Saturday, September 13, 2008

'Twas ever thus

Long before my bottom wore this couch threadbare, it sat at a desk every day. One of those days began with a sobbing phone call from my third daughter: “Mooooooooooooooooommmy! I only got three raisins in my cereal!” Recognizing that the immediate problem was with the raisin bran people, the mommy part of me knew that there was a child at home who needed not an explanation of how products shift in boxes but reassurance of how much her mother cared about her even though she wasn’t there that very minute. And that’s a snapshot of the life of a working mother in a job where maybe there’s not much flexibility. Working on an assembly line, say, or in a retail job wouldn’t have allowed even the kind of response I gave. Now, for good or ill, we see clerks and bus drivers handling family stuff on their cell phones, but in 1974 only the bigwigs had mobile phones.

There was another memorable moment at that same job. It was when a man wearing gore-stained overalls entered my fancy office to collect the $5 he grudgingly agreed to accept for the removal of the carcass of a horse that was dear to my family. The backstory is that my young teen second daughter was given a horse by her father, my ex, and she stabled it a couple of miles from our suburban house. One of her friends took the horse for a ride, without permission or notice, and rode it where she shouldn’t have and they were struck by a car. The friend suffered an ankle injury, but the horse was done-for. Called to the scene, we watched Dusty die where he fell. One, but only one, of the horrors of this event was that his remains were visible from the road and the schoolbus passed them the next morning. Determined to rectify that situation before the afternoon trip of the schoolbus, I sat at my desk making phone calls and finally got this guy from a rendering company to agree to remove poor Dusty that day. “I reckon it’s gonna cost you an extra $5,” he said. Relieved, I said, “Fine.” “Leave it on the horse,” he said. And then I begged. So that’s why he brought his own carcass into my office for the $5.

This was me running my family from my desk. Four kids in three different schools, one only half-day. It was an intricate schedule, but I had been a stay-at-home mom for thirteen years, and I could type only 43 words a minute, and I was lucky to be hired at all. Thank God they thought a "housewife" might be able to keep the coffee pot clean and filled as needed. Thank God they thought I had receptionist looks.

So I can see the problems of having a job and a family but ‘twas ever thus. Not long ago I read a journal of a midwife, Martha Ballard, who battled life and institutionalized sexism in 18th century Maine. She herself gave birth to nine children and buried three of them. She coped with aging and loneliness and deteriorating family relationships as her husband was imprisoned for not being able to collect local taxes.

We should not underestimate nor especially applaud the capabilities of women. Without its women, this country would likely not have been settled as it was. And yet discrimination against women still exists. I may not like Governor Sarah Palin or her politics or her mouth, but I say to her, “You go, girl. You have every right to fulfill any dream you’re willing to work toward.” If it takes having a running mate hide behind your skirts, well it’s nothing new for a man to do that.

2 comments:

WileyCoyote said...

Whoop whoop whoop! ROFLMAO That last sentence is so true...

I guess what bugs me the most is listening to women complain now about how hard it is for single mothers to work, as if they were the first generation to figure that out. They complain about the expense and lack of day care, and say it is the employer's responsibility to provide it. None of them have ever left (night shift)work early and gone to the day care center to pick up the kids unannounced only to find the owner sacrificing a rooster in the living room. Maybe they have hired an ex-lover for room and board as a live-in nanny, or only had $75 a week left out of their paycheck after the day care expenses (thank gawd for tips), but I doubt it.

I chose to have children; I didn't choose to be their sole support but that was how life went; one deals. To listen to women who choose a career, and then demand that their employers foot all the bills and give them time off to 'mommy' when they decide to have children, irks me... Life is hard, men make it harder, but I admire women who suck it up and DEAL, even achieve, in spite of barriers. Those who were handed silver spoons, or who made inappropriate choices, or who used men to climb to the top and then sneer - "I did this all my self!" are insults to women who toiled quietly and accomplished in spite of.

"P. B." said...

Laughing with you, WC. Note that it was my ex who bought the horse but that I got to deal with the manure. Where was he? But I'm stronger and better than I would have been without all that. I have even forgiven him now that he has macular degeneration and a whiny second wife who is older and less entertaining than I am. (Just kidding...I'm not who he should have married in the first place and vice versa.)