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SPEAKER 1: "A doll in a carriage."

Blankets to cover her plastic arms and warm her cotton belly.

Eyes that closed with a click, opened in bright blue surprise.

Glassy serrated at the iris, but, oh, so beautiful.

She squealed when tilted.

Her dresses stitched from scraps or bought more often at the store with mommy.

She was held to, tossed about, and whispered to,

Answering the mysterious summons.

She was Joan, or Mary Anne, or Ginny,

Too perfect teeth shone between rose-cut lips.

She was perfection in plastic.

Now, a living skin almost as clear as hers but breathing,

Covered with tiny pores and moving all by itself.

The eyes will be deeper,

Midnight turning to brown or blue, too.

Though softer, less like a mirror.

It will answer the mysterious summons that was harvested in fantasy

And be held to, tossed about, still whispered to, yet be real.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Lullaby and good night

Thy mother's delight

Bright angels around

My darling shall stand

They will guard thee from harms

Thou shalt wake in my arms

They will guard thee from harms

Thou shalt wait in my arms

SPEAKER 1: A Sense of Place, a documentary series which looks at regions and regionalism in the state of Minnesota. Produced by Minnesota Educational Radio under a grant from the Minnesota Humanities Commission. This program is called A Region Within Walls.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Rock-a-bye, baby

On the treetop

When the wind blows

The cradle will rock

When the bough breaks

The cradle will fall

And down will come baby

Cradle and all

SPEAKER 2: When he was first born, it was a very escapist attitude of mine to be able to think of years in the future just because I was suffering so much with what was happening then, and I could tell no one about it at the time. They'd ask me how I was, and I just would really lie, because I didn't want to admit that it was that bad. It was too hard for me to say.

So at that time, everything was in the future. And what was happening to me was so foggy. It really wasn't real. I didn't consider it--

[BABY SQUEALS]

--as real. It was just something that had to be done and gotten over with.

SPEAKER 3: First of all, my babies were born early, and they had to stay in an incubator at the hospital for a month. And so I never had any physical contact with them until they were four weeks old. And I went down to the hospital every day to look at them. I couldn't really relate that these were my children. They belonged to the hospital, and the nurse would hold them up to the window.

I thought of them more as my husband's children. And then, when I did bring them home, I felt like I was taking care of somebody else's children, that they weren't mine. I didn't feel the so-called immediate love, you are my children reaction that I had thought every woman feels.

SPEAKER 4: Idealistically, you've got it all set up in your head. You want to nurse because it's a communication between you and the baby that's going to bring you closer together. And you find out that they bring the baby every four hours, and the baby woke up in three hours and was hungry, so they fed it. So they bring it to you, and it's full, and it's not hungry, and you hold it for an hour, and you snap it on the cheek, and you pull its mouth open, and it doesn't know you. It doesn't care. It doesn't relate to you. And you think, jeez, this could be anybody's baby.

SPEAKER 1: It could be, but it's not. The baby is yours. You take it home, learn to care for it. You become, over a period of long years, something, someone, people call mother. You've moved without changing your address to a new region, a place uncharted on the map of Minnesota, but intimately known by women all over the state.

There's no neat way to study the terrain. It's more a matter of exploration. You will discover the hills and valleys, the sunny spots and the stormy cold nights of this place all on your own. You'll learn. Oh, yes, you will, all about this region within walls.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Oh, hard is the fortune

Of all womankind

They're always controlled

They're always confined

Controlled by the parents

Until they are wives

Then slaves to their husbands

The rest of their lives

Oh hard is the fortune

Of all womankind

They're always controlled

They're always confined

Controlled by the parents

Until they are wives

Then slaves to their husbands

The rest of their lives

PATTY FLAHERTY: Before I got married, right after high school, I babysat for my mother who had five children left at home for a full week. And I was so busy all day long. Cleaning, cooking, changing diapers, doing all the kinds of things that housewives have to do. And I remember sitting down and being scared, and saying, my gosh, I'm so busy, I couldn't ask to be busier. But what have I done? I've done nothing. That really intrigues me. And it scared me.

And I thought, I'm not going to do that when I get married. And I think at that point, maybe I could have thought more about how I could have avoided that. Because I find myself in that very situation right now where you're not lazy-- very few housewives are lazy as far as I can tell or can even afford to be-- but you just don't feel gratified at the end of the day. And I'm just happy that there are quite a few people who feel that they have to fight this kind of thing. They have to find something else to do with your time. Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER 1: Patty Flaherty is 25, mother to two children. A typical day in her life goes something like this--

PATTY FLAHERTY: I try to get up early enough so that I have a half hour before the children wake up. Then I read the newspaper, have a cup of tea, do the crossword puzzle, if I have time. The children get up, and I feed them. And I do the breakfast dishes. I try to get my children interested in some kind of project if they're not already finding something on their own.

