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PAGE 5—June 6,1974
Are Working Wives a New Phenomenon?
BY WILLIAM J. JACOBS
“Charm is deceitful, and beauty empty
the woman who is wise is the one to praise.
Give her a share in what her hands have worked for
and let her works tell her praises at the city gates.’
The timeless beauty of the poem on the perfect wife from
Proverbs speaks as plainly and deeply today as ever. It is a little
amazing how much stress is put on the dignity and worth of a
woman’s work in the poem in view of our traditional ideas of
the woman’s rather lowly place in the Hebrew scheme of things,
little more than property, of value only in relation to her
husband.
The reference to her being “wise” is seen by commentators as
referring to fear of the Lord. Actually, it may be that the scribes
understood the whole passage allegorically as a description of
the personification of wisdom. If that’s the case, the “perfect
wife” or “valiant woman” of Wisdom literature would be a
pretty good model for her 20th century sisters. She is a woman
of diligence, dignity, skill prudence, charity and resourcefulness,
one who is listened to:
“When she opens her mouth she does so wisely;
on her tongue is kindly instruction.
She keeps good watch on the conduct of her household,
no bread of idleness for her.
Her sons stand up and proclaim her blessed,
her husband, too, sings her praises.”
And while the most respected work of women in the past
seems to have been linked to their households, this woman in
Proverbs buys a field and plants it, weaves linen sheets and sells
them and supplies the merchants with sashes.
It seems like as good a way as any to approach a catechetical
reflection on working wives by noting that they commanded
Working Can Be Plus!
BY ANGELA M. SCHREIBER
Summer 1960. My life changed with a long-distance phone
call. Mother accepted our invitation to live with us! Since
Daddy’s death the year before, life had been difficult for her -
she was left to care for my sister who was ill and my sister’s
10-year-old son. This meant an addition of three people to our
household. There were already six of us.
To make a long story short, when Tom and I got down to
nitty-gritty finances, we couldn’t make it on his salary. Our
baby, Christopher, was just 11 months old. But I had to go to
work immediately.
Let’s face it. My generation was brought up to marry, raise
children, stay at home. We were conditioned to believe if you
weren’t home with you little darlings 24 hours a day, you were
a rotten mother. But I couldn’t tell my mother we didn’t have
enough money to support the three of them. And there was a
boy waiting for a real family. He had no male figure. We had to
find a way.
First, I advertised for a baby sitter. Our oldest son, Tommy,
was 11. I reasoned that he could observe and tell me if the baby
sitter wasn’t working out. There were four responses to my ad -
I made a selection. Then I looked at want-ads. There were no
writer-editor jobs in this mid-western city, but I could type. So I
registered with a temporary employment agency.
Success! The first day I worked for a lawyer. Oh Lord! An
electric typewriter stared me in the face and I had never even
seen one before. I touched it and it ran away. But God must
have been there. The attorney had the patience of Job. He even
offered me a two-day-a-week job but that wasn’t enough. So he
found me a secretarial spot with a friend of his.
After 12 years, I belonged again to the world of work. In
addition, I frantically tried to fulfill the roles of mother, wife,
house-keeper. And I worried. You might suggest, “Your mother
was there, why the strain?” But Mother was almost blind and up
in years. She was no longer a point of reliance. In six months, I
was a wreck.
I sat down by myself and looked at the whole situation
objectively one eyening. The older children, of course, had
always had certain duties to perform - emptying garbage,
washing dishes, picking up - but I had always been there for
everything else. I thought, “If this is going to work, every
able-bodied family member has to accept more responsibility.
I’m just one person and it’s not reasonable to think I can do
virtually everything. Why, for six whole months, I haven’t had
any fun with my children or my husband. One of the very few
pleasant moments of my day is when the children go to bed and
we say our prayers together.”
My evenings looked like this: Run to the kitchen to prepare
dinner for nine people. Eat. Wash dishes. Listen to problems and
lessons. Wash clothes. I weighed 95 pounds!
I dragged my husband away from the idiot tube. I roused the
two oldest children unceremoniously from their beds. Another
changing point! That family conference determined a complete
new regime for our household.
No longer would mama cook on weekdays. No longer would I
wash dishes with one helper. The two older kids could do that.
Saturdays were reserved for housecleaning with everybody
helping. That included a husband who rarely lifted even his little
finger for household chores.
