My Mother Never Worked Summary
The essay ‘My Mother Never Worked’ presents an emotional and respectful tribute to a woman, Martha Ruth Smith, whose life was full of hard work, sacrifice, and love for her family. The essay begins with a phone call to the Social Security Office, where the author inquiries about a death benefit after her mother’s death. The response was that she was not entitled to the benefit because she "never worked". The title is satirical to law maker. The cause of the problem has a root to the federal law which doesn’t recognize the household work as work.
Martha’s life is recounted in vivid detail, beginning with her early years working in a general store and her courtship through letters with her future husband, a World War I soldier. After marrying in 1921, she ran a life of relentless labor and endurance as a farm wife. With no initial capital, she and her husband farmed rented land, raised children, and endured hardships such as drought, livestock disease and so on.
Despite the physical demands of farming and raising eight children, Martha learned to set hens and raise chickens, feed pigs and calves, milk cows, plant and harvest a garden, pick eggs, cook meals, wash dishes, scrub floor and many other seasonal works related to family and farming. Her ingenuity and tireless efforts sustained her family through decades of adversity.
In 1969, she was paralyzed in a car accident, yet remained resilient, learning to function independently in a wheelchair. Even then, she continued to bake, can, sew, and write letters, embodying perseverance and love. The story is both a personal praise and a broader commentary on the invisible labor of women. The irony has implication to the state’s failure to recognize household work which is generally reserved for women in a traditional society.
Why is the title “My Mother Never Worked” ironic?
The title “My Mother Never Worked” is deeply ironic because it directly contradicts the reality that the essay reveals. The Social Security Office responses to her inquiry that the mother is not eligible for a death benefit since she never involved in a paid job. The government’s attitude to the household work is bitterly satirized in this essay. The author’s mother is hard-working throughout her entire life, but the government did not recognize her work as work. According to federal law, a woman who is a homemaker, who has never been a wage earner, is eligible for Social Security benefits only through the earnings of her deceased husband. The same would be true for a man if the roles were reversed. Social Security Office, finally informs her that her mother is not entitled for the death benefit check since they do not find her mother’s record as a wage earner. Therefore, the homemaker’s survivors would not be eligible for the death benefit. In other words, she is not eligible for the death benefit check.
The title is ironic since the essay gives detail of the author’s mother’s tireless and relentless work. But the federal law does not recognize her mother’s work as work. Her household or farm work is devalued as per the law of the country. Her labour was unpaid and domestic which was not legally or economically recognized. The irony exposes society’s undervaluing of women’s unpaid labor, especially within the home and in rural settings.
What kind of work did Martha Smith do while her children were growing up? List some of the chores she performed.
The narrative, ‘My Mother Never Worked’ shows that a woman working entire life in the family domain is recognized as the "never worked" woman as per the federal law. After her death, the survivors do not get the social security benefit. It is ironical that an office going person retires from his job after certain age, but a woman never gets retired.
Martha Smith is an example of that type. Here, her list of the chores she performed are collected. She began farming after her marriage. She worked in fields. She learned to set hens and raise chickens, feed pigs, milk cows, plant and harvest a garden. She carried water nearly a quarter of a mile from the well to fill her wash boilers in order to do her laundry on a scrub board. She learned to shuck grain, feed threshers, shock and husk corn, feed corn pickers. She used to pull mustard plants, raise a new flock of baby chicks. She spaded up, planted, hoed and harvested a half-acre garden.
Moreover, she had eight children. Ironically, she did all but she was never recorded as a working woman. In the winter she sewed night after night, endlessly, begging cast-off clothing from relatives, ripping apart coats, dresses, blouses and trousers to remake them to fit her four daughters and son. She milked cows, fed pigs and calves, cared for chickens, picked eggs, cooked meals, washed dishes, scrubbed floors, and tended and loved her children. In the spring she planted a garden; she dragged a pail of water to nourish and sustain the vegetables for the family. She used to make pillow using feathers she had plucked and she used to do the patch work. She used to make, manage bedding for her family. She used to pluck feathers, made pillows, baked her own bread and every year made a new quilt too.
Smith-Yackel mentions relatively little about her father in the essay. How can you account for this?
The essay’s focus is on the government attitude to household work. A woman who sacrifices her life for the family, work relentlessly and tirelessly in her house and farm is not eligible for a social security benefit. The role of a mother is great to the family in comparison to father. Yes, truly father does the earning for the family but it is important that how the mother handles the households and manage the child rearing. Mother does her chores and keeps the fields and chickens. She brings the water, tends the flocks and bears the children and raise them. As a male gets retired from his job but a woman who engages completely in her household works never gets retired from the job until her death.
The role of the father is deliberately over-shadowed by the writer. The writer mentions less about the father because the narrative begins with the reference of the mother's death. The survivors do not get any social security death benefits. The essay is for the audience of all the society because there are very less societies where the non-working homemakers get social security death benefits. Although the law has been challenged in the courts, the survivors of a homemaker who has never been a wage earner are still not entitled to a social security death benefit.
To conclude, Yackel’s effort is to show how women are confined within a household chore and how their sacrifice is devalued by the government. Showing her concern on women’s fate to be limited to household work which is not recognized as work. On the contrary, men have chances to join a paid job that is legally defined as work and entitled to social security benefit. Thus, she has relatively mentioned little about her father in the essay.
