Nancy Thompsen Sherwood

October 1 · 

A true story about white male privilege, by Nancy Sherwood;
My dad's work took us overseas for most of the first seven years of my life. When I was seven, in 1961, we returned to the Washington, D.C. area permanently.
When we lived overseas, I don't really remember anything about how my parents handled money. I know that when we lived in Afghanistan, my mom had nice clothes and three servants- a cook, a housekeeper and a laundry man. My parents belonged to the International Club. We all swam. My mom played tennis. We skied. In short, we lived pretty well.

When we came back to the States, my father removed my mother's name from their bank accounts, checking accounts and credit cards.

My mom was 35, a stay at home mother with only a high school education. My dad was 45, and was a GS 15, which means he made the equivalent to over $100,000. in today's money.

My mom used to go through the cracks in the chairs and sofa to find change so she could do the laundry. Some of our foreign coins fit the dryer, so she was able to use those.

For a short while, my mom was a waitress at Hot Shoppes (if you're from DC you remember them).

I remember when I was still little, one time my mom was arrested for shoplifting. She was stealing school clothes. She didn't have money to buy us anything.

When I was 12, my mom started to work outside the home. I was home alone after school every day (don't ask).

When I was 15, my parent's got divorced. My mom had a pretty small salary and my dad "gave" her a cash settlement too small to amount to anything.

She ended up okay financially, but, she is proof of how men could and probably still can control women. The end