Lest this sound like a fairy tale, let me assure you that
implementation was neither instantaneous nor Poly anna happy!
We didn’t run smoothly for a long time. And 15 years later,
there are moments!
But I did find there was time for my husband, time for my
children, and time for me. It was shorter but that meant things
had to be handled with care.
And a whole new side effect came into sight! As Tommy
approaced college age, he realized it was impossible for us to
finance his entire education. At 15, he worked in a supermarket
after school, on weekends, and summers. He put himself
through a private Catholic college. In four years, we sent him
$40. Each succeeding child has taken special pride in saying, “I
want an education. Tommy did it and so can I.”
What’s more, we had two more children after that summer of
1960. During pregnancy, I didn’t have time to think about how
I felt. Life went on as usual. As we grew in numbers, love grew.
Angela’s birth nine years ago gave Mother a fresh interest in life
and enriched her last years.
In 1974,1 find that society has finally caught up with me. No
longer am I “different.”
We hear about so many youth problems -- drugs,
psychological problems, dissatisfaction -- but we haven’t had
any. The other night, when I knew the time had come to write
this article, we asked our four oldest ranging in age now from 23
to 15 how they felt about our lives, their responses can
reasonably be summed up in Tommy’s answer, “I knew you
depended on me when Chris was little. It made me proud to
know you needed me. And there never was a time when I
couldn’t talk to you and Dad about anything. You always
respected me even when I was wrong. I’ve never had time to
consider getting high on acid - there’s always too much to do.”
While we do all the things we did before, we do them more
intensely. We talk to one another first of all because we have to
-- there’s no room for communication or generation gaps. We’ve
still a long way to go - the last child is only five. But all of us
care and we all love a lot.
And as I think about a family of long, long ago, I* can see
Mary busy about many things. While scripture tells us little
about the Holy Family, in my imagination, I identify best with
the Blessed Mother when I picture her as a very busy person
who cared deeply about all those she knew during her lifetime.
There must have been many times when others asked for her
assistance and she depended upon her Son to do certain things
in her absence.
I’m sure she felt her Son was reliable enough to handle
responsibility and didn’t feel guilty when she had to go
someplace. He helped His father with the carpentry and I’m sure
He helped His mother too. They shared, loved, played and
worked together. Joseph and Mary were wise enough to know
responsible children grow up to be responsible adults.
We’re a lucky bunch!
respect long before “liberated women,” long before students of
our society started blaming them for everything from juvenile
delinquency to emasculated husbands. One thing is sure,
working wives are here to stay because of economic necessity, if
for no other reason. Let’s examine the situation from a few
different perspectives and see if we can contribute something to
a sound view of a Christian woman of our time.
Looking at it doctrinally, a most frequent term in current
teaching is “building up.” All Christians share in the task of
building up the world God has made, the people Christ has
redeemed, the Church He has founded, and the Kingdom of
God. Vatican II documents are especially helpful here because
they point out the necessity and propriety of taking the world
as it is, working within it according to its own principles and
bringing something better out of that. The task is not to make it
some glowing, spirit-like roseland, but to take it for what it is,
world, and make it move toward the perfection which will be
part of the fulfillment of Salvation History.
Within that framework, the evangelization done by the
layman (and Lumen Gentium uses just that term) is carried out
primarily in the way one lives and does his work in the world.
He or she may do more specifically ecclesiastical things, any
number of them, but the basic witness given in the working
world is primary.
This, in turn, has ramifications in terms of spirituality. At
various times, Catholics have considered work a punishment,
simply something to be borne in mute patience or even as a
distraction and danger spiritually. Much stress was placed on
other-worldly pursuits and the pursuit of another world. Many
really suffered, desiring release from daily chores so they could
love God more and pray, better.
Really, this was quite misleading. The most contemplative of ■
contemplatives has work to do and considers it essential.
Put plainly, while being a contemplative religious is a holy
thing it also can be a holy thing to be a good chemist or
engineer or teacher or entertainer or laborer and one’s sex has
nothing to do with it. If one understands this and thinks
through its relationship to liturgical life, he or she need never
consider himself or herself as an ecclesiastical second-class
citizen.
