Eliana's Profile

My mother anticipated the Women's Movement by decades. Both my parents pitched in with everything, from earning a paycheck to painting the walls to washing and drying mountains of dishes in tandem. They may not have been quite in sync with the neighbors at times -- especially during the 1950s -- but that didn't seem to bother them unduly.

One day, during that stretch of late childhood when girls tend to preen and giggle and study their mirror-images incessantly, I became vaguely aware that my parents were running around rather frantically, caught up in last-minute preparations for a dinner party at our house. As my harried mother sped past with the salad plates, she caught sight of me perched contentedly in my favorite armchair -- garbed in my prettiest party dress and dreamily admriing the shine of my patent leather mary janes. It was then that she called out some cheery words of advice which have guided my life for more than forty years now: "Hey there, kiddo -- Make yourself useful as well as ornamental!"