Mine is a short story. I moved to the US from South Africa in the 1960s, having been thoroughly indoctrinated by the message of white apartheid. I’m originally from Northern Ireland where, ironically, I grew up in an environment of hatred and repression. South Africa took me from the bottom of the ladder to the top, literally overnight. So I was a racist when I came here, I believed that whites were superior because that’s how God intended it to be. Then one day I went to the movies and saw “Guess who’s coming to dinner” and it rocked my world. In the space of a couple of hours I saw how wrong I was, I saw the evils of racism and it changed me forever. I left the cinema a different person and will be forever grateful for the experience.
I'm nearly 81 and can't believe I live in this world. It's way beyond any nightmare ever and it's not just in this pathetic country but seemingly everywhere. When did words like liberal, tolerant and diverse become evil? I grew up in LA where most of my schoolmates were from different countries, not just different cities. It was glorious! Later I attended UCLA where I received a true liberal arts education. I've taught ESL to immigrants for a long time. Basically everything in my life has been in service and celebration of the other. What a cruel and incredibly boring future we are looking at to be surrounded by a bunch of fat, pasty white men as if they are the master race! People have lost their minds with all their tech toys. I am so disillusioned but maintain a glimmer of hope that enough of us will wake up to the reality of how cruel and abnormal and unhealthy our power structures are. I hope to live long enough to see that.
I am so glad you used the word "boring." For me, that is a particular horror of this emphasis on white, Christian, male-dominated society. Diversity makes life and society INTERESTING, which is crucial for mental health!
My sister and I have talked about this, how FTBYAM led us to expect such a hopeful world, one that kept getting more and more just and equal, and how the Trump era has been such a rude, disheartening awakening. Thank you so much for writing this—solidarity!! ❤️💔
I have been very nostalgic for the 70’s and the messages of hope and harmony I remember. I’m 59, and Sesame Street, with its colorful, loving neighbors looked like heaven. Mr. Rogers, too, showed what peace and love looked like. I have been thinking of the Coke commercial (in perfect harmony) and the anti-litter ad with the crying Native American man. I felt empowered by Nancy Drew, who, while privileged with her convertible and pretty dresses, was a girl out in the world taking chances and solving mysteries! And her dad encouraged her and believed in her!
Beth, have you watched "Mad Men"? The finale (after 7 seasons) involved that Coke commercial...it was a fantastic finale...but I suppose partly because the whole series led up to that moment.
I turned 71 yesterday (also no kids or grandkids) and I carry this album deep in my heart from when I was a freshman (freshwoman?!) in college, insisting that my parents put "Ms." not "Miss" on their frequent letters. Each song you mentioned, and the rest of the playlist, are part of that time for me. Still today, in my work as a therapist, I often refer clients to the line "crying takes the hurt out of you...," from Rosey Grier's rendition of "It's Alright to Cry," especially one male client who felt like it was wussy to cry, even when his beloved dog had to be put down a couple of weeks ago. He loved the song. Thanks for this post, Sari, and for pointing out the album's historic importance in light of the current horror show. Here's hoping we can hold on to these values together.
I'm 68, and I swear, the book with the greatest impact on me was the Moosewood Cookbook, which was published when I was in college. At the time, I worked in a health food store and restaurant, was a fledgling vegetarian, and felt really "weird" and "different." Because there was no internet or social media, the book just showed up one day in my local bookstore. Word of mouth caused it to become almost a cult favorite -- an affirmation that we, in Chapel Hill, were not that different from our sisters in Ithaca. And everywhere! I felt a sense of community and hope. From a cookbook!
At 62, I feel everything you’ve described. FTBYAM, Pete Seeger’s Carnegie Hall children’s album, and as I grew up, Broadway musicals and Joan Baez (my father’s record collection besides opera, which I’ve never taken to.) my kids listened to Free to Be as well, but I think it felt retrograde to them - we already had achieved so much of what the album portended. I’ve had the lovely good fortune of getting to work with and know Letty Cottin Pogrebin over the last few years - one of the founders of Ms. Magazine and one of the main voices behind Free to Be. She’s one of my sheroes. But none of the liberal and progressive views of how the world should be have been fully realized, and now we’re learning just how fragile it all was. I’m numb these days, outraged and yet I can’t summon the next step to fight. I can. I no longer say I fear for our future. The future is here, and it’s awful.
I'm 55 and grew up with parents and grandparents who love, or would have loved, Trump's values. I never agreed. They sent me to a fancy looking Catholic school without realizing that the nuns were into liberation theology, workers rights, and were feminists... And then I spent a lot of time practicing Zen Buddhism. I don't remember Free to Be, it's the kind of thing my mother would have never let in the house, but as I went through college and two different graduate programs I found my people in liberal academia and I also believed that the world should be getting better and better. Smarter, saner, more equal, more just. This is truly a rude awakening. The people I thought I grew up and got away from turned out to be a sizable part of our our country.
I was obsessed with Free to Be, which wore out the needle-nail on my Mickey Mouse record player. The piece I loved the most was Ladies First, as I considered myself what we called a “tomboy” then- which my gender-fluid kids laugh at me about now. And I would argue that this record did in fact did prepare genXers for the current times- or rather the looming dystopia, because when the “tigers” come to eat us all, we won’t demand to be the tender young things at the front of the line. We’ll fight, for our non-gender conforming kids, for our BIPOC kids, for our immigrant neighbors. Because as genXers, we learned that nobody would look out for us and we’d have to figure it out for ourselves.
Oh my gosh, as a kid I remember looking at my parents at times and thinking, “That’s not right. Or fair. Or compassionate.” We had to figure it out for ourselves…so true.
As a 1965'r who grew up in liberal coastal Nor Cal, I could have written this same piece. Also lest we not forget the sweetness of community on Sesame Street and the gentle presence of Mr. Rogers. I ingested it so deeply; these creations affirmed and nourished everything that can be good in a human. Church was merely for socializing. I do what I can, still that kid, and am old enough to know how atrocious things are.
PS - we would sing FTBYAM in our elementary school choir. There is such power in owning lyrics as it more fully engrains the lyrics into our knowingness. We would belt that song out with such innocence, conviction and hope - probably around the 4th grade. I still have the mimeograph (remember the smell of the fresh purple ink?) page of the lyrics that were pounded out on a typewriter, pre-selectric, in a loopy serif font.
Sari, I worked at Ms. in the early 70s when Free to Be first came out and your lovely post makes me wonder if you might want to try to get Letty Cottin Pogrebin for one of your Oldster interviews. She was instrumental in producing Free to Be (or at least that's how I remember it) and might be a terrific intvu subject, esp considering your appreciation. xo
Oh, I love that you were at Ms. for that, Val. Someone else here just mentioned Letty, and offered to ask if she’d take the questionnaire! I hope she’ll do it. I also want to find Rosie Grier and ask him. He’s in his 90s now.
Indeed-my wife of almost 53 yrs. and I still enjoy “Free To Be”. I have it on my phone and are consistently encouraged and inspired by the words to the various songs. We met and fell in love while working as social workers at a boy’s home in Tulsa Oklahoma. After meeting this strong woman raised by a strong single mother whose husband was killed in a freak crop dusting plane crash when my wife was 7, I was quickly adopting and shaping my Feminist views as a husband.
We were about 25 or 26 when the album was released.
At that time our son, (my step son), was about 7 and we immediately ran out and bought the album for “him.” No doubt we have played it far more over the years than anyone else in our family. In 1972 we were giving speeches for the ratification of ERA in Oklahoma. We were also working with a coalition in Tulsa to encourage the public schools to purchase texts that were not filled with stereotypes of women’s, Native Americans, Blacks, etc…needless to say, the songs were added reinforcement for our views.
We also taught a local 2 hour Sunday School class for kindergarteners at Tulsa’s largest Unitarian Church. We were actually field testing the curriculum for it after being asked by our national leadership to assist. The curriculum was widely popular and we finally had to cap our class at about 54 inquisitive 5 year olds with lots of energy! We had parents coming to our church from several other congregations because they had heard such wonderful stories about the class and the exposure we gave the children to different perspectives and cultures. The “Free To Be” album played a central role in all of this work on these delightful Sunday mornings.
Thank you Marlo Thomas and others for continuing to help and afford needed encouragement for my now long established feminist male values-and yes, I do the dishes and vacuum the house-all to this music!
Oh, you took me right back to that iconic album. I am 62, and despite what I saw around me--very traditional role models in my mother and father, it gave me hope that my future partner would be doing the dishes with me, that boys cry and it's okay if they like dolls. Free To Be You and Me, and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, and Go Ask Alice, just because it was so cool to write a book and be anonymous. Thanks for this post; it really has me thinking of how far we have not come.
In 1975 (before the Iranian Revolution) I performed in Free to be You and Me at the Iran-American Society theatre in Tehran, Iran. I sang It’s all right to cry to packed houses! Whenever I mention this to my friends here in England, they’re unimpressed. It’s my American friends’ faces that light up when I mention that splendid musical. I now sing It’s alright to Cry in private to my granddaughter.
Mine is a short story. I moved to the US from South Africa in the 1960s, having been thoroughly indoctrinated by the message of white apartheid. I’m originally from Northern Ireland where, ironically, I grew up in an environment of hatred and repression. South Africa took me from the bottom of the ladder to the top, literally overnight. So I was a racist when I came here, I believed that whites were superior because that’s how God intended it to be. Then one day I went to the movies and saw “Guess who’s coming to dinner” and it rocked my world. In the space of a couple of hours I saw how wrong I was, I saw the evils of racism and it changed me forever. I left the cinema a different person and will be forever grateful for the experience.
Wow! You are a testament to the idea that art can change hearts and minds. Thank you for sharing this. <3
Wow, one work of film art swayed one person forever. That is beautiful and a reminder that what I write may help one person. Thank you Eileen.
This is beautiful. And one of the vital reasons art matters and why authoritarian regimes fear it. It's powerful.
Yes.
Thanks for sharing this. What a testament for—forgive the cliche—the power of art and storytelling.
<3
How do we get Musk & Thiel to watch Guess who’s Coming also to convert them.
Ha. Good luck with that!
I'm nearly 81 and can't believe I live in this world. It's way beyond any nightmare ever and it's not just in this pathetic country but seemingly everywhere. When did words like liberal, tolerant and diverse become evil? I grew up in LA where most of my schoolmates were from different countries, not just different cities. It was glorious! Later I attended UCLA where I received a true liberal arts education. I've taught ESL to immigrants for a long time. Basically everything in my life has been in service and celebration of the other. What a cruel and incredibly boring future we are looking at to be surrounded by a bunch of fat, pasty white men as if they are the master race! People have lost their minds with all their tech toys. I am so disillusioned but maintain a glimmer of hope that enough of us will wake up to the reality of how cruel and abnormal and unhealthy our power structures are. I hope to live long enough to see that.
Me, too. Let’s hang onto whatever shreds of hope we can. <3
I'm with you Darlene, Thanks for your hope glimmers.
I am so glad you used the word "boring." For me, that is a particular horror of this emphasis on white, Christian, male-dominated society. Diversity makes life and society INTERESTING, which is crucial for mental health!
My sister and I have talked about this, how FTBYAM led us to expect such a hopeful world, one that kept getting more and more just and equal, and how the Trump era has been such a rude, disheartening awakening. Thank you so much for writing this—solidarity!! ❤️💔
Thanks for letting me know how much this resonated, Gayle. Solidarity. <3
I love this so much! I am 57. Yes, this album, Mr. Rogers, and the 1970s YA books and after-school specials! Plus "very special episodes" of sitcoms.
Oh, yes. Mr. Rogers was a big influence, too. And those other specials…
I have been very nostalgic for the 70’s and the messages of hope and harmony I remember. I’m 59, and Sesame Street, with its colorful, loving neighbors looked like heaven. Mr. Rogers, too, showed what peace and love looked like. I have been thinking of the Coke commercial (in perfect harmony) and the anti-litter ad with the crying Native American man. I felt empowered by Nancy Drew, who, while privileged with her convertible and pretty dresses, was a girl out in the world taking chances and solving mysteries! And her dad encouraged her and believed in her!
