Today, March 12, 2024, is National Working Moms Day, according to the calendar.
I think every day is working mom’s day.
Whether a woman has a job outside of her home with a salary or works at home without a salary, she’s a working mother.
My daughter, who has three boys and is pregnant with another child (at the age of 45!), has three master’s degrees in various areas of education. She taught for seventeen years in various inner-city schools, the most recent of which was in the Boston Public School system. She doesn’t work for a school district anymore; rather, she stays home with her kids and home-schools them, which is something I could never have done. She’s fortunate that her husband earns enough money so that they can be involved in this arrangement.
On the other hand, my own mother always had to have a paying job outside of the home. In the early 1950s, she went to work at the Polaroid Corporation when I was two years old. She was the only mother in our neighborhood who wasn’t a housewife. She was a tenth-grade high school dropout, but she decided she wouldn’t be poor like her own mother had been. It wasn’t easy to be working outside the home back then. When she came home, she did all the household chores–laundry, ironing (remember ironing?), cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, whatever needed to be done. My father traveled for construction jobs all over the United States and Canada, so she was also often alone. I was her first-born, so when I was older, I began helping her around the house by making lunches for school and work. I took care of the family dog, too. We had no dishwasher, and I learned to wash dishes to help her out. (I must admit that my way of washing dishes, even though she taught me how to accomplish the task, was never up to her standards.)
When we moved to Schenectady in 1979, we had a six-month-old baby and knew no one in the area. My husband was starting a medical residency at a local hospital. He was rarely around. We had a washing machine in the house but no clothes dryer. Whenever possible, I hung the laundry out on the line, the way my mother had. I had always had a job but couldn’t find one right away. As I did work around the house, I started watching soap operas so that I could hear people speak in complete sentences. When my husband came home, he was so bone-tired that he could barely stand up. I finally found a job as a writer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I had to find child care, and we were off to the races. Soon after finding that job, I discovered I was pregnant, and we were having another baby! Yikes!
With all the things associated with managing a household, a job, two kids, and a dog, I just did what had to be done. I also had a second job in broadcasting on Saturday nights. Was our house always spic and span? Absolutely not. I finally met a couple of teen-aged girls (they delivered our newspaper) and engaged them to babysit every Wednesday night. That’s when I would go grocery shopping and take all. the wet laundry to the laundromat to be dried while I was in the grocery store.
Now my daughter, who’s not working outside her home, has finally admitted to me that she doesn’t know how I did it for all those years.
Frankly, neither do I.
I don’t know how so many mothers work two and three jobs to keep their families together, and especially the single mothers who don’t have a partner to support them. Here’s to them and to their children. Moms, they will grow up. I promise you. Kids, be kind to your mothers. Wish them a Happy Working Moms Day–and help them out whenever you can. You too can wonder one day–“How the heck did you ever do all that, Mom?”
I was blessed to be able to take off a year to stay with my son when he was born, but I had to work again once that year was up. I enjoy working, but I don’t enjoy working an additional part-time job to make sure I can live comfortably. How cool that your mom worked at Polaroid! That word brought back lots of memories for me.
Yvette M Calleiro 🙂
http://yvettemcalleiro.blogspot.com
I went back to work three days a week after my son was three months old. I think I probably spent most of what I was earning in day care costs, but I needed to be interacting with adults again. My daughter, who was 22 months when he was born, needed the socialization, too. I was fortunate to find a day care that was close to my work and allowed me to use my much break to nurse my son. With my husband’s crazy schedule as a medical resident, I was the one who basically did everything.
My mother loved Dr. Edwin Land. After all, he hired her when she had not earned a high school diploma. Still, she worked her way up the ladder and became an optical technician. She was part of the team that helped to develop the kens for the SX-70 camera–previews of coming attractions for today’s digital cameras!
Hi, Wanda,
I agree; a woman who stays at home is a worker, too. My mother had to work. We couldn’t make a living on my daddy’s meager salary. I have always felt that even homemakers should receive a salary. It isn’t easy to take care of a house and raise kids simultaneously. I can only salute the women who have had to do it.
This is an excellent article.
Take care and have a lovely day.
Shalom shalom
Pat–yes, all women are workers, whether they get a salary or not. And women who stay at home SHOULD get paid. I guess the old cliche is that they’re paid by having the “luxury” of not having to punch a time clock! Really? Being a housewife is hard work! And raising children, taking care of a house, and working outside of the home is basically juggling a lot of balls in the air.
Thanks for your comment.
