by Studs Terkel
It’s tiring, it’s nerve-racking. We don’t ever sit down. We’re on stage and the bosses are watching. If you get the wrong shoes and you get the wrong stitch in that shoe, that does bother you. Your feet hurt, your body aches. If you come out in anger at things that were done to you, it would only make you feel cheapened. Really I’ve been keeping it to myself. But of late, I’m beginning to spew it out. It’s almost as though I sensed my body and soul had had quite enough.
It builds and builds and builds in your guts. Near crying. I can think about it . . . (She cries softly.) ’Cause you’re tired. When the night is done, you’re tired. You’ve had so much, there’s so much going . . . You had to get it done. The dread that something wouldn’t be right, because you want to please. You hope everyone is satisfied. The night’s done, you’ve done your act. The curtains close.
The next morning is pleasant again. I take out my budget book, write down how much I made, what my bills are. I’m managing. I won’t give up this job as long as I’m able to do it. I feel out of contact if I just sit at home. At work they all consider me a kook. (Laughs.) That’s okay. No matter where I’d be, I would make a rough road for me. It’s just me, and I can’t keep still. It hurts, and what hurts has to come out.
POSTSCRIPT: “After sixteen years—that was seven years ago—I took a trip to Hawaii and the Caribbean for two weeks. Went with a lover. The kids saw it—they’re all married now. (Laughs.) One of my daughters said, “Act your age.” I said,“Honey, if I were acting my age, I wouldn’t be walking. My bones would ache. You don’t want to hear about my arthritis. Aren’t you glad I’m happy?”
JUST A HOUSEWIFE
Even if it is a woman making an apple
dumpling, or a man a stool,
If life goes into the pudding, good
is the pudding,
good is the stool.
Content is the woman with fresh life
rippling in her,
content is the man.
—D.H. Lawrence
THERESE CARTER
We’re in the kitchen of the Carter home, as we were eight years ago. It is in Downers Grove Estates, an unincorporated area west of Chicago. There are one-family dwellings in this blue-collar community of skilled craftsmen—“middle class. They’ve all got good jobs, plumbers, electricians, truckdrivers.” Her husband Bob is the foreman of an auto body repair shop. They have three children: two boys, twenty-one and fourteen, and one girl, eighteen.
It is a house Bob has, to a great extent, built himself. During my previous visit he was still working at it. Today it is finished—to his satisfaction. The room is large, remarkably tidy; all is in its place. On the wall is a small blackboard of humorous familial comment, as well as a bulletin board of newspaper clippings and political cartoons.
On another wall is the kitchen prayer I remembered: Bless the kitchen in which I cook
Bless each moment within this nook
Let joy and laughter share this room
With spices, skillets and my broom
Bless me and mine with love and health
And I’ll ask not for greater wealth.
How would I describe myself? It’ll sound terrible—just a housewife. (Laughs.) It’s true. What is a housewife? You don’t have to have any special talents. I don’t have any.
First thing I do in the morning is come in the kitchen and have a cigarette. Then I’ll put the coffee on and whatever else we’re gonna have for breakfast: bacon and eggs, sausage, waffles, toast, whatever. Then I’ll make one lunch for young Bob—when school’s on, I’ll pack more—and I get them off to work. I’ll usually throw a load of clothes in the washer while I’m waiting for the next batch to get up out of bed, and carry on from there. It’s nothing really.
Later I’ll clean house and sew, do something. I sew a lot of dresses for Cathy and myself. I brought this sewing machine up here years ago. It belongs here. This is my room and I love it, the kitchen.
I start my dinner real early because I like to fuss. I’ll bake, cook . . . There’s always little interruptions, kids running in and out, take me here, take me there. After supper, I really let down. I’m not a worker after supper. I conk out. I sit and relax and read, take a bath, have my ice cream, and go to bed. (Laughs.) It’s not really a full day. You think it is? You make me sound important. Keep talking. (Laughs.)
I don’t think it’s important because for so many years it wasn’t considered. I’m doing what I’m doing and I fill my day and I’m very contented. Yet I see women all around that do a lot more than I do. Women that have to work. I feel they’re worthy of much more of a title than housewife.
If anybody else would say this, I’d talk back to ’em, but I myself feel like it’s not much. Anybody can do it. I was gone for four days and Cathy took over and managed perfectly well without me. (Laughs.) I felt great, I really did. I knew she was capable.
I’ll never say I’m really a good mother until I see the way they all turn out. So far they’ve done fine. I had somebody tell me in the hospital I must have done a good job of raising them. I just went along from day to day and they turned out all right.
Oh—I even painted the house last year. How much does a painter get paid for painting a house? (Laughs.) What? I’m a skilled craftsman myself? I never thought about that. Artist? No. (Laughs.) I suppose if you do bake a good cake, you can be called an artist. But I never heard anybody say that. I bake bread too. Oh gosh, I’ve been a housewife for a long time. (Laughs.)
I never thought about what we’d be worth. I’ve read these things in the paper: If you were a tailor or a cook, you’d get so much an hour. I think that’s a lot of boloney. I think if you’re gonna be a mother or a housewife, you should do these things because you want to, not because you have to.
You look around at all these career women and they’re really doing things. What am I doing? Cooking and cleaning. (Laughs.) It’s necessary, but it’s not really great.
It’s known they lead a different life than a housewife. I’m not talking about Golda Meir or anybody like that. Just even some women in the neighborhood that have to work and come home and take care of the family. I really think they deserve an awful lot of credit.
A housewife is a housewife, that’s all. Low on the totem pole. I can read the paper and find that out. Someone who is a model or a movie star, these are the great ones. I don’t necessarily think they are, but they’re the ones you hear about. A movie star will raise this wonderful family and yet she has a career. I imagine most women would feel less worthy. Not just me.
Somebody who goes out and works for a living is more important than somebody who doesn’t. What they do is very important in the business world. What I do is only important to five people. I don’t like putting a housewife down, but everybody has done it for so long. It’s sort of the thing you do. Deep down, I feel what I’m doing is important. But you just hate to say it, because what are you? Just a housewife? (Laughs.)
I love being a housewife. Maybe that’s why I feel so guