Eileen Smith and Ellen Smith

00:00 All right.

00:02 Okay, my name is Eileen Smith on 77 years old right now. I'm in Northampton Massachusetts at the home of my daughter. It's Monday, August 6th.

00:18 10:20 and it's 2012 and I'm being interviewed by my daughter.

00:30 So I'm Ellen Smith. I am Eileen's daughter and we are here in my dining room today. Again is Monday August 6th 2012 about 10:20 in the morning and we are this was a Hanukkah gift for Eileen. So we're finally managing to get together and do the interview. So I thought we would start just by talking about growing up with that was like I do you want to tell us a little about where you grew up and just have some memories.

00:55 I grew up in New York City in Manhattan. I lived in tenement on 72nd Street. It was a very interesting area because of the mix of people a large percentage of the population was immigrant Italian Czechoslovakian German the area that I lived in with cooled Yorkville. So did have a heavy German population and the other part of the mix was the

01:28 2nd 3rd 4th generation American successful wealthy they man who ran for mayor of New York City lived on my street there was celebrities that lived across the street in the building. So you had this weird mix of people I think growing up there. You learn to be much more independent. I was crossing streets and avenues in Manhattan when I was pretty young on. My mother would tell me to ask someone to cross take me across the street and I would just stand on the corner and whoever came along I would ask that person to cross me. Of course, they weren't as many cars as they are now. So traffic wasn't as heavy but it was really like any other place to grow up. There was a predominance of Street games. They were no such thing. There's no such thing as a playdate. We just all went outside and and whoever was there with the person you played with that person could be

02:28 Years older than you five years younger. It didn't make any difference and you played potsie which is Hopscotch you jump rope, you played hide and go seek tag. Ring-a-levio Red Light Green Light. These are all the games that we played when I was growing up.

02:52 So this is not on the list, but how do you think it affected you to crop in New York City?

02:59 I think that it was a wonderful experience because it's a tough city to live in and I think you learn to handle a lot of situations that children who grow up in the country or suburbs don't really handle and as I said one was Independence, I was riding buses and Subways when I was 9 and 10 years old. I can't imagine a child today doing that without parental supervision. Also, it was very very exciting. There was always something going on with the New York City then was not the same as in New York City now, but there was the theater and I did start going to the theater when I was I guess I was in 5th grade when I sold my first show

03:49 My brother took all of us to see Oklahoma and that was the first Broadway show that I saw a tickets were I think they were a dollar 2280 and 340. I think 460 was the most expensive seat in the house. So we all sat in the balcony. I saw those were down with 20 seats. I think the four of us when I think my father and mother went to and after that I was hooked and my brother was very good about it. He took me he took me to the theater a lot. So there's an exposure that you get in in New York City that you really don't get in other places also in school. You have a very very heterogeneous population. There was a mixture of ethnicities races.

04:39 All kinds of all kinds of people in your class, of course because we had such a heavy immigrant population. You had people from virtually every country that you can imagine and everyone. I knew the parents spoke with an accent very few of my friends parents were Americans were born in the United States.

05:05 And you grew up hearing what language at home.

05:09 The language that I heard at home was predominantly Yiddish. My parents did speak English are to me and into each other but that's went to each other. They always spoke Yiddish. My grandparents never really learned English. So they spoke Yiddish all the time. So I came to understand the language. Although I I don't speak it as well as I understand it, but I heard it at home all the time. And I think you told me that when he went to kindergarten you didn't stick them with English. Is that right? So what was that? Like that was my brother my brother didn't speak English when he went to kindergarten I because my parents remember were closer to the time they came to America when he was born than when I was born cuz I was born seven years after he was so they had already been in this country for a while know he has some embarrassing moments when he went to school because he couldn't speak English. I spoke English when I went to school at that time. We even had a mayor we had a mayor in New York City who

06:09 Was able to speak Yiddish. So sometimes he would get on the radio and he would speak at a shy. I don't know if it was one of his parents or grandparents who spoke Edition. That's where he learned it.

06:21 So what are your some of your memories about your parents if you could check on them what they were like?

06:26 My father had a retail remnant store he started out and I having a stand on 2nd Avenue to was a pharmacist to rent a space to him outside and he had to stand where he sells his remnants to see how well he would do and then he opened his store a block away and he became a businessman and a good one. He used to have signs outside his door that said look and the O's in the look had eyes in them and to attract people he would have specials out there and then people started to call him Mister look that became his name, but he was a typical immigrant very very very hard-working work was so all you really didn't leave much time for anything else. My mother was the typical stay-at-home mother because she didn't have much of an education.

