- Miscellaneous -

         I am just a Mother       

A few months ago, when I was picking up children at school, another woman whom I knew well rushed up to me. Emily was fuming with indignation.

“Do you know what you and I are?” she Demand?”                           

Before I could answer and I didn’t really have one handy, she blurted out the reason for her question. It seemed she had just returned from renewing her driver’s license at the Country Clerk’s Office. Asked by a woman recorder to state her ‘occupation’. Emily had hesitated uncertain how to classify herself. 

“What I mean is,” explained the recorder, “Do you have a job or are you a…”             

 “Of course I have a job,” snapped Emily. “I’m a mother”.  

“We don’t list ‘mother’ as an occupation... ‘Housewife’ covers it,” said the recorder emphatically.

I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our Town Hall. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high-sounding title, like Official Interrogator or ‘Town Registrar”. 

“And what is your occupation?” she probed. 

What made me say it, I do not know. The words simply popped out.

“I’m Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relation.” 

The Clerk paused, ballpoint pen frozen in the mid-air, and looked as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words. Then I started with wonder as my pompous pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire. 

“Might I ask” said the Clerk with new interest, “Just what do you do in your field?” 

Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I hear myself reply, “I have a continuing program of research (what mother doesn’t?) in the laboratory and in the field (normally I would have said indoor and out) “I’m  working for my Master’s (the whole darned family) and already have four credits (all daughters). Of course, the course is one of the most demanding in the humanities (any mother cares to disagree?). But the job is most than run-of-the mill careers and the rewards are in the satisfaction rather than just in money.”

There was an increasing note of respect in the Clerk’s voice, as she completed the form, stood up and personally ushered me to the door.

As I drove into our driveway buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants-aged 13. 7 and 3. And up stairs, I could hear out new experimental model model-6 months in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern.  I felt triumphant. I had scored a beat on bureaucracy. And I had gone down on the official records as some one most distinguished and indispensable to mankind than ”just another…”

Home…what a glorious career. Especially, when there’s a title on the door¨.

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Contact: nadir@sheddinglight.info

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