My mother was a housewife and remained one long after we kids were old enough to clean our rooms and get ourselves off to school. When I left for college she was alone all day until Dad came home from work. I suggested she find a job. “We’ll see.” Which meant she wanted me to stop talking about it.
I decided she was hopelessly submissive with a pitiful case of low self esteem. She didn’t trust her own opinions and voted the way my father did. In bull sessions with female friends, I gave my mother as the example of what we should never be.
Home on break, I talked with her again about getting out of the house. I reminded her she had graduated from Business College and had skills beyond house cleaning. She told me about her volunteer work with the church, and at the hospital. I countered with "It feels good to earn your own money and not depend on a man".
She looked down at her hands and shrugged. “I've thought about that, but your father makes a good salary. I might take a job from a woman who needs it. That doesn't feel fair.”
She showed me her baby layette project for Church World Service. She made a hemmed receiving blanket, and sewed a baby jacket for each layette. It wasn’t required, but she added an embroidered edge and ribbon to the jackets. My mother was not a natural seamstress. The only time she cursed was when she sewed. The layettes were for babies in the Congo.
I did not point out that babies in the Congo don't need flannel baby jackets and blankets. I'm glad I didn't. I just looked up weather in the Congo. It gets as low as 60 degrees. Cool enough to warrant a soft teddy bear print blanket and a flannel baby sleeper, tied with a green silk ribbon.
The longer my mother is gone, the better I see her.