07:26 It was hard for her to get a job. She did get a job from time to time when she needed money. The one that I remember the best was when she wanted to buy me a Shirley Temple doll, and she went to work for one week in a factory.

07:42 So she could makes me sad so she could bring the doll.

07:54 What does that mean to you or what? Does that say to you about who she was?

07:59 Well, if she was a good mother she really was tuned in. She wanted to give her children what our children wanted she wasn't always able to so going to work for her was a way of making enough money so that she could at least buy us the toys that we wanted my brother. He did he didn't wait for that. He would just go into the store and and take a toy and not pay for it. And my mother the storekeeper know my mother and would tell her what she owed at the end of the week. My brother didn't seem to understand that you had to buy these things and you had and you had to pay for them, but she tried very hard to to give us. Well she tried to give us what she thought we should have it with other children had she was very much concerned that we wouldn't that we should not have less than other people and in our neighborhood, so she she sacrificed. I stayed with my grandmother when she went to work and I

08:59 Remember, I'll never forget her walking down the street with this huge box. Which contain the Shirley Temple doll. Of course. Shirley Temple was a popular figure of the time.

09:13 I have to think for a second. I want any other memories about either your mother or your father that you want to talk about your relationship with them. Okay?

09:26 What are you memories about the war? I've always been curious about what that was like particularly when the war ended and you begin to understand what had gone on there.

09:36 Well, the war really framed my childhood because I was born practically born into it and for the first 10 years of my life. We were at War what I remember what the inconveniences for a child. You really don't think much about what's going on or do I do remember headlines in the newspaper? But I remember we had stamps everything was rationed. And so you would have to collect Branson's repair of shoes. You would have to have a certain number of stamps.

10:10 Otherwise, you couldn't get the shoes and you were allowed a certain number per family. I remember there were air raid drills.

10:18 At night but took you lie, and you had to turn off all the lights. So you would look out in the streets would be completely dark in the air raid wardens would walk around with flashlights. They would showing them in Windows to get people to turn the lights out and I remember being particularly proud because my brother was an air raid warden. So he had a white helmet that I think it said US Air Raid or something like that on it and I was very proud of that cuz he would go out with his flashlight Whenever there was a drill. How does he get to be chosen for that?

10:50 I think he volunteered I don't I don't think it was special on or involved in it. I I really don't know cuz it was there was a big age difference identity was a sense of being frightened. Sometimes I used to think that that the enemy was closed if I would hear an airplane, I would often think maybe it was from another country. So you were always aware aware of the world are there was no fighting on our soil you were conscious of it. There were things that made you aware. And then the headlines would read the headline one that I remember the best was it was it said Reds advancing and the Reds were of course the Russians and that was good news because they were helping us to win the war against Germany. So some of the headlines were very good. I certainly remember the end of the war very very well my mother

11:50 Always loved crowd. She was never afraid of crowds and she just took me two Times Square the day that the war was declared over and everyone converged on Times Square including

12:03 All the servicemen who happen to be off or if you know on leave at that time, so you could hardly walk the streets. I was 10 years old and I was very scared because because of the crowds I mean everybody was very very happy. My mother of course was the young woman at the time and she was a pretty woman and I remember the servicemen would be grabbing all the women that they could send the kissing them in Times Square in and I remember my mother pushing everybody away and just holding onto me for dear life, but she was a great believer in being where the action was. So she wanted you know, she wanted to see her for herself what was going on in Times Square and there was some very famous pictures is one very very famous one from it's in the family of man. That was from that day and in Times Square,

12:55 And do you remember I guess I have always wondered about soda when news about concentration camps broke up with after the war remember what that was like.

13:08 No, you know it's funny. We were on very conscious of it in terms of being Jewish. I was very conscious of being Jewish because I was the only Jewish child in my elementary school. So I had got to deal with a dirty Jew with something. I heard fairly often in terms of the camps when the information stars come out about the camps. I didn't have great impact, but I remember asking my mother if she had any relatives who were still in Europe and you think what they and the camps and her answer was well if they were they're all dead now and that was really pretty much all we discussed about it. You know, that that news came out slowly and gradually it didn't come out all at once.

14:00 Anything else that you want to stay by your child have any kind of favorite stories about your childhood?

