Sylvia's Journal

There is much talk now about the old normal that some want to go back to and others want to leave behind. We sometimes forget that our old normal was once the new normal. In the FDR days the new normal meant women left their private space and, especially during war time, started to contribute to the formal economy in jobs few thought appropriate for women only a decade earlier. Women started to vote, wear slacks, smoked, drank, flirted, crossed their legs in ways that their made their mothers shudder.

When I think about the two Roosevelt women, Alice and Eleanor, it is interesting how the passing of time has re-arranged how we label thing, what is normal and what we find courageous. Courage always means moving into a new normal, whether tiptoeing or dashing into it. Although not by all, many people now remember Eleanor as someone who lead the way into the new normal by embodying a new understanding of the role and potential of women – while Alice has faded away. 

The emergence of a new normal doesn’t mean the old normal disappears. Just like at previous times of upheaval, while the new normal expands, the old normal hardens.

I am wondering about the new normal, what it will look like. Will it include a new set of practices around how we work together, who we work with, when we work and when we play, and what we can do for ourselves, and what we cannot? What courageous men and women and kids will step forward and lead the way?