Yes, yes. I'm 59, too. BTW, the song on that Coke commercial was performed by The New Seekers, who also sing the theme song to Free to Be...
Beth, have you watched "Mad Men"? The finale (after 7 seasons) involved that Coke commercial...it was a fantastic finale...but I suppose partly because the whole series led up to that moment.
It was a brilliant finale!
I have watched episodes of Mad Men but not seen the finale; I will check it out, thanks!
Ditto to every reference you made and i also loved Nancy Drew mysteries!
I turned 71 yesterday (also no kids or grandkids) and I carry this album deep in my heart from when I was a freshman (freshwoman?!) in college, insisting that my parents put "Ms." not "Miss" on their frequent letters. Each song you mentioned, and the rest of the playlist, are part of that time for me. Still today, in my work as a therapist, I often refer clients to the line "crying takes the hurt out of you...," from Rosey Grier's rendition of "It's Alright to Cry," especially one male client who felt like it was wussy to cry, even when his beloved dog had to be put down a couple of weeks ago. He loved the song. Thanks for this post, Sari, and for pointing out the album's historic importance in light of the current horror show. Here's hoping we can hold on to these values together.
I love that the record informs your therapeutic practice! Hearteniing.
I taught my daughters to sing “I am woman, hear me roar . “ when they were maybe 10 or 11. The oldest, now 56, still remembers!
My first rock concert was Holly Near! (With my mom of course!)
I'm 68, and I swear, the book with the greatest impact on me was the Moosewood Cookbook, which was published when I was in college. At the time, I worked in a health food store and restaurant, was a fledgling vegetarian, and felt really "weird" and "different." Because there was no internet or social media, the book just showed up one day in my local bookstore. Word of mouth caused it to become almost a cult favorite -- an affirmation that we, in Chapel Hill, were not that different from our sisters in Ithaca. And everywhere! I felt a sense of community and hope. From a cookbook!
Yes, love that cookbook, and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.
At 62, I feel everything you’ve described. FTBYAM, Pete Seeger’s Carnegie Hall children’s album, and as I grew up, Broadway musicals and Joan Baez (my father’s record collection besides opera, which I’ve never taken to.) my kids listened to Free to Be as well, but I think it felt retrograde to them - we already had achieved so much of what the album portended. I’ve had the lovely good fortune of getting to work with and know Letty Cottin Pogrebin over the last few years - one of the founders of Ms. Magazine and one of the main voices behind Free to Be. She’s one of my sheroes. But none of the liberal and progressive views of how the world should be have been fully realized, and now we’re learning just how fragile it all was. I’m numb these days, outraged and yet I can’t summon the next step to fight. I can. I no longer say I fear for our future. The future is here, and it’s awful.
<3 <3 <3 PS I'd love for Letty to take The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire. Do you think she might be game?
I can ask her!
Thank you!!!
100 percent. Everything.
I'm 55 and grew up with parents and grandparents who love, or would have loved, Trump's values. I never agreed. They sent me to a fancy looking Catholic school without realizing that the nuns were into liberation theology, workers rights, and were feminists... And then I spent a lot of time practicing Zen Buddhism. I don't remember Free to Be, it's the kind of thing my mother would have never let in the house, but as I went through college and two different graduate programs I found my people in liberal academia and I also believed that the world should be getting better and better. Smarter, saner, more equal, more just. This is truly a rude awakening. The people I thought I grew up and got away from turned out to be a sizable part of our our country.
Glad you got out. <3
I was obsessed with Free to Be, which wore out the needle-nail on my Mickey Mouse record player. The piece I loved the most was Ladies First, as I considered myself what we called a “tomboy” then- which my gender-fluid kids laugh at me about now. And I would argue that this record did in fact did prepare genXers for the current times- or rather the looming dystopia, because when the “tigers” come to eat us all, we won’t demand to be the tender young things at the front of the line. We’ll fight, for our non-gender conforming kids, for our BIPOC kids, for our immigrant neighbors. Because as genXers, we learned that nobody would look out for us and we’d have to figure it out for ourselves.
You’re right. Well put. Thank you.