14:10 I Remember by earliest memory is being in a stroller and I remember the stroller was black wicker because I guess that's what they use them for strollers and I was being wheeled by my brother and my two older cousins and I remember we were in Brooklyn and they were with me and my mother wasn't and the reason that she wasn't is that her father-in-law and my grandfather had died and she had been called to go over to his home. I guess to identify him and you know that and give them all the information that they they need it. I think that's probably the earliest memory I have. I have no idea how old I was because I don't know how long my mother kept me in a stroller.

14:58 In terms of what what things that happened in my childhood. I remember playing hide and go seek with friends and we played at night was great in the summer time cuz you could stay out until about 10 at night and all the kids were out in the street and we were playing hide and go seek and I was it and I hid my face and count did and then I turned around and I looked and I looked and I couldn't find anybody because everybody was playing the game had agreed to go home. So there I was

15:34 I was devastated by because first I didn't realize what it happened and then it hit me that nobody was around they they had all left cuz it was late and they had they had gone after that. I didn't really want to play that game very much. I also remember that.

15:51 My mother made all my clothes my father had a fabric store and my mother made my clothes. So I had a lot of clothes and everything was coordinated ribbons for my hair shoes. She even made purses she made coats. So I was very well-dressed and when I went to school the teachers were always anxious to see what I was wearing so they would send me one my teacher would send me with a note which I didn't know the contents of to another teacher so that the teachers could see what I was wearing because my my wardrobe was quite a was quite a thing at the time and it was another reason though. We will pour I thought I was rich because I was so well-dressed. Let me see any of the stories. My mother turned out to be a very aggressive mother when when she had to be when we were leaving 6th grade half. The class went on to Junior High.

16:51 It's cool. And the other half of the class went on to a school that went up to grade 8 at it was just 7 and 8 and the junior high took the brighter your kids.

17:05 And the other students were not as bright went to the other school and I was assigned to go to the all the school not to the junior high. Although I was probably one of the if not the smartest kid in the class and I came home hysterically crying and my mother really didn't know what to do with the first she took me and she bought me if I wanted a birthstone ring. So she bought me an amethyst ring, but nothing could consult only because I was going with with the so-called dumb kids and we couldn't figure out why so my mother went to school and she she really embarrass me, but she really insulted the principal and she told the principal that she was an anti-semite and that all she had to do was look at my marks and speak to my teacher and she would know that that I belonged in the junior high school and I don't know what happened but I was sent to the junior high school so she won that battle but it was difficult in the sense that she really insulted the the principal naughty City.

18:05 Go to the teacher she went directly to the principal and she was Furious. That was the only time she had ever really interfered in something that was happening to Immigrant parents tend not to get involved in what goes on in school. They said the teachers right? Listen to the teacher. But in this case, she saw that something was very unfair.

18:28 Do you think that she was responding to upset you were do you think that she valued education in the same way that you do know? I don't think she tell you she was uneducated. She had no indication of her own. No, I think she was just upset and I think she saw the unfairness of it. She was not a political person. She was not an activist in any way but this was blatantly unfair. I mean the kids in the class couldn't believe it. I mean everybody knew that, you know, I was a good student. In fact, one of my happiest memories in elementary school for the different teacher were when she told the class at the only one who knows arithmetic in this class has Eileen Sharon, you know, that was me and I remember was very very proud because I was good math student, but I was good and everything. I got A's on my report said there was really no reason.

19:22 For that to happen and that's why my mother just assumed it had to do with the fact that I was Jewish a week. Did we just couldn't figure out what else it could be maybe that wasn't it but we never knew that was but it was resolved and I went to my junior high school with it was seven Jewish kids in my class. And that was I remember counting them by name because that was so unusual for me to have any other to his children in the school not let alone in my class.

19:51 So, how was that experience different than elementary school then?

19:54 Has the truth of the matter is it wasn't really very different the Jewish kids their parents. They were old.

20:14 The difference was really that.

20:18 The children were fuel working-class children.

20:23 It drew from a larger at the school Drew from a larger area and Drew from some of the nicer apartment buildings in the in the neighborhood so that a lot of those students their parents were see one of them had a grocery store which is the business person. They were professionals. It was a doctor that was a dentist. So they the some of the children were privileged. I was not as privileged as as they were but I remember going to their homes and that their homes were much nicer. I remember but it was just a more comfortable feeling. It's the feeling of not being the only one of anything, you know that you just you just fit right in but it was a mix, you know, we will we all mixed together the Christian kids didn't say together in the Jewish kids didn't it wasn't like that. The kids are mixed. That was a nice part about the neighborhood as a matter of fact.

