Thus, Friedan's parents fought often about money. .
When Betty Friedan was a child, she had to wear metal braces on her legs until she was three to correct the tendency to bow. Miriam Goldstein thought her daughter's prominent nose, inherited by her father, made her unattractive. Friedan later wore orthodontic braces and eye-glasses. Miriam Goldstein thought her daughter smart, but plain and considered Amy Goldstein (the younger daughter by one and a half year) the pretty one. This caused a bitter rivalry between the two sisters. Friedan recalled that her mother "was very critical of [her] and made [her] feel very insecure."" Miriam Goldstein nagged Friedan to dress classy like her and they had loud arguments when Friedan insisted on dressing sloppily and keeping her room untidy. .
Friedan preferred reading to primping and housekeeping at an early age. Harry Goldstein showed pride in his daughter by boasting about her scholastic achievements to his jewelry customers. Around the dinner table, Harry Goldstein would ask his children questions about current events. The serious questions were directed at Friedan and frivolous ones at Amy Goldstein. Freidan was such a bookworm that her father limited the number of books she could take out from the library each week to five, which she thought cruel. Her parents were so concerned about Friedan's preference for books over dolls and tendency to be temperamental that they took her to a child psychologist. The psychologist simply told Betty's parents to leave the brilliant girl to her own devices. .
She entered Central High School in 1934, but was left out of sororities because she was Jewish. In high school, Friedan started to write skits and act in school plays. Even during the summer of 1933 when her family attended the World's Fair, held in nearby Chicago, Friedan continued to read ardently. At seventeen, in her 23-page teen autobiography she wrote, "I don't want to marry a man and keep house for him and be the mother of his children and nothing else.