Then I usually do something with the children in the morning, something that we can do together. And then I feed them lunch. I try to do lunch dishes. Put the children down for nap. Clean up the house, which would involve picking up all the rubble and garbage that is accumulated all morning, and probably, since the day before his afternoon.

And then I start fixing supper. And my husband helps me with that. And I do the dishes. My husband generally takes the children while I'm doing the dishes. Then, there should be some spare time in there somewhere, and I can't quite make out where it should be.

Oftentimes, we do something in the evening. Not always, but oftentimes, we do go somewhere down to the beach, or down to the bridge as a family. Oftentimes, we do a small family thing, even if it is just going to the grocery store or some such thing. Then we come home and put our daughter to bed, and generally, wrangle with our son for a couple of hours, and then he's in bed.

And during the course of that evening, either my husband or I, or both of us are able to read. That's generally our pastime in the evening. Or I will be knitting or sewing. And that's it. And by the time the kids go to bed, you feel like you haven't had any time at all to spend with your husband. You're generally quite tired by that time. Or I'm quite tired by that time, and you almost feel like you should stay up until 2 o'clock in the morning to have some enjoyment together.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Hush, little baby

Don't say a word

Mama's going to buy you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird don't sing

Mama's going to buy you a diamond ring.

PATTY FLAHERTY: The thing that I enjoy most is if I can get the kids interested in something new and something that really intrigues them. Create a project of my own for them or help them create a project of their own. That is what I enjoy. In terms of housework, I enjoy having a reasonable house, and I enjoy having a smooth running place, but I don't really enjoy doing it.

Scrubbing floors is no way fun. And dishes are just insidious because every time you do them, they're right back again. How could anybody enjoy doing the dishes? I think the problem is that none of it seems particularly useful to me, granted all these things have to be done in order to live day to day. But nothing seems very important.

SPEAKER 5: Well, you know, it's occurred to me, too, that one of the things that you have to deal with when you have children is that children require a lot of attention. If you want to raise them right, you want to give them a lot of attention, and you want to find interesting projects for them so they can learn, and grow, and develop, and all of those things.

But when you're home, whether or not there's somebody standing over you with a club or something, you feel obligated to get those dishes done and to get that floor scrubbed. And you have a conflict, then, because you have children who are interrupting you when you're doing that work that is, for some reason, important.

And you can't give them the attention that they require, and yet you have to get these other things done. And so you can't do either very well. And you end up shoving your children away and getting angry with them, or they get very upset. You're really in a bind. You don't really know which way to go. Do you leave the house and let it go to hell?

PATTY FLAHERTY: I rather envy a lot of the people from our parents' generation who never questioned it and always felt that keeping a house and doing all the work that was involved with that was a labor of love.

["THE HOUSEWIFE'S LAMENT" PLAYING]

One day I was walking

I heard a complaining

I saw an old woman

The picture of gloom

She gazed at the mud

On her doorstep

It was raining

And this is her song

As she wielded her broom

Oh life is a toil

And love is a trouble

Beauty will fade

And riches will flee

Pleasures will dwindle

And prices they double

And nothing is as

I would wish it to be

SPEAKER 1: Jane Grey Swisshelm edited the St. Cloud Visitor, later, the St. Cloud Democrat, in the 1860s. Early in her marriage, she discovered that she possessed a talent for painting and began to struggle with the tension created by the need for self-expression and the requirements of her household From her autobiography, half a century, published in 1880.

"What graceful lines and gorgeous colors floated around me. I forgot God and did not know it. I forgot philosophy and did not care to remember it. But alas, I forgot to get Bard's dinner. And although I forgot to be hungry, I had no reason to suppose that he did. He would willingly have gone hungry rather than give anyone trouble, but I had neglected a duty. Not only once did I do this, but again and again. The fire went out, or the bread ran over in the pans while I painted and dreamed.

My conscience began to trouble me. Housekeeping was a 'woman's sphere,' although I had never then learned the words, for no woman had gotten out of it to be hounded back. But I knew my place and scorned to leave it. I tried to think I could paint without neglect of duty. It did not occur to me that painting was a duty for a married woman. Had the passion seized me before marriage, no other love could have come between me and my art. But I felt that it was too late. My life was already devoted to another object-- housekeeping.

It was a hard struggle. I tried to compromise, but experience soon deprived me of that hope. For to paint was to be oblivious of all other things. In my doubt, I met one of those newspaper paragraphs with which men are wont to pelt women into subjection-- 'A man does not marry an artist, but a housekeeper.' This fitted my case, and my doom was sealed.

I pushed away my brushes, resolutely crucified my divine gift. And while it hung writhing on the cross, I spent my best years in powers cooking cabbage."

