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How my education and religious training failed me

By Phebe F. Cress

 Cress is retired from Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare and is the grandmother of nine, with the 10th due later this month. She lives in Fincastle.

I am distressed, at my ripe old age of 72, to discover that both my education and my religious upbringing have been so inadequate— or just flat wrong, thus encouraging me to teach my daughters and granddaughters all the wrong things.

First, my education: Civics classes in middle school taught me that we are created equal and have equal opportunities to succeed in this country, regardless of our gender, religion or ethnicity (sexual orientation was not discussed in the 1950s). I knew, even then, that the “ethnicity” part was a problem, because of what I saw in the African-American community in my town, but, not so much later, the Civil Rights Act renewed my faith in those civics lessons. College strengthened those beliefs, although they were shaken thoroughly once, when a professor in a logic class told me, “You think like a man.” Oh, I thought? Women aren’t capable of logic? But I ascribed his failure to his background, and steamed forward in my beliefs.

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