as a normal woman and practice at it. It's when people get to know you that they realise something seriously off and that's harder to rectify

Many of us learned that keeping busy…kept us at a distance from our feelings...Some of us took the ways we busied ourselves—becoming overachievers & workaholics—as self esteem…But whenever our inner feeling did not match our outer surface, we were doing ourselves a disservice…If stopping to rest meant being barraged with this discrepancy, no wonder we were reluctant to cease our obsessive activity.

One of the positives to being visibly damaged is that people can sometimes forget you’re there, even when they’re interfacing with you. You almost get to eavesdrop. It’s almost like they’re like: If nobody’s really in there, there’s nothing to be shy about. That’s why bullshit often tends to drop away around damaged listeners, deep beliefs revealed, diary-type private reveries indulged out loud; and, listening, the beaming and brady-kinetic boy gets to forge an interpersonal connection he knows only he can truly feel, here.

Without temptation what value is virtue?

I've woken up next to you just once and I can’t imagine not having that every morning. I want you’re beautiful face to be the first thing I see when I open my eyes. I didn't want you just last night Isabel, I want you every night.

Somewhere between what the lens depicts and what the caption interprets, a mental picture intervenes, a cultural ideology defining what and how to see, what to recognize as significant.

Our need to be "greater than" or "less than" has been a defense against toxic shame. A shameful act was committed upon us. The perpetrator walked away, leaving us with the shame. We absorbed the notion that we are somehow defective. To cover for this we constructed a false self, a masked self. And it is this self that is the overachiever or the dunce, the tramp or the puritan, the powermonger or the pathetic loser.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Silence please!" Every one was startled. They looked round-at each other, at the walls. Who was speaking? The Voice went on- a high clear voice. You are charged with the following indictments: Edward George Armstrong, that you did upon the 14th day of March, 1925, cause the death of Louisa Mary Clees. Emily Caroline Brent, that upon the 5th November, 1931, you were responsible for the death of Beatrice Taylor. William Henry Blore, that you brought about the death of James Stephen Landor on October 10th, 1928. Vera Elizabeth Claythorne, that on the 11th day of August, 1935, you killed Cyril Ogilvie Hamilton. Philip Lombard, that upon a date in February, 1932, you were guilty of the death of twenty-one men, members of an East African tribe. John Gordon Macarthur, that on the 4th of January, 1917, you deliberately sent your wife's lover, Arthur Richmond, to his death. Anthony James Marston, that upon the 14th day of November last, you were guilty of murder of John and Lucy Combes. Thomas Rogers and Ethel Rogers, that on the 6th of May, 1929, you brought about the death of Jennifer Brady. Lawrence John Wargrave, that upon the 10th day of June, 1930, you were guilty of the murder of Edward Seton. Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defense?

They had to die. They were killing innocent people. (Wulf) They were surviving, Wulf. You never had to face the choice of being dead at twenty-seven. When most people’s lives are just beginning, we are looking at a death sentence. Have you any idea what it’s like to know you can never see your children grow up? Never see your own grandchildren? My mother used to say we were spring flowers who are only meant to bloom for one season. We bring our gifts to the world and then recede to dust so that others can come after us. When our loved ones die, we immortalize them like this. I have one for my mother and the other four are my sisters. No one will ever know the beauty of my sisters’ laughter. No one will remember the kindness of my mother’s smile. In eight months, my father won’t even have enough of me left to bury. I will become scattered dust. And for what? For something my great-great-great-whatever did? I’ve been alone the whole of my life because I dare not let anyone know me. I don’t want to love for fear of leaving someone like my father behind to mourn me. I will be a vague dream, and yet here you are, Wulf Tryggvason. Viking cur who once roamed the earth raiding villages. How many people did you kill in your human lifetime while you sought treasure and fame? Were you any better than the Daimons who kill so that they can live? What makes you better than us? (Cassandra) It’s not the same thing. (Wulf) Isn’t it? You know, I went to your Web site and saw the names listed there. Kyrian of Thrace, Julian of Macedon, Valerius Magnus, Jamie Gallagher, William Jess Brady. I’ve studied history all my life and know each of those names and the terror they wrought in their day. Why is it okay for the Dark-Hunters to have immortality even though most of you were killers as humans, while we are damned at birth for things we never did? Where is the justice in this? (Cassandra)

Unlike Rosa, I can see no divine purpose behind the tangle of this existence, no ordering hand. It is all a mystery, or more accurately, a mess. There are no heroes or villains, no saviors or demons or angels. Only those who have died and those of us who, for whatever reason, have survived. None of this will keep me from believing in God. I believe in Him, I just don't know that I will ever have faith in Him.

Unfortunately, many people sleepwalk through life without conscious awareness of their own system, if they have one at all, and are therefore susceptible to external notions o right and wrong imposed by others, particlarly members of the ofen eminently unqualified upper class and their support system, mass media.

