Before children, I never would see the movie if I’d read the book (I preferred my interpretation over some director’s) and certainly would never see the movie instead of reading the book. But times have changed. So the following post is on the movie version of Revolutionary Road (starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio), which was a very worthy way to spend two hours but I’m just going come right out and admit that I probably won’t ever get around to reading the book, well-written as it may be.

In the movie, April and Larry Wheeler, parents to two children, watch their marriage and bohemian aspirations turn to dust amid the stifling conformity of suburban life in the ’50s. Artfully acted, it’s a stark reminder of how much things have changed for women, and by extension, men.

April finds herself increasingly restless and unhappy with the lack of an outlet for her wanderlust. Resentments grow between April and her equally trapped husband, who took a dead-end job to support his family. Desperate to escape, she proposes relocating the whole family to Paris. I won’t spoil the rest.

I’ve always been keenly aware that I’m only two generations removed from that reality. The first, really, to have grown up believing all opportunities were open to me.

But for all that has changed, there’s elements to April’s predicament that feel familiar. I remember as an angsty teenager exiled in suburbia feeling that there must be more than so much bland uniformity. Many of my friends’ homes had the same floor plan as mine. None was rich, none was poor. It was only through books that I became aware of the broader, more eclectic world out there.

What if like April, I never would have gone on to see that bigger world and instead it would have remained a mythological place of my imagining, growing every year more magical and alluring by comparison to my mundane reality? How would I feel about my kids? My responsibilities? The lack of fabulousness and glamour in folding clothes late into the night?

Instead, I got to have adventures, which were at times thrilling and at times overrated. Now that my life has moved on to another phase, I feel no regrets, no anxieties about the more avant-guarde existance I could be living. Making muffins with the kiddos is a perfectly grand way to spend an afternoon.

I see this among many mothers of my generation. Those that stay home don’t lack for fulfillment knowing childhood is fleeting and that they are its keeper. Those that go to work get to preserve something of their old lives along side their equally rewarding mommy selves (though the manual is yet unwritten on how to strike a perfect balance between the two). Most of my contemporaries seem quite comfortable in their skin, happily planted where wisdom and wonder meet. In that sense, April seems an intriguing by unfortunate relic of a bygone era.