Born in 1949, I grew up in the suburbs with a working Mom. According to Television this is a faulty version of the 50’s and 60’s where Moms stayed home. Only one woman didn’t “work” in the whole neighborhood and she ran the Catholic Woman’s Club full time from her house. Across the street the childless couple were contract authors and home sometimes. Next to them the lesbian couple worked all day at one of the university libraries.

As an experiment, my Mother stayed home for a few years (9 and 10 for me I think) and I was enrolled in kids activities. Other than going to the library with me she was bored, poorly behaved and a nuisance for a kid to have around. So she went back to work, was happier and we did family things in the evening–including art projects I loved to fool around with.

My Mother was an incomplete and mostly sad person when she didn’t work. No fun at all. I was lucky that my Grandmother lived downstairs but she too worked managing an oil-well service company by phone from home and was not always “available when needed” (women talk for feeling guilty about their own interests).

For years, my Mom was Director of Alumni Relations at a small art college. She was often asked to work weekends and evenings at fund-raising events for no extra pay. None of the young males in her office were asked because they had young kids at home that “needed them” and this was a joke at our house because it was fun to work with crazy art school alumni and not so much fun being the boss of “family men.”

My Mother was an interesting person, other kids had “regular” Moms. Too bad for them:-)