A Coming of Age Story From 1953

During my last visit to the periodicals section for library research, I ended up spending almost an hour wondering around each and every aisle trying to make up my mind which magazine I wanted to pick.  When I arrived this time, I looked around for only a few minutes before deciding on The Saturday Evening Post.  I randomly chose a 1953 edition, sat down, and started flipping through the pages.

               

                At first, it felt as though I was never going to find a coming of age story since the magazine was mostly advertisements.  However, I noticed that each edition had a few short stories in the very beginning so I decided to skim over those.  I must have looked through 30 stories before finally settling on a short story titled “The Language of Love”.  I don’t know what it was going through my head at the time that I decided that this particular story related to the coming of age theme.  I guess falling in love seemed like a life changing process usually associated with adolescence, so it would suffice.

"The Language of Love"

                It did not take long before I realized that the story had very little to do with love.  Instead, it was about a fictional middle aged stay-at-home mother named Miriam Ainsworth and her reflections on her life and her children.  The story began with a brief biography of Miriam’s life.  It said that Miriam always knew that she would end up being a stay-at-home mom, despite having a talent in art.  She married at a young age and had four children by the time she turned 30. Miriam sometimes wondered what her life would have been like had she pursued her interest in art or if she had never married and had children.  Her busy life prevented her from having these thoughts often however.

                The story soon shifts to a typical morning in Miriam’s household.  She narrates her thoughts as she observes her four children.  Miriam’s oldest daughter, Linda, is described by Miriam in great detail, and most of the story is Miriam thinking about her.  Linda is described as being the most beautiful of the three children but also the shiest. After a while, Miriam soon shifts her focus to her concern over the fact that Linda is not turning out the way Miriam had hoped.  In particular, Miriam worries that her daughter is too concerned with “looking and acting intellectual”.   Miriam expresses her thoughts to the reader as she watches Linda interact with a flirty neighborhood boy.  The story quickly ends unresolved, almost as if it were just an excerpt from another story.

                I found myself questioning what the author’s intentions were with the piece. What was he trying to convey? While this question remains to be unanswered, I do believe that the story has elements of the coming of age theme.  Miriam, a stay at home mom of 20 years, looks back on her life and wonders what it could have been. She wonders if she has lived up to her potential, or if it has gone to waste. This question Miriam asks herself if a crucial part of maturing, perhaps the last crucial step. Miriam seeks a sense of achievement in her life, and ends up finding it in her children.

The desire of self-fulfillment is something that everyone shares, and we all end up asking ourselves at one point if we are living up to our potential.  Looking back at our life and reflecting on what we have achieved certainly is a kind of coming of age experience and usually results in an overall more mature and self-aware self.