First Person Friday: A Working Mother’s Working Mother

Today’s First Person Friday comes to us from The Mama Bee’s mama: Grandma Bee.  She doesn’t have a blog (yet), but from time to time she comments and contributes here at TMB. 

Reading The Mama Bee, I sometimes wonder whether this generation of young mothers thinks that they are blazing new trails in attempting to balance work and parenting.  Thirty-something years ago, when I became a new mother, we wrestled with most of the same issues.

I worked during the entire time that I raised my two children.  One thing that made my situation unique was that my husband was 20 years older than me.  While he was young-at-heart enough to believe that he should support my career by sharing in the housework and childcare, he was old enough—in his heart of hearts—to sometimes resent it.  And that ambivalence came out in a variety of ways.

For example, we “took turns” doing the laundry.  On my days, I sorted the laundry, brought it to the laundromat, put it in the washing machines, waited, transferred it to the dryers, waited some more, folded it, brought it home and put it in the correct drawers.  On his days, he’d sigh and say, “Since I’m doing the laundry today, would you mind sorting it?  Then he’d take it to the laundromat, leave it with the attendant who he’d pay to wash, dry and fold it, pick it up and bring it home.  And then, with a heavy sigh he’d say, “Since I did the laundry this time, would you mind just putting it back in the drawers?

Since my husband was a professor, there were many school holidays when my husband and children had no school or day care, but I had to work.  It was only natural that I would expect my husband to take charge of childcare on those days.  And he did so—in his own way.

Once, I returned home to have my five-year old daughter tell me the following story:  “Mommy, guess what happened today,” she said.  “A bum came in our house.  And I told Daddy.  He told the bum to go away.”  I turned to my husband for an “interpretation” of this strange tale, only to have him confirm the whole thing.  Apparently, he’d gone outside to empty the garbage and neglected to lock the front door when he came back in.  A few minutes later, he went upstairs to his study, leaving the children downstairs to play.  While he was working, a man, perhaps homeless and/or inebriated, walked into the house.  And my daughter did, in fact, run upstairs to let her father know.  He came down, spotted the man and told him, in no uncertain terms to leave the house.

Another time, on my way home—two blocks away from the house, I was met by my three-year old son, happily riding his big-wheeler on a busy street, with no supervision in sight.  Apparently, he’d been in front of the house and my husband had been watching, but the phone rang and he simply forgot about his son on the tricycle.  I was both terrified and furious; neither my husband nor my son understood why I was so upset.

By the time my children were in middle school, most of the issues related to childcare that had earlier consumed me were in the past.  But finding time to do everything that needed doing—and finding some time for myself—was as difficult as it continues to be for mothers with demanding careers.  One solution that I found was to occasionally take a few days of vacation time from work, without telling anyone else in the family.  I’d get up with everyone, see my husband off to work and the children off to school, and then I’d have the whole day to myself.  I’d spend these days cleaning closets, buying birthday presents, shopping for clothes, reading, watching TV—all thoroughly relaxing and refreshing activities.

On the first day of one of my three day “mini vacations,” the children came home from school just a few minutes after I returned from a day’s shopping.  They were surprised but happy to see me.  I told them that I’d left work early that day.  The next day I stayed home to do a variety of chores and was again home when the children came in.  They were surprised that I was home again, and less happy to have me around.  On the third day, I was again home when the children came in.  I explained that I’d decided to take the day off to get things done at home.  My daughter gave me a hard look.  Finally, she blurted out, “Mom, did you lose your job?”

Apparently, it just didn’t seem right to her that a mother should be home in the middle of the day.  I guess I could have predicted then that my daughter would grow up to be The Mama Bee.

If you are interested in telling your working mother story, email The Mama Bee at mamabeeblog at gmail dot com with the subject line “First Person Friday.”