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It's all a matter of self-definition.
My mother defined herself as mother and housewife. And I defined
myself as professional.
The first question my
mother would ask after being introduced to a friend of mine was,
"Is she married?" In all fairness she would ask this
of men as well as women. The person could be an important politician
or a dedicated social worker, but she saw them through the prism
of family. In contrast, I would try to discover, "What does
he or she do?" (I wouldn'tusually ask this outright. I knew
that reducing a person to profession is as dehumanizing as reducing
them to race or nationality. But this was really what what I wanted
to know.)
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| When I grew
up, professionalism was in the air My mother, on the other
hand, was born in Poland in 1913 and felt as most women of
her times, that a "woman's place was in the home Who would
want to grow up to such labor and hardship? There was no glamor
in such work, no career. There were no MBA' s awarded my Grandmother
for the business sense to keep her family alive. |
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How could it have been
otherwise? When I grew up, professionalism was in the air. It
was emerging as the new class structure. We lived with the illusion
of a merit soociety. Education could make you whatever you desired,a
doctor or lawyer or great scientist. And women were beginning
to buy into this dream. I grew up reading about women doctors
and scientists, ballet dancers and actresses, finally settling
on the books about women writers. There were no books about being
a housewife. Or none thhat I chose to read.
My mother, on the other
hand, was born in Poland in 1913 and felt as most women of her
times, that a "woman's
place was in the home." But even more than that, she witnessed
the struggle of a woman earning a living. My grandfather had gone
ahead to America a few months after she was born, planning to
bring the family soon afterward. But fate played havoc with their
plans.And World War I broke out, separating the family for six
more years. How terrifying it must have been for my mother as
a young child at the dawn of consciousness watching my grandmother
struggle alone to support six children in a country ravished by
war and revolution. My grandmother working from early in the morning
milking cows and peddling the dairy products until late at night
when she'd prepare the cheeses, her head drowsy as she squeezed
the sour milk in the cheese cloth Who would want to grow up to
such labor and hardship?
There was no glamor in
such work, no career. There were no MBA's warded my Grandmother
for the business sense to keep her family alive. When the family
arrived in America, my
mother was eight years old, able to assume the normal life of
a school child. She must have felt grateful that she was no longer
left alone with her siblings in the dark house in the village
in Poland. She must have felt relieved that her mother was no
longer out peddling cheese and butter, but was safely home scrubbing
her immaculately- kept home,rolling out egg noodles, baking sugar
cookies. In spite of academic success in high school, my mother
could desire no other role for herself. College meant "being
too smart" and frightening off the prospective husband, becoming
Heaven forbid, a spinster teacher. All this she would later warn
me. In any case, it was the time of the Depression and who could
afford to go to college? The thing to do was to find a job until
the right guy came along, and in the meantime, have a good time,
dancing the Charleston on the weekends, grinding the phonograph
in my grandparents living room, while my stern, resourceful grandmother
worried about the frivolities of young Americans. They too had
her differences. My mother was proud of her eldest daughter's
row of E's (for Excellent) and even S's (for Superior) on her
Report Cards. But never dreamed that it would lead to anything
but a secure, (and more affluent) home in the suburbs. Arrogant
child that I was, my mother belonged to a less enlightened world.
Her goals seemed narrow, horizons tautly stretched to fit her
family reality.
She feared for me. Would
I ever be able to marry? She also felt left behind, as her mother
had felt watching her dance the Charleston.
This continued for many
years, even when I did marry and had children of my own. I also
grew as a journalist. She never discussed my articles, indicated
pride in my accomplishments. She read the magazines, but was more
excited about my cooking and cleaing than a perceptive book review.
Professional hierarchies structured my value system. Nurturing
structured hers. When my sister was dying of cancer, she enjoined
her to eat, made her soup, send her pizza which, in happier days,
my sister would have happily devoured. The last thing my sister
said to her before going into a coma was "Thanks for the
pizza. I really enjoyed it." She was thanking her for the
love and nurturing. Over the years, both of us have grown annd
changed. Today, I think we can appreciate each other more. My
own children, often benignly neglected, have come to dominate
my consciousness to the exclusion of much else, have liberated
me from my professional narcissism. I too am often tempted to
ask upon meeting someone, "Is she married?" "Does
she have children?"
Today I can discuss recipes
with my mother, and gossip about members of the family. And I
realize that she isn't as narrow and homebound as I had once tagged
her. In my own need to establish a separate identity, to define
myself contra to her, I had ignored the fact that for many years
she had worked (certainly harder than I ever had to, ) side by
side with my father in the coffee shop he owned, carrying his
dinner in a shopping bag on two Chicago street cars to arrive
there in the late afternoon, and remain until it closed at ten.
And while my father was a man of few words, she created a little
social club with the "regulars" who would frequent the
shop. She befriended the truck-drivers listened to their problems.
I came to realize that she knew a world far broader than mine.
And had become their in-house psychologist. It was natural to
her, part of the nurturing. With time her opinions changed too.
And I realized that at seventy, eighty, she had more capacity
for growth than many of my friends at thirty, forty. fifty. An
openness to new trends, ideas. She recently declared,"I think
it's good that women work outside the home after all." On
another occasion she admitted that it was difficult for her when
my father retired, sold the coffee shop.
She liked being involved
with the outside world. In her mid-eighties she continues, however,
to be the family social worker, psychologist. Nephews and nieces
as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren continue to call
for her advice. How she has grown since my teens when I locked
her in a narrow cage of my brain!
Where was I all those
years that I didn't see it? Who today can be called the liberated
Mother?
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