86-year-old author Sandra Butler was raised in a conventional 1940s suburb to become a wife and a mother. She spent seven years being unsuccessful at being a proper wife but was delighted with being a mother. A divorce catapulted her and her two young daughters into the turbulent l960s. Immersed in the anti-war and civil rights movements, she found her political and psychological foundation in the second wave of the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s. She began college in her mid-thirties, which led to graduate study, five books, two films, and decades of organizing and community building.
Her new release, Leaving Home at 83 chronicles Sandy’s struggles to balance her autonomy and independence with a growing longing to be taken care of, something she disapproves of in herself and has fought against all her life.
Nina Simone was played on our music break.
