Respond to this post in 150 words: Growing up in a socially conservative Irish Catholic community during a period of national social unrest was considerably challenging and somewhat confusing.  The dominant model for gender roles in America was presently under attack on all fronts, and the suggested alternatives being modeled on television and in the public were by no means attractive.  The 60's were my formative years; new born to eight years of age.  The 70's, as a blossoming teenage, were even more confusing.  What I experienced culturally and socially during that time definitely left a mark on my developing psyche about what roles a man was meant to play and also that of a woman.  Between long hair on men and women burning their bras on national television it was more than confusing.  Fortunately, inside my immediate family circle there were clear cut roles for men and women.  The boys/men did the bulk of all the yard work, snow removal, house repairs and grunt work.  The girls/women tended to all the house hold interior needs:  grocery shopping, food prep and clean up, laundry and house cleaning.  We were one father, four boys, one mother, one grandmother, and four girls.  There was no conversation about any of these gender specific rolls, it was just the way it was.  And, no one ever tried to deviate from this norm.

My parents were big on education and all eight children in my family were expected to graduate high school with the intention of attending college or some higher level of education.  It was strongly suggested, with no discussion.  We were a very economically minded family living during inflationary times, the 1970's and early 80"s.  We all were expected to financially fend for ourselves after high school, but if we got on the higher education path we got a little reprieve.  There were definitely no "hand-outs" coming from my parents.  So college was financed and we were expected to repay the loans.  After a certain age my parents expected any one wanting to live at home to pay a fair share of room and board.  It was not about the money, it was about the contribution we were expected to be making to the household.  My father was strict about money when it came to paying ones own way.  He would say "Never a lender nor borrower be..."  But he was happy to finance us for acceptable reasons, like a car or a downpayment on a home, at the going bank rate.  But luxury items were ever considerable;  vacations, toys, etc...  I think my father was wounded by growing up in poverty in the 1930's.

We were permitted talk about sports at the dinner table, but not religion or politics.  We could date as we pleased, but not talk about sex.  It seemed like everything else was just not talked about;  marriage, children, death, etc...  When we lost a couple of elderly family members the mention of their names was brief and unapologetic.  Once they had passed their names were scarcely mentioned again without some suggestion of "hush".  What we were permitted to talk about was a much shorter list than what we were discouraged from talking about.  I believe that I was influenced greatly in my upbringing by my friends and their parents more than I was by my own family and parents; and that was not necessarily a good thing.  I realized 30 years later that none of this upbringing was faulty no to blame on my parents.  They did the very best they could given the circumstances they were given, and that is it.  In hindsight, I am impressed at how well my parents and family did and how relatively well I and all my siblings have turned out.