Have you shared your story yet?
One thing I think we should all as mature women is to not fall into the trap of thinking nobody wants to hear, or will want to hear, family stories. They do and they will.
Are you the family story-gatherer?
Who is the keeper of the history in your family? Perhaps it has become you? Have you become the Great Aunt who knows all the stories and is more than happy to share them.
Do you, like a lot of the youngies, delight in hearing what Great Uncle Frank did after WWI, and how Granny H lost all the family money when her only son was killed in front of her when the wheel of a carriage ran over his little head. And how your own mother conned Auntie Flo to make her evening dresses every week!
Or even, in your own life, you were programming computers 50 years ago and wearing PVC macs with flowers everywhere; anything to be on trend.
Help create a sense of identity by being your family story teller
In the days before PCs, mobile phones, zoom, Tik Tok and the rest, we enjoyed our lives, had friends who, like us, were often considered outrageous and our behaviour unacceptable. We listened to the oldies (especially the gramps) as they regaled us with fascinating tales of their lives and we remember them still.
We now live in an age when people can’t decide what to call themselves (witness she/her beside people’s signatures), when instant fame is possible, when we cancel whole cultures and we definitely cancel history.
Perhaps we don’t cancel history? We just say it’s wrong and pull down statues.
I’m not sure how history can be wrong if people who lived through it are still alive to tell the tale.
Keep the faith; keep the history.
Whichever way you look at it and whatever you call yourself, if keeping the faith with the family history falls to you, write it down.
Write it before you become too forgetful to remember what happened where and to whom! Of course, you may not …
Everybody loves a story, and yours is no exception.
Read about being the family story teller …
