Triggered much.

My family isn't full of alchies and pill heads. We've had several deaths, usually on the road, due to alchies and pill heads though.

There's not many in my family who drink alcohol, we've had two in the extended family who have struggled with addiction due to the Opiod crisis (both veterans). Very few smokers too. Living into the late 80s and 90s is normal.

But then, you won't find many of us who bought into the gender tropes so strongly that you'd go about a normal day wearing heels and pearl necklaces, primped up at all times like you're ready for an evening out in other words.

There wasn't 'always' a hot meal. Sometimes one of the kids was sick and we had leftovers or sandwiches. Or one of the animals. Cause priorities.

Sometimes Grandma was the sick or hurt one. Pizza or opening up a can vegetable soup. Life went on. Nobody died or thought poorly of Grandma because there wasn't a "hot meal waiting" when Granddad got home.

Grandma never told her little ones, "wait till your father gets home". Unless you were stupid or brain injuried, you were well aware of the fact that he was more terrified of pissing her off than you. You've still got childhood cuteness in your favor.

The Ward and June exhibition is so far from how most of our families lived their lives back then, it's not even funny. It's a caricature of what life was really like.

Let's also not forget that Granddads and Great-Granddads of that era were liky war veterans and had trauma from WWI, The Great Depression, and WWII. All that trauma got played out in a lot of families during the late 40s and 50s.

It wasn't idyllic like people want to remember. It was simpler and less noisy. But it was NOT idyllic.