The Fog Of Post War Rationing

Post war rationing after WW2 ended in 1954,
but a new rationale was ushered in after that:
men were heroes because they 'won the war',
where children were taught to not ask
why their dads were so often absent,
and their mothers were firmly tied to the kitchen,
and could not work, even though, previously,
when single, they had been required to work
in munitions factories and do the jobs for half the pay
that men had done before those better paid men
were trained by the government for life on the war front.

Being a bully was what reinforced
the fog of post WW2 rationing best,
not just in the 1960s, but for many decades after. 

Nobody bullied other people better
back then, and lied about it to themselves
to those around them, than the alpha male
heads of households who measured out
their sense of entitlement in the units of alcohol
they consumed with their equals in the pub,
each night, where with the alcohol induced psychosis
and depressions they doled out on their family,
the family submitted to the head who 'keep order'. 

Everyone could see how those
who the male heads of households froze,
removed all fight and flight from, but....
nobody could not put into words
how the freezing worked, the language
that put the controlling male in charge
was frozen, along with the family.

The result was labelled 'acceptance'.

Anyone who defrosts themselves much later
through sober, mature, and co-equal company
can wonder at who they might have been
and where they might have gone in the world 
had their parenting been more actively helpful.