Barbara Myerhoff found, during the four years that she spent with these people, that most of the women were either themselves immigrants from Eastern Europe or the daughters of immigrants who had come to this country from Eastern Europe. All of these women were mothers of children who were upwardly mobile and who were, therefore, either too

Barbara Myerhoff points out; that the proverb, “A woman’s work is never done” is usually understood to mean that she has to work all day. But, it also applies to the… continuity of over a lifetime” (263). A woman’s work is never done, even in old age. A woman is needed at home even when she is no longer needed in the business. And to be needed is a blessing; to be needed is what keeps depression and despair away; to be needed is what gives zest, and purpose to life. More times than not I have heard stories of elderly people dieing, who have been forced to retire and or have no family left. Loneliness and a sense of useless sets in a long of with depression and they just give up.

The difference between men and women and how they deal with the difficulties of old age has a great deal to do with how they have spent their younger years, and as Barbara suggest their biology could contribute as well (263). As a result of social conditioning, meaning for men comes primarily from their role in the public sphere, where they labor to provide for their families and struggle to make an impact on the area in which they work. Therefore, when they leave that area, either by voluntary retirement or by being pushed out. When the arena in which they have worked and in which they have found the meaning of their lives either collapses or is abandoned, men very often feel a decline in their self-worth and in the significance of their lives. Whereas women, at least until the women’s movement, when women joined men in the workforce in large numbers for the first time, most women derived their purpose from the home. Women derived their meaning from nurturing, feeding, teaching and raising the members of their fa

Some topics in this essay:
Eastern Europe, Barbara Myerhoff, Financial Officer, Barbara Myerhoff’s, barbara myerhoff, eastern europe, meaning lives, world outside, women derived,