Untangling Apron Strings by Jayne Magee

About a month ago, I was at the local Art Walk in my hometown of DuBois, Pennsylvania, when I spotted the cutest apron.  It was the old-fashioned type of apron that my Grandma Steiner used to wear:  the top covered you completely and tied at both the neck and the waist.  Grandma Steiner’s apron usually covered her house dress as well, but this little apron’s gathered skirt only reached about five inches below the band at the waist.  It was made by my minister’s wife out of an old- fashioned green cotton print with moss green bias tape around the neck and edges.  The best part was that it had pockets for a cell phone and other necessary supplies.  True Confession:  I actually bought it for me, but I was too fat and busty to squeeze into it, so I gave it to my daughter as a gift when we visited her in Rhode Island for our Family Vacation/Reunion a few weeks later.
Once I handed Mandy the apron, she never took it off.  I even saw her wear it over her bathing suit.  Since that time, whenever she has work to do (she is an architectural  engineer  who works from home and who is also remodeling her own home), she ties on her apron.  If she has an important deadline to meet, she will put on her apron to focus her mind.  If she has to fix her air conditioner by herself, she will tie on her apron.   Here is an example from one of her most recent texts to me:
“ This just happened:
Me - tying on my apron.
R –'What are you doing?’
Me –'I need to get some paperwork done and I keep procrastinating. So, I NEED my apron.'
He just laughed. I have already cleaned up the kitchen before starting paperwork! Superman has his cape, Wonder Woman has her lasso, and I have my apron!”

What is it about an apron that holds so many memories for me?  I can still see my grandmother and mother in their kitchens with their aprons on,  baking up a storm. Grandma Steiner is making her world-famous homemade bread and fancy decorated cupcakes.  Mom is making chocolate cake with chocolate frosting topped with chopped walnuts.  I myself can’t cook without an apron—I just ruin every shirt I have with stains that even a stain stick can’t get out.  I am just a slob.  If I am baking, I end up with flour all over my clothes, the counter, and the floor.  When I am making my pasta sauce in the pressure cooker, I will end up with big stains all over my shirts if I don’t don my apron.  Making chocolate cupcakes with a hand mixer is a recipe for a clothing stain disaster if I don’t remember to tie on my apron.  Note: I did not inherit this messiness from my mother who wore aprons but they always remained pristine!
I once wrote an article in which I described myself as “a dinosaur in an apron, lumbering around the house right before extinction.”  This is how I saw myself as a mother.  In our dorm room at Allegheny, Cindy and I would talk about how many kids we wanted.  We both wanted five--along with the big house with the white picket fence and the handsome, wealthy husband.  I only got four kids before Gary put his foot down and snuck off to get a vasectomy, but Cindy reached our joint goal by having twins.  Cheater!
        My dream when I went to college was to become an airline stewardess, hence my brief attempt at becoming a German major, so I could travel to exotic locations.  My father, who traveled all the time for his job, described airline stewardesses as “waitresses in the sky,” but all I saw was the romance and glamour.  The only stumbling block was my height.  At that time,  you had to be at least 5 feet two inches tall.  I was only—barely—five feet tall.  So I became an English major since I loved to read. After Gary and I were married and I realized I had to get a job, I stayed in college long enough to get my teaching credential.  I taught for a year or so at a private Catholic girls’ school—Incarnate Word Academy.  But once Gary graduated from chiropractic college (and I was already pregnant with Meghan), we returned to our hometown and I became a stay-at-home mom for many many years.
         One day I was on my hands and knees cleaning the dirt out of the cracks in the wooden floor of our living room.  Since our house had once been a barn, this was a never-ending task.  All at once it hit me: I was the only one who would notice what I had spent the day doing—or care!  Once Gary and the kids came home, the floor would get dirty once again.  Did I really want to spend the rest of my life on my hands and knees cleaning up after other people?  A sudden picture came into my mind: I was a dinosaur  in an apron lumbering around and slowly going extinct.  It was a laughable and yet frightening thought.
         That night in bed I said to Gary, “I need something more in my life.  Should I take ceramics class or go to graduate school?”  He replied, “Well,  you always were a good student.  Why not try graduate school?”  That began my long journey toward getting a PhD and moving to Ohio to take a fulltime, tenure-track job.  But that is another story for another day.
        Aprons have gotten a dirty rap from the feminists and others.  The picture of June Cleaver cooking dinner in her pumps with a frilly chiffon apron over her neatly ironed dress, pearls at her neck, has became a symbol of the ultimate subservience of women.  But is it?  Really???  I beg to differ.  Here is a great line from a novel I am currently reading by Susan Wiggs, “She donned her apron like a cowboy strapping on a gunbelt.”  I love  that image!!  When I was still golfing, I wanted to design special aprons to hold all of our golfing supplies: balls, tees, ball markers, etc.  However, I got voted down.  I guess those aprons seemed “too girly” and not “athletic” enough for competition.
Aprons are protection—from spills, dirt, baby vomit and poop, household cleaners, and ugly coffee stains.  If you go into any trendy retro store anywhere—say Frederick, Maryland—you will again find the cutest and most expensive aprons on sale everywhere. They are “in” again.   Why?  Because they are tools, and like any other tool (a rake, a pick ax, a hammer, or a wrench), they serve a very practical purpose: they enable us to focus on a task and get the job done while avoiding the "extra work" of having to do even MORE laundry.  It's a win-win.  If you notice, all of the male chefs wear either aprons or coats.  We women are much smarter—why wear a coat when an apron works better?  Here is a brief history of aprons for anyone who wants to learn more:

Brief History of Aprons

So isn’t it time that we “untangled” some of the false stereotypes around aprons and the image of women with young children clinging to them by their apron strings? Here is the truth about aprons in the 21st century.  When you take off your apron, it will reveal a clean and unstained business suit or doctor’s coat or engineer’s hard hat or construction worker’s shirt and pressed khakis.  It could also reveal your bathing suit or pjs or yoga pants—your choice—and wasn’t the whole purpose of feminism to give us choices and set us free from the worn out myths about women and power?  As for those children clinging to our apron strings—good luck trying to stop them from playing on their iPads or cell phones long enough to even notice that we are in the room.  For a trip down Memory Lane, here is a sweet and sad song about babies and apron strings from the 1980s movie She’s Having A Baby:

Sappy Apron Song