There were two things about this particular book (The Golden Book of Fairy Tales) that made it vital to the child I was. First, it contained a remarkable number of stories about courageous, active girls; and second, it portrayed the various evils they faced in unflinching terms. Just below their diamond surface, these were stories of great brutality and anguish, many of which had never been originally intended for children at all. (Although Ponsot included tales from the Brothers Grimm and Andersen, the majority of her selections were drawn from the French contes de fées tradition — stories created as part of the vogue for fairy tales in seventeenth century Paris, recounted in literary salons and published for adult readers.) I hungered for a narrative with which to make some sense of my life, but in schoolbooks and on television all I could find was the sugar water of Dick and Jane, Leave it to Beaver and the happy, wholesome Brady Bunch. Mine was not a Brady Bunch family; it was troubled, fractured, persistently violent, and I needed the stronger meat of wolves and witches, poisons and peril. In fairy tales, I had found a mirror held up to the world I knew — where adults were dangerous creatures, and Good and Evil were not abstract concepts. (…) There were in those days no shelves full of “self–help” books for people with pasts like mine. In retrospect, I’m glad it was myth and folklore I turned to instead. Too many books portray child abuse as though it’s an illness from which one must heal, like cancer . . .or malaria . . .or perhaps a broken leg. Eventually, this kind of book promises, the leg will be strong enough to use, despite a limp betraying deeper wounds that might never mend. Through fairy tales, however, I understood my past in different terms: not as an illness or weakness, but as a hero narrative. It was a story, my story, beginning with birth and ending only with death. Difficult challenges and trials, even those that come at a tender young age, can make us wiser, stronger, and braver; they can serve to transform us, rather than sending us limping into the future.

When shame is met with compassion and not received as confirmation of our guilt, we can begin to see how slant a lens it has had us looking through. That awareness lets us step back far enough to see that if we can let it go, we will see ourselves as clean where we once thought we were dirty. We will remember our innocence. We will see how our shame supported a system in which the perpetrators were protected and we bore the brunt of their offense — first in its actuality, then again in carrying their shame for it. If the method we chose to try to beat out shame was perfectionism, we can relax now, shake the burden off our shoulders, and give ourselves a chance to loosen up and make some errors. Hallelujah! Our freedom will not come from tireless effort and getting it all exactly right.

The life of a plural wife, she'd found, was a life lived under constant comparison, a life spent wondering. Sitting across from her sister-wives at Sunday dinner, the platters and serving dishes floating past like hovercraft, the questions were almost inescapable; Who of us is the most happy? Which of us is his one true love? Who does he desire the most?

Because this, after all, was the basic truth they all chose to live by: that love was no finite commodity. That it was not subject to the cruel reckoning of addition and subtraction, that to give to one did not necessarily mean to take from another; that the heart, in its infinite capacity-even the confused and cheating heart of the man in front of her, even the paltry thing now clenched and faltering inside her own chest-could open itself to all who would enter, like a house with windows and doors thrown wide, like the heart of God itself, vast and accommodating and holy, a mansion of rooms without number, full of multitudes without end.

Joanna heard the unspoken subtext in that simple statement. Jeff Daniels could call his parents and tell them the news. Marianne couldn’t. Marianne’s parents had never recovered from their daughter’s public defection from the Catholic Church and becoming a Methodist minister. Over the years, Marianne had given Joanna helpful hints about resolving the mother/ daughter rifts between Joanna and Eleanor Lathrop. That didn’t mean, however, that she had ever been able to heal the long-standing feud with her own mother.

Boyfriend/Girlfriend-Centered This may be the easiest trap of all to fall into. I mean, who hasn’t been centered on a boyfriend or girlfriend at one point? Let’s pretend Brady centers his life on his girlfriend, Tasha. Now, watch the instability it creates in Brady. TASHA’S ACTIONS BRADY’S REACTIONS Makes a rude comment: “My day is ruined.” Flirts with Brady’s best friend: “I’ve been betrayed.   I hate my friend.” “I think we should date other people”: “My life is over. You don’t love me anymore.” The ironic thing is that the more you center your life on someone, the more unattractive you become to that person. How’s that? Well, first of all, if you’re centered on someone, you’re no longer hard to get. Second, it’s irritating when someone builds their entire emotional life around you. Since their security comes from you and not from within themselves, they always need to have those sickening “where do we stand” talks. if who I am is what I have and what I have is lost, then who am I? ANONYMOUS When I began dating my wife, one of the things that attracted me most was that she didn’t center her life on me. I’ll never forget the time she turned me down (with a smile and no apology) for a very important date. I loved it! She was her own person and had her own inner strength. Her moods were independent of mine. You can usually tell when a couple becomes centered on each other because they are forever breaking up and getting back together. Although their relationship has deteriorated, their emotional lives and identities are so intertwined that they can never fully let go of each other. Believe me, you’ll be a better boyfriend or girlfriend if you’re not centered on your partner. Independence is more attractive than dependence. Besides, centering your life on another doesn’t show that you love them, only that you’re dependent on them. Have as many girlfriends or boyfriends as you’d like, just don’t get obsessed with or centered on them, because, although there are exceptions, these relationships are usually about as stable as a yo-yo.

To review briefly, in the late 1960s, men got paid more than women (usually double) for doing the exact same job. Women could get credit cards in their husband's names but not their own, and many divorced, single and separated women could not get cards at all. Women could not get mortgages on their own and if a couple applied for a mortgage, only the husband's income was considered. Women faced widespread and consistent discrimination in education, scholarship awards, and on the job. In most states the collective property of a marriage was legally the husband's since the wife had allegedly not contributed to acquiring it. Women were largely kept out of a whole host of jobs--doctor, college professor, bus driver, business manager--that women today take for granted. They were knocked out in the delivery room... once women got pregnant they were either fired from their jobs or expected to quit. If they were women of color, it was worse on all fronts--work education, health care. (And talk about slim pickings. African American men were being sent to prison and cut out of jobs by the millions.) Most women today, having seen reruns of The Brady Bunch and Father Knows Best, and having heard of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, the bestseller that attacked women's confinement to the home, are all too familiar with the idealized yet suffocating media images of happy, devoted housewives. In fact, most of us have learned to laugh at them, vacuuming in their stockings and heels, clueless about balancing a checkbook, asking dogs directions to the neighbor's. But we should not permit our ability to distance ourselves from these images to erase the fact that all women--and we mean all women--were, in the 1950s and '60s supposed to internalize this ideal, to live it and believe it.