21:21 So I know that you attended College of sort of like us to be lack of support from your family, right? So, can you talk a little bit more about decided to go to college and how you make that happen?

21:35 It was College was something we really didn't talk about in high school. And when I was in my last year of high school.

21:45 We started making out applications to colleges and it was most of the people in the class went to one of the city colleges because the city college is it that time or free it was just a small fee that you had to pay a couple of students were going to go out of town, but that was very unusual and I didn't really know what was going to happen. So I went home and I asked my parents if I was going to go to college and my father said to me it is why does a girl have to go to college? Do you know you're going to get married? Anyway, it's it's not necessary.

22:22 But I really wanted to go I was the salutatorian in a class of 800 students and I really very much wanted to go to college. I don't know what I thought it would do for me, but my brother went to college my brother went on the GI bill. So his college and he went to a private college his college didn't really cost a lot of money. He didn't have to pay for it on my parents didn't have to pay for it. But I know I wasn't going to get any support at that time. Not everyone went to college. It wasn't common for everyone to go some people so high school graduation is as of the end that was the end of your education and then you got a job as a secretary in an office or salesperson, but I persisted and my brother encouraged me and he encouraged me to apply to the school that he went to and he said apply for scholarship.

23:18 And although the city colleges at that time were wonderful. They still are and they were probably better rated. Then I went to New York University and I think the city college has had it certainly a more better academic rating the New York university did it that time but I did get a scholarship and that's how I wound up going to NYU. I really I really wanted to go there was never a time that I didn't want to go but I never was sure that I would go that I would because my brother had to struggle the first year when before he went in the Army and my father gave him a hard time about paying for his tuition. He told him he's got a job, which is difficult went when you go in a college. So I knew that I wasn't in for an easy time being the girls, so it worked out I got my scholarship and I was able to go

24:09 Then you looked at home during college, right? I think you would told me that maybe was your last semester or last year that there was like a gap in your and then you've got a scholarship. Can you tell little more about that?

24:22 NYU, I had what they call a tuition scholarship and a working scholarship. So half of my tuition was paid for by the scholarship in the other half was paid for by my working and the money that I already went towards that and everything was working out. I had very little spending money. My mother used to give me a dollar a week that was for 10 tokens on the subway and that got me to and from school and I'd bring my lunch from home. So I didn't have many expenses at that time. So it just a little bit of the money that I earned I was able to use for myself. Most of it went for my tuition and in my last year and why you raised their tuition substantially.

25:07 They I think they went from $15 a credit to $25 of credit and that became impossible my tuition scholarship only paid for the $15 in my work only paid for 15 or so the woman I work for the work we work for the Dane. We were in the Dean's office and they put their heads together and they went through all the scholarships there a list of scholarships at NYU gives and they found a scholarship was Golda Samuel Ashbourne scholarship. I never knew who Samuel Ashbourne was it was for $450, which was exactly the amount that I needed to finish the year and I got that scholarship. So I was able to stay in NYU and and finish that year. That was lucky.

25:54 And then I know that you went to San Francisco for some amount of time right and then came back. So we'll just about that time in between college and then I know becoming a teacher so

26:05 I wasn't planning to become a teacher when I was in college. I majored in French. So there really wasn't very much that you could do. My father kept asking you what I was going to do with my French and they weren't that many career opportunities at that time for a woman. You could go into teaching nursing secretarial work. That was essentially those were the major female professions and I didn't quite know what I was going to do with friends. So I decided in my senior year in college, I better take some education classes so that I would qualify for certification. So I did that. I took some classes and

26:47 I got my I got my degree, but I got a Bachelor of Arts. I did not get a Bachelor of education. So when I graduated from college, I looked around to try to get a job using my friends. I went to the UN and I couldn't pass their typing test. I took it over and over and over again. And cuz that would have been the best place that they wanted a master's degree and they wanted a degree from a foreign University. So I would have had just an office and office job there. And then I happened to see NY you had not NYU. I'm sorry IBM.

27:25 Trying to think of the name. I think was called the international.