So many lines from "Ladies First" are imprinted on my brain! "What do you mean, there aren't enough mangoes to go around?"
I love that one. (I love them all.)
Oh my gosh, as a kid I remember looking at my parents at times and thinking, “That’s not right. Or fair. Or compassionate.” We had to figure it out for ourselves…so true.
As a 1965'r who grew up in liberal coastal Nor Cal, I could have written this same piece. Also lest we not forget the sweetness of community on Sesame Street and the gentle presence of Mr. Rogers. I ingested it so deeply; these creations affirmed and nourished everything that can be good in a human. Church was merely for socializing. I do what I can, still that kid, and am old enough to know how atrocious things are.
Yes, those shows affected me, too. And yes, utterly atrocious. <3
PS - we would sing FTBYAM in our elementary school choir. There is such power in owning lyrics as it more fully engrains the lyrics into our knowingness. We would belt that song out with such innocence, conviction and hope - probably around the 4th grade. I still have the mimeograph (remember the smell of the fresh purple ink?) page of the lyrics that were pounded out on a typewriter, pre-selectric, in a loopy serif font.
Sari, I worked at Ms. in the early 70s when Free to Be first came out and your lovely post makes me wonder if you might want to try to get Letty Cottin Pogrebin for one of your Oldster interviews. She was instrumental in producing Free to Be (or at least that's how I remember it) and might be a terrific intvu subject, esp considering your appreciation. xo
Oh, I love that you were at Ms. for that, Val. Someone else here just mentioned Letty, and offered to ask if she’d take the questionnaire! I hope she’ll do it. I also want to find Rosie Grier and ask him. He’s in his 90s now.
Indeed-my wife of almost 53 yrs. and I still enjoy “Free To Be”. I have it on my phone and are consistently encouraged and inspired by the words to the various songs. We met and fell in love while working as social workers at a boy’s home in Tulsa Oklahoma. After meeting this strong woman raised by a strong single mother whose husband was killed in a freak crop dusting plane crash when my wife was 7, I was quickly adopting and shaping my Feminist views as a husband.
We were about 25 or 26 when the album was released.
At that time our son, (my step son), was about 7 and we immediately ran out and bought the album for “him.” No doubt we have played it far more over the years than anyone else in our family. In 1972 we were giving speeches for the ratification of ERA in Oklahoma. We were also working with a coalition in Tulsa to encourage the public schools to purchase texts that were not filled with stereotypes of women’s, Native Americans, Blacks, etc…needless to say, the songs were added reinforcement for our views.
We also taught a local 2 hour Sunday School class for kindergarteners at Tulsa’s largest Unitarian Church. We were actually field testing the curriculum for it after being asked by our national leadership to assist. The curriculum was widely popular and we finally had to cap our class at about 54 inquisitive 5 year olds with lots of energy! We had parents coming to our church from several other congregations because they had heard such wonderful stories about the class and the exposure we gave the children to different perspectives and cultures. The “Free To Be” album played a central role in all of this work on these delightful Sunday mornings.
Thank you Marlo Thomas and others for continuing to help and afford needed encouragement for my now long established feminist male values-and yes, I do the dishes and vacuum the house-all to this music!
Oh, I love this, John. Thank you for sharing (and for sharing the household chores). <3
Oh, you took me right back to that iconic album. I am 62, and despite what I saw around me--very traditional role models in my mother and father, it gave me hope that my future partner would be doing the dishes with me, that boys cry and it's okay if they like dolls. Free To Be You and Me, and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, and Go Ask Alice, just because it was so cool to write a book and be anonymous. Thanks for this post; it really has me thinking of how far we have not come.
Yes, all of those! <3
In 1975 (before the Iranian Revolution) I performed in Free to be You and Me at the Iran-American Society theatre in Tehran, Iran. I sang It’s all right to cry to packed houses! Whenever I mention this to my friends here in England, they’re unimpressed. It’s my American friends’ faces that light up when I mention that splendid musical. I now sing It’s alright to Cry in private to my granddaughter.
Wow! FTBYAM in pre-revolution Iran! I feel like we are in something of an analogous situation now.