Women, I think, have a special task in this “building up.” It is
called humanization. I’m, not being a dreamer when I say I
believe women, on the whole, can do a better humanizing job
than men in very many cases. This world we are to take so
seriously needs a lot more warmth, playfulness, tenderness and
compassion. It seems to me these things are present more when
more women are around.
In most cases a rather different life style is demanded in a
family with a working wife. There is plenty of evidence that a
new life style can lead to better life quality. It calls for thought,
sensitive listening and honest give and take, as well as trial and
error. I don’t think there are very many flat rules that apply
very generally. In my own household, there could be great loss
if I took over the cooking and my wife isn’t much good at
taking care of spirited horses. But I know men who do cook well
and women who care for horses with great skill. As it happens,
my son is developing into a pretty fair cook. The thing I notice
most is that the varied and sometimes hectic schedules we live
by in my family add up to a plus. Almost without exception,
when it is possible to do so, we prefer being together at home.
That is no small thing.
Perhaps I should have started with this, an explanation of
why I feel qualified to write on this subject at all and why I am
so much on the side of working women. It’s like this. My
grandmother took in laundry from firehouses and worked as a
seamstress until she was well into her 60s. My mother put in a
lot of years, until mandatory retirement age, in the finance
office of a big VA hospital and still does hospital volunteer
work in her mid-70s. My wife, a nurse, has worked most of the
17 years we have been married. I know what her work has
meant to some people over the years and I am proudest of the
fact that she is best known in the profession for her laughter.
The number of working wives I have known over the years
would be hard to estimate. They include a wonderful old
policewoman, many teachers and nurses, several physicians and
attorneys, secretaries, waitresses, barmaids, journalists, artists
and merchants. Each has made my life a litter better and I’m
sure has had the same effect on countless others.
That’s pretty much what it’s all about, isn’t it?
(All Articles On This Page Copyrighted 1974 by N.C. News Service)
Know Your Faith
Freedom Journey and Liturgical Celebration
“SOCIETY HAS PROGRAMMED women and men
to believe that the women are one step down from men.
From early childhood, boys are encouraged to be
rough and ready; girls are taught to be fragile and
frilly.’’ In frilly ballet outfits, little girls prepare to
perform in a southeastern Wisconsin school. (NC Photo
by George R. Cassidy)
BY GERARD A. POTTEBAUM
The working wife -- that’s an expression quick to be
misunderstood. It suggests that wives who do not hold down a
paying job outside the home are not working. Of course that’s
not so. Wives do have a job at home, 24 hours-a-day. What’s
more - and this can be a sore point - when a wife takes on work
outside the home, she soon finds out that her family expects her
still to prepare the meals, clean house, wash and iron everyone’s
clothes.
Why, then, do more and more wives seek work outside the
home?
Some wives work because the family needs the money to
make ends meet. Others work to develop a professional interest
and competence. Then again, some wives work to establish for
themselves a sense of self-worth; having an income separate
from the husband’s provides a sense of independence and self-
sufficiency. Still other wives work to avoid boredom; they need
to expand their social contacts beyond children, neighbors,
husband’s business associates, and the all too familiar soap-opera
ordeals.
For whatever reason a wife takes on a job, she is usually
expected still to work it into her job at home. She can ease the
strain by assigning certain chores to the children. Or she can
split the work with her husband. But then she faces having to let
him do the housework his way. Many wives would rather do it
all themselves than live with what that might bring.
Solving this reordering of roles at home is a sticky problem.
But no more so than the one wives face on the job.
Society has programmed women and men to believe that the
woman is one step down from men. From early childhood, boys
are encouraged to be rough and ready; girls are taught to be
fragile and frilly. Boys are encouraged to participate in the
sciences and business; girls are promoted into liberal arts,
teaching (children), nursing, and secretarial positions. These
roles can be seen as spin-offs, often, from the traditional
sex-roles instilled by our cultures.
Often the working wife leaves home to hold a job where she
is a substitute wife or mother to another man. If she grew up in
a home where traditional sex-roles were well-established, she is
not likely to advance beyond supportive, subordinate positions.
The secretary, for instance, makes sure her boss meets all of his
appointments, doesn’t forget his children’s birthdays, and
remembers his wedding anniversary. She may even go out and
select the gift for his wife. The working wife who takes on such
an outside job in search for a more fulfilling life may find
herself even more entrenched in her traditional role than she
realized. She finds reordering relationships at work perhaps even
more overwhelming than refining her relationships within the
family.