27:29 Some cooperation but it was affiliated with IBM but it had to do with the foreign countries and I thought maybe I could use my French there. So I went in there just walked in off the street and they didn't have any job for someone who new friends, but they sent me over to the main headquarters of IBM. The first thing they do is give you a test at IBM. They gave me a test and they die did very well. They hired me that day and they put me in the publishing Department. Of course, I know nothing about publishing. I know nothing about art, but that's where I wound up and I work there for two years and I learned quite a bit about logos and design and I met some really famous. I met Ansel Adams who was a photographer for IBM pull R and some really famous people, but I really art wasn't my area or design wasn't my area and I always had in the back of my mind that I should be school teacher. I also wanted very much to go to France.

28:29 To practice my French and I know that the only way I could do that as if I were a teacher so I could go in the summer time and that's how it started lunch out that used to be a newspaper called the world Telegram and son and each week. They would publish civil service jobs that were available. And so they had an ad that there was a school that was opening in Long Island City and they needed 80 teachers.

28:58 So I rushed over there on my lunch hour from IBM. I took the subway over there and that it was in Long Island City and I got an interview and I got a job before I came back from lunch, but unfortunately was not teaching my own subject area. And that's how I started. I started a new Junior High School in Long Island City and there was some very very smart people in that school. We all started together who really won far in the in the educational world. It's it's really amazing when you think back because none of us had ever taught before in our lives.

29:38 And then you went on to teach French anyone to teach ESL, right? What do you think you've learned from your just your work life overall?

29:50 Life will teaching mostly taught me to be patient and it taught me that we're not all equal and that some people.

30:05 I deficient in areas that you know, I think when your teach you think everybody is smart and if you're a good teacher you're going to reach everyone and you really can't reach everyone. It's not possible particularly. When you teach in a foreign language would some people just don't take too or have problems with but I learn to be patient and the interesting thing was that I related very well to this slower students. I was kind to them. I was good to them. I try to encourage them and

30:39 I was often sarcastic with the students and that changed when I had my own children because I began to realize that these kids are also somebody's children and and you really can say sarcastic things. You don't want to hurt their feelings, even if they were dumb or didn't do their homework or or whatever you had to be you had to be kind to them. And also what I learned as you learn a lot from his students you learned a tremendous amount particularly when I was in ESL teacher, I learned about so many different cultures and the way they thought and it gave me much more tolerance for other cultures.

31:17 Why was thinking when you were describing growing up in your neighborhood that that was probably good preparation for the NFL teacher 2.

31:24 And then you did not marry daddy until you were 33 cuz that right so touched out somehow you mad but that was like

31:36 Well, I met daddy in the era of computer dating. It was very

31:44 Primitive you would get if they had them at different places. If there'd be a function where single people would meet they would have forms you could fill out and these forms would be fed into a computer and the computer try to to match you. And the thing that was the things that were most that they matched you.

32:06 Two were

32:08 Height

32:10 Religion and education level those were the things that seemed to work and in the beginning what they do is they send you a list of six that a name the people that they think we're good matches for you and in those days and I received names and the the guy receive names, but in those days the women didn't call the men now, they would just get on the phone and call them at that time you waited and I can remember one week. I must have had about six dates every night meeting. Another one is group a world decent. They were all decent nice guys. And when your father went out with your father, he was very nice. He was tall he was nice-looking. He was bright and

33:01 I was a little turned off by the fact that he wore a hearing aid and when he called he called the second time.

33:10 And I remember saying to him which one were you because I didn't from you know, you don't remember when you see so many and you don't know them. They were all strangers. And so I think we went out a second time.

33:24 I guess he said the guy with the hearing aid. I don't I don't remember but I think we did go out and then I decide to know it's too much trouble with the hearing aid. My mother had been hard of hearing. It's not easy and so he called and I said no I kept saying I was busy and then he's very direct. He's always been very very direct. So he said look, you know, if you don't want to go out with me just tell me I won't call you again and I said no no, no, I felt sorry. So I did go out with him and he was he was a very good day. He was we did interesting things and he was funny and he was frightened. That was that was it.

34:05 Anthony married pretty soon after that actually today for that long, right? Did you always know that you wanted to have children?

34:13 Absolutely, you know now they talked about your biological clock. I always wanted I always wanted children but I never thought about my biological clock for some reason. I don't think the term was used as much because I think women were having children younger than they are now so you so you really didn't hear that but I had a sense that I didn't want to be an old mother, you know that I was concerned. I mean, I still have some of my friends had parents or older than my parents were so I know that I knew that it happened but I knew that I was in my thirties and you know, I did I didn't want to be too old one when they were born when my first child was born. I was in the hospital and I think I was in a room with four people.

