‘Make Babies and Meatloaf, Not Waves’. The Book That Changed My Mom’s Life, and How Hers Inspired Mine (Exclusive)
By Marie Bostwick
Published by People Magazine
April 14th, 2025
Read the original article here.
Marie Bostwick was recently published on People.com, telling an exclusive story about the inspiration that she pulls from her mother and her newest book.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
“My mom is not like other moms.
At 92, she still works part-time as a consultant, is politically engaged, widely read, a clothes horse and a quick draw with a cocktail shaker. In the five-plus decades since her divorce, she’s received multiple marriage proposals, turning them all down with a smile and a quip.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ve served my time.”
She is also a pusher of boundaries.
In the early 1950’s, she reported on high school baseball for her local newspaper, its first and only woman with a byline on the sports page. She returned to college as an adult, earning a degree while working to support her children, and rose to the upper echelons of her profession. She was the first women president of her state trade association, and one of only a handful of female members of the national board.
Along the way, she mentored countless people, women and men, who remember her fondly. One hundred and thirty people came to her 90th birthday. If the fire marshal hadn’t put his foot down, there would have been more.
In short, Mom is an inspiration to everyone who knows her, especially me. That inspiration became literal a couple of years back.
When we were discussing books, Betty Friedan’s 1963 blockbuster, The Feminine Mystique, which some have called a catalyst of second-wave feminism, came up in our conversation.
“That book changed my life. Did I ever tell you?”
As soon as Mom started explaining what Friedan’s book had meant to her and her friends, a group of quietly unhappy, 60’s era housewives who wondered why “having it all” — kids, house, husband — left them feeling so empty inside, the lights of my writerly imagination started to strobe.
My new novel, The Book Club for Troublesome Women, centered on four 60’s era suburban housewives who are forever changed by gathering to read The Feminine Mystique and other books of the day, is a product of my imagination. But the tales my mother told me about what life was like for women in the early 1960s inspired and influenced the story.”
Read the full article on People.com
