Expected to provide for their families, men had a difficult time psychologically, viewing it as humiliating to have to ask for assistance. Although some argued that women should not be given jobs when many men were unemployed, the percentage of women working increased slightly during the Depression.
Traditionally female fields of teaching and social services grew under New Deal programs. Children took on more responsibilities, sometimes finding work when their parents could not. As a result of living through the Depression, some people developed habits of careful saving and frugality, others determined to create a comfortable life for themselves.
Parents of baby boomers, children at this time, learned lessons of hard work and self-reliance that stood them in good stead for decades to come. They abhorred waste and avoided debt at all costs, valuable lessons which they tried to teach to their children and grandchildren.
Looking at my grandmas, I think living through that time affected and shaped them more than we can understand. One of my grandmas, for instance, became a food and money hoarder. After her passing, we found stashes of canned goods and wadded up bills in the most unlikely of places, and to astonishing amounts.
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