The Washing Machine

As the man said: the secret of happiness is a pleasing monotony. As for a woman a washing machine runs it close, though maybe you need to be of a certain vintage for that to apply. Or, right now, to be a mother bombed out of Aleppo, in a refugee camp on the Turkish border. (Syria, children!) Digression: The girls at the cash registers in Publix keep asking me for a dollar here, a dollar there for cancer, for children, for diabetes, and I demand "What about SYRIA?" reinforcing the impression that the world, especially the supermarket world, is full of addled old ladies.
Digression  2- Speaking of addled old ladies and the Middle East:  we had a power outrage one evening  back when Iraq was the daily news story and Florida Power and Light got us back on line, in the dark! And a nice gentleman called about nine checking all was OK. Such courteous American efficiency! And I said  "Thankyou! Makes you think about the poor people in Baghdad, doesn't it?"  Pause. OK, Apparently not.

Yes, washing machines. I am a lot older than many Mums and I certainly grew up in the UK long before the world speeded up so much that they were showing the same new movie at the Odeon, Friar Street, Reading Berks as in New York, the same week! But when I listed what we didn't have as children, not even starting on high tech - no fridge, no car, no telephone, no TV, no washing machine, no dryer, my children looked at me like -"We're you living in a cave, eating grass?"
No fridge? Well, that was long before global warming and we weren't in Florida but on hot summer days my mother put our bottle of milk in a basin of cold water (no ice) with a cloth over it. And when it turned sour we all had pancakes! So not all bad.
OK, one last thing. I think the washing machine has been more important for some women than the Pill. Because if you had a washing machine, you wouldn't mind having more kids.