["THE HOUSEWIFE'S LAMENT" PLAYING] There's too much of worrying

It goes to a bonnet

There's too much of ironing

Goes into a shirt

There's nothing that pays

For the time you waste on it

There's nothing that lasts us

But trouble and dirt

It's sweeping at 6:00

And it's dusting at 7:00

It's breakfast at 8:00

And it's dishes at 9:00

It's plotting and planning from 10:00 to 11:00

We first get a break

Till we plan how to die

Oh, life is a toil

And love is a trouble

Beauty will fade

And riches will flee

Pleasures they dwindle

And prices they double

And nothing is as I would wish it to be

Last night in my dreams

I was stationed forever

On a far little rock

In the midst of the sea

My one chance of life

Was a ceaseless endeavor

To sweep off the waves

As they swept over me

Alas it was no dream

Ahead I behold it

I see I am helpless

My fate to avert

She laid down her broom

And her apron she folded

She lay down and die

And was buried in dirt

Oh, life is a toil

And love is a trouble

Beauty will fade

And riches will flee

Pleasures they dwindle

And prices they double

And nothing is as

I would wish it to be

CAROL ERICKSON: I felt totally frustrated creatively, as far as painting, and my crafts, reading. Any of the things that go into my life, I've had to file away in my mind for other days. You reach a certain point where you are just totally absorbed by children.

I'm just not crazy about children from this. Before I had Jeremy, I considered myself one of those people that's just, kind of, oh, she gets along with children so well. But now, I've had my fill, I wouldn't go out of my way to volunteer taking care of children other than the ones that I take care of as a living. It's no more a big myth to me. It has its real sides now. It's got other dimensions.

SPEAKER 1: Carol Erickson, at 22, has an infant son, but no husband. For 16 months, her life has been totally child-centered. I knew her in her pregnancy-- soft-eyed, complacent, biologically and psychologically preparing to enter this other region. Today, she reflects on its unpredictable dimensions.

CAROL ERICKSON: When he was an infant, I didn't have days. It was just from minute to minute, and he was a colicky child. There were times where he would just go 24 hours. And because I did not want to accept a lot of overpowering help from my parents, who I was living with at the time, I was the one that got up and always took care of him.

There were times when I was sure I was losing my mind. Just absolutely positive that I was not going to live another day. That I was just so physically and mentally exhausted. And I could not see myself getting out of it at all. I really felt like I was going down for the third time.

But by the time that he was four months old and his nervous system was straighter, I could start somewhat getting out. And then I moved out when he was six months old. Then things changed quite a bit. I'm at the point today where because I have many more outside contacts and because I am working, and the woman that I work for provides transportation for me, I can think more in concepts of, what's going to happen to me in the next couple of years?

And it's no longer just from an hour-to-hour thing, but my days are much more pleasant to me. We get up quite early, and we spend a lot of time outside. He spends time with his friends, and I'm able, even when he's around, now to concentrate on things. Which, I guess, it's really hard to realize that having a child around, you can't sit down and start writing your income tax out. Or doing this or that. Because they just totally want your attention. And if they don't have yours and there's no one else's in the house that they can have, you're really stuck. So you start doing things like I do.

I start doing my sewing and my important things at 10 o'clock at night, after things are all settled down. And sometimes, I'll be up until 4:00. I had to make the choice, well, is it sleep, or is it accomplishing something that has to be done? Or something that gives me some type of recreation? Sometimes there are more important things to me than just having sleep.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Young girls, they dance

And they flirt and flit

While I stay indoors here and babysit

Ay-loo-loo hush-a-bye

CAROL ERICKSON: I don't know if I ever want to become tightly involved with one man. It's a concept I've grown up with all my life, and I just am really shying away from it now. Because there are too many things that I want to do, and I don't want anyone to encompass me in his life or his dreams.

Sometimes, I think, gee, if I'd never had Jeremy at the particular time that I had him, I could have gone on living in a lot of fantasy worlds. And I'm really thankful to him that way that he just-- I mean, it was a hard way to do it, but I'm still really young. And by the time that he's old enough to be almost on his own, I'm going to be 35, 36 years old.

I'm happy about it when I think of it that way. Because my dreams for myself are so much broader than they ever were before, just because I went through such a period where there was nothing else but this kid. But now, I have just no limits for myself now. I really feel like, goddamn, I can accomplish anything I want to if I just get it together. If other people just let me get it together, especially if men just let me get it together.

So in that way even when I'm playing with him, I'll think, well, dear me, you really did a lot of good things for your old Ma. [CHUCKLES]

["I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE" PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING] Oh, I wish that I knew

How it would feel to be free

I wish that I could break

All these chains that are holding me

I wish that I could do

All the things I can do

Though I'm way overdue

I'll be starting anew

I wish that I could give

All the love that is in my heart

I just remove the bars

That are keeping us apart

I wish that I could say

All the things I can say

Say them out loud

Say them clear

For the whole round world to hear

I wish that I could be

Like a bird up in the sky

How sweet it would be

If I found I could fly

Fly up to the sun

I come down at the sea

Then I would say

Because I know

How it feels

To be free

SPEAKER 1: "Twin Cities" poet, Beryle Williams asks, "will you miss me? Some days, I manage not to be a poet. In fact, some days, manage me so far from poetry, I think I've reached a static state. Therefore, I know, it can be done.