In either case, at home or at work, the working wife’s struggle
can be seen as an expression of every human being’s search for
personal freedom and dignity. So we would all do well to work
to reconcile these conflicts. We all need to open the way for
both men and women to enjoy greater opportunities for
personal and social development. We can heighten our
consciousness of this struggle and confront it more hopefully
through liturgical rites of reconciliation which focus on the
constrictive social roles which enslave us all. Such concerns
might appropriately be high on any parish’s list of liturgical
priorities.
But as we seek reconciliation of these roles, one would hope
that the working wife will sustain in herself and share with men
one of her special human qualities: her capacity to celebrate.
Although this character is not uniquely hers, the wife usually
sees to the celebration of birthdays and anniversaries. She has
the skill and sensitivity in planning and bringing off a party for
any occasion, sometimes on the spur of the moment.
In this era of liturgical renewal, the male-dominated church
would surely benefit from the sensitivities that the wife could
bring to the planning of liturgical celebrations. She is perhaps
more the celebrant in our society than are men. She
demonstrates this at home, and wherever she may take on a
paying job. This quality we cannot afford to leave behind in our
journey to freedom. Such a journey makes little sense if, when
we arrive, we have forgotten why we’ve come ... to celebrate.
Passive Watching Replacing Creative Activity
BY JANET G. WATERS
Perhaps these observations should be entitled “A Working
Wife in the Arts,” since that happens to be the situation. For
the past three years I have been a full-time instructor in the
Speech and Drama Department at Catholic University,
Washington, D. C. However, for most of my married years I
taught Speech a few hours a week, in addition to professional
play readings. As it happens, my husband’s field is also speech
and drama. Since the arts are an integral part of our lives, we
encouraged these interests in our six children. We took them to
every play and concert offered at the college where my husband
taught for 11 years. Music, art, poetry, folk-singing and dancing
were all part of family togetherness. We lived outside of town
with no neighbors and no television for half of those years.
Then, a loving uncle gave us a TV set and we had to integrate
this “medium” into our lives.
It never seemed much of a problem when the children were
small. We simply limited the amount of time that they could
watch. Since they were all close in age, bedtime was a group
affair with private reading-in-bed a concession for the older
ones. Because we lived in the country, “Romper Room” became
their nursery school. Their other hour or half-hour could be “I
Love Lucy” or “Swamp Fox” or “Zorro” - entertainment of
the same type that we went to the movies to see when we were
kids.
In our situation it worked beautifully since the children
balanced this with climbing trees, running through corn fields,
chasing our several dozen cats, and reading 25 or 30 children’s
books a week. This latter activity developed from our family
trip to the library every Saturday where each child brought
home his five books and read everyone else’s before the week
was over.
We moved to Washington when our oldest was 14 and our
youngest, four. We still restricted the hours of watching,
including “giving it up” for Lent. But there was more freedom
of choice, since the school children went to Catholic High
Schools where they had to study three or four hours a night.
They also had part-time jobs. Most of their TV watching was
over the weekend. By the time that we had three in high school
and three in grade school, we had two TV sets. The one in the
living room was turned on only when we were all agreed on a
newscast, sporting event, or entertainment. The other set was
for individual choice.
How does this subject affect working wives? Whether you’re
at home all the time or not, you probably have thought about
this influence on your family life. There is no question that it
can help enormously with sick children, who feel cut off from
the outside world. It can be a boon for young baby-sitters, who
have several small children to keep quiet before bedtime. The
old movies are great for teen-agers who are so limited in their
choice of movies today. It is a marvelous invention, used with
discretion.
Exchanging thoughts on this subject with mothers of families
of varying ages, all seem agreed on limiting the amount of
viewing time, particularly for pre-school and grade school
children. Most throw up their hands at advising past that point.
From our experience, I think the best defense is an offense.
Keep them busy! Encourage them to study, play sports, have
hobbies, work.
The biggest problem that I see with TV is that this generation
doesn’t want to read. They’d rather look at pictures. I feel
strongly that the mothers should encourage the Saturday library
habit when the family is young. In addition, weekend jaunts to
spots of interest or to cultural events will balance a too-steady
diet of passive watching, which so often has taken the place of
creative activity in the home.