Hi Wanda,
I was one of those working moms because I didn’t marry very well the first time. I tried marriage again and my son was growing up. Somehow I missed a lot of his upbringing because I worked a lot. I remember he wanted me to take him to wrestlemania. What do I know about that? I wasn’t interested and failed to realize that I should have tried to go just so he could enjoy it. That’s where a male figure comes in.
We had a strained relationship after he had grown up and it was the decisions I made that affected him — sometimes not in a positive way. But I’m his mother and we are getting through this rough patch.
Working and raising children is not easy. But I am determined to make sure my son knows that I love him. Somewhere along the line he didn’t get that affirmation often enough.
Wanda I’m making it up to him as I write this comment.
Shirley, I’m sure you did the best you could at any given moment. I think that about my mother, too. She came from a tough Irish family and often had little to no food in her family. I think that’s one of the reasons she knew she had to have a job when she was first married even though her husband also had a job. It was right after World War II. She didn’t want to have to suffer the way her own mother had.
Here’s to you and your son having a solid reconciliation. I have confidence that it will work.
Well done you I say. I had just the one son and did my nurse training when he was little. I was able to put him into the hospital nursery,which helped.
You did an amazing job raising the family Wanda.
Thanks, Joy. You too. I think all of the people I have met here on RRBC are simply awesome. Everyone seems to have a great dedication to their families and a great work ethic. We share so many common bonds.
Wanda, it sounds like you got your fabulous work ethic from your own Mom! You certainly would make her proud. My mother was a stay-at-home mom after I was born, but I did work the entire time after our daughter was about a year old. Our daughter has been largely a stay-at-home mom, so the cycle has turned back. Our grandson probably doesn’t appreciate how much his mom does for him and takes it for granted. I missed many a classroom activity, as I felt guilty taking off from my job when my daughter was young. Now, I wish I had just done it and the job be damned – but I didn’t have that luxury as when she was young I was a single mom as well. Here’s to all the moms out there, working either at home, in a workplace, or both. They are all awesome!
My daughter’s three boys don’t realize all she does for them as a stay-at-home mom. She has three master’s degrees in education and is home-schooling them. She taught in inner-city schools and never had any trouble with gang members or orphans or kids who came from questionable backgrounds, but her own kids give her grief about doing school work. I’m just glad today’s women can have a choice!
My mother was a stay at home mom until I was eleven years old. At that time, she got a job at a department store working in the dress department. Money was tight in our house. My older sister, by ten years, was a nurse at lived at home until she was twenty-nine. I got a paper route at eleven and both my sister and I had to contribute part of our wages to the household. While growing up, none of us four kids helped with the housework…mom did it all.
In our household, Jan stayed home during the first two years after our daughter was born. Although, she traveled and spent every day at her mother’s house. She needed the socialization and a break from our daughter. Her mom usually watched our daughter while Jan shopped and did other errands. Then when returning home, it was time to clean up and prepare dinner. I was working 12 hours a day and seven days a week and I was too wiped out to do anything else around the house…although, yardwork and snow shoveling still had to be done.
That’s how we were raised, John, right? We did what we had to do. I’m glad my parents were good role models for me.
Wanda,
Most of the women in my life have worked outside the home. My mother was an exception. My father was in the Air Force, so we moved around every 3 or 4 years. It is not easy to work when you know the time is limited, plus she had to deal with three children.
My paternal grandmother worked outside the home, at least when I was around them. My father was born in 1928, so life was much different then. I remember my grandmother worked in the paint department in a Davenport, Iowa department store.
My ex worked with the Employment Development Department in California. Before that, she worked for the DMV.
My father was born in 1926 and my mother in 1928. My. grandmother, who was born in 1895, was a seamstress and mostly worked at home doing sewing and quilt making.
Being in the Air Force must have been a real challenge. My daughter has complained to me about having had to move several times, and I remind her that military spouses rarely know where their next assignment will be. She has three cousins in the military (well, one is married to a military man). It’s a challenging life.
My last job, before retiring, was with the New York State Office of the Medicaid Inspector General. Before that, I worked at Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital (physical rehabilitation), and before that at the New York Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. When my children were little, I worked at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I have worked in radio at this station for almost 42 years.
Hi, Wanda!
Kudos to all women who work, whether at home raising their families, or outside the home and also at home raising their families. Thank you for sharing your story and about the moms in your life. I was blessed to stay at home with my three children until their father and I separated. Then on to the joys of working full-time outside the home as a single mom for six years. As tough as that was, I did enjoy the daily interaction with other adults. After Bill and I married (and I gained another five children), I continued working for a couple more years.
I’m thankful those days are behind us, and I’m filled with admiration for our children and how they’re managing work and family as well as they do.
Blessings,
Patty