You will come home happily to find me stirring first-course soup, smell yeasty pungence of homemade bread. My hair will be smooth, my face bright like a blank sheet of paper, waiting for your kiss, your day's experience to be written upon it.

The house will blind you with its shine. You'll find no scraps of recorded thoughts. No stones pedaled or curled leaves that hold the images of a dozen poems. And even if a day may come when the sun casts strange blue edged shadows on the snow, the wind snags a new note or carries back some old, old sound I had forgot.

I will turn my eyes and ears away. Be chauffeur, housemaid, nursemaid, mistress, be your good wife. I will not clutter your life with sharp-pronged faceted fragments of whoever I might have been. I will pour my love into the lives of our children and ignore the enchanted unclaimed child tapping forever at my window.

Ignore slant raise, stare at the sun until I'm blind to the difference of days, of selves. Be your simple woman, your mirror. My back held hard against the poem. Pretend away the blue-rimmed shadows."

MARILYN PROVART: A lot of people think that because I was thrown into this, you've got nine kids, egads, would you do something else? But I really wouldn't do one thing different. Not one. I can honestly say that. I'm happy. We don't have everything that, possibly, our next door neighbor has materially, but I feel that spiritually and emotionally, as far as my life is concerned. I'm very, I'm very content with it. I really wouldn't change places with anybody right now.

SPEAKER 1: Marilyn Provart is 35, the mother of nine children. It's safe to say that by now, she knows the territory pretty well. And she says that she finds satisfaction and growth within its very real geographical limits. Home, school, church, neighborhood, these are the physical boundaries, she operates within. Still, her life has a kind of flexibility. You can chalk it up to experience if you like but Marilyn has some other thoughts on the matter.

MARILYN PROVART: We joined CFM, which is Christian Family Movement. And by Christian family, we don't mean that you have a million kids. That isn't a Christian family, it's the church. And I think that one thing that they stress so emphatically is communication between partners, and then everything else comes relatively easy. I think we joined in '66.

And as far as being what I felt a total person, I think it came more at that time than it had before. I realized more of who I was at that time, and that I still was a person, even wrapped up with all these people. I'm not taking complete credit for all this because Tom is the way that he is with the kids, and he doesn't feel that it's not his job.

And I think a lot of men contribute to their wives' insanity, if you want to say that. They say, dishes, are you crazy? That's not my job. Whoever said that it was a woman's job to do dishes, or a man's job to rake the lawn, we don't feel that each of us has a particular place in this house.

We're here, and we're a family, and we're a man, and we're a woman, and whatever we feel like doing at that time. Not that I feel like doing dishes or he feels like doing dishes, but if they're there, that's what we do. And we've always done this since the time we've been married. That we haven't had a certain job or place in the house. We're just together.

SPEAKER 1: Looking through my windows, see the old blue sofa, the round table with the fringed cloth, the stately secretary, the fireplace. Count the spaces at the dining table. Watch the candles, flames flickering, standing splendid in holders of silver.

Where once you might have looked, the sofa bulged with springs and sprung. The draperies, plastic, $1.98 on special. Television sound filled every corner of every room. Then there, dreaming of silver candleholders, decisions were decided. Life was committed to the shining vision.

And now, now can I say the silver's tarnished, the candles burned down too far? Can I toss away the polishing cloth, leaving the dust behind and walk out into the gleaming night? Look in through my windows. Tell me, can you see me?

["I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE" PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING] Oh, I wish that I knew

How it would feel to be free

I wish that I could break

All these chains that are holding me

I wish that I could do

All the things I can do

Though I'm way overdue

I'll be starting anew

SPEAKER 1: "Doll in a Carriage," by Molly Ernst from her book of poems, "Primigravida," published by Earth Art Publishing Woodbridge, Connecticut. Excerpt from Half a Century, the autobiography of Jane Grey Swisshelm, published by Jansen, McClurg, and Company, Chicago, 1880.

"Will You Miss Me?" by Beryle Williams, published in the Hamline University bulletin, September 1972. Nursery rhymes from The Golden Records album 101 Golden Nursery Songs. And special thanks to Kay Lukonin for performing three selections from her repertoire of Feminist Folk Songs.

A Sense of Place was written and produced by Claudia Daly for Minnesota Educational Radio under a grant from the Minnesota Humanities Commission, engineering by David Felland.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Because I know how it feels

To be free