34:59 And they go around to each bed and they collect information from you that they need I guess for the birth certificate and everything else and they need the age of the mother and I was the last one in the first three was when was 22 when was 24 and when she got to me, I whispered my age because I was embarrassed by it. Cuz I guess I was 34 when you were born and I was 35 when Peter was born and I was very very embarrassed about that because that was considered old at that time to have a baby. Although there was no such thing as amniocentesis. Did you know I never worried about being an older mother. I really never gave it a second thought now it's very different.

35:46 Jennifer what you thought the first time that you saw me.

35:51 What a head of hair. Yeah you had when I was delivering you that I can hit that enough with the doctor. One of the nurses saying in your baby has black hair. I don't care just get it out because I was in such Agony but you were absolutely beautiful because most babies are bold. First of all, you had this big head of really black. Hey, I mean, it wasn't just a couple of little wisps. You had a real head of him. So may you you were quite a beautiful quite a beautiful baby and you were very very easy baby. You were the textbook baby. You know, we had Spock Spock was our Bible and whatever Spock said you were supposed to do at a certain age you did so we were it was just we thought that's the way it was supposed to be I found out differently when your breath was for but yeah, it was it was wonderful. It was it's a wonderful

36:51 Station when they when they bring you when they bring that baby to write I didn't breastfeed. You know, now there's a whole controversy about breastfeeding at that time. They didn't care if you did or you didn't say there was no encouragement for it was formula for you right away. I hope that didn't hurt you.

37:10 So we're at 37 minutes. So I'm thinking we do you want to maybe do a little bit beyond the 40 minutes we probably okay. So what was the hardest time for you? But I told her do you think?

37:24 Turn direction children will for me. I went back to work when you and your brother were very young.

37:34 And so I had to deal with the guilt and also with trying to get good help to take care of you. It was not a time when women with young children worked. It was frowned upon my mother thought it was just an absolutely terrible thing. She was convinced that I was going back to work because we didn't have enough money and didn't understand that. I really had a need to go back to work. So that that part was very difficult raising raising you you were very close in age. So there was a time when neither one of you was walking and I can remember going to the pool pushing a carriage and pulling a stroller because I didn't want to displace you being the older child because you were displaced already. You know, you got the second seat on the stroller the second child. That's what happens. Now they have very sensible strollers. They make them for two. They didn't do that then so you'd have this.

38:33 Feet that you would attach to the stroller because you could sit and the baby couldn't sit you said in that seat. So I found I found those years difficult. I found getting help that.

38:45 You know, I could trust I found that difficult your toilet training. I remember we had one housekeeper who made it her life's mission to get you toilet trained because in her country, they did it very very early. I really didn't care about it. I wasn't

39:03 I wasn't that concerned about it.

39:08 The difficult years I would say are easier in terms of physical care, but they became harder in terms of emotional care. And that's when your children get older. My mother used to say little children little problems big children big problems. And I think that's that's largely true. So it was harder to contend with some of the the difference is you haven't an idea of what you want your child to be like and very often that's based on what you were liking and your ideas of child-rearing come from the way you were reared. The only model you have for raising a child is how you were raised.

39:51 Their books are plenty of books about it, but that's really all you know, you don't take courses before you have a baby. You don't take horses and mothering ion. What what's the correct thing to say to a child if a child asks you a question so that you know that that was that was more difficult. The books didn't answer those questions. You have your standards your values. I was a very traditional mother. I was a very conformist mother.

40:25 I believed I very much Believe In following the rules. I've always been a Believer, you know, if there's a stop sign it's there for a reason and you stop and you particularly with much more independent and what's more of an individual you you had you are way of seeing the world which wasn't exactly the same way that I saw the world and that that will invariably, you know consulate you'll have it with you or you'll have it with your children show. That's I mean, I know this from talking, you know talking one thing you do. Your reality check is other parents you talk to other parents and you and you find out what's what's going on.

41:07 Could you describe yourself as someone who follows the rules and yet if we could talk and you talked about how you went to college, which was not necessarily expected thing to do that. You went back to work, you know when we were very young and that in fact, you didn't marry until later, you know, and so we've done a lot of things in your life that were not at all conventional. So I just think it's interesting that that's how you see yourself cuz I don't necessarily see you that way.

41:32 You know, actually we're at 41. Let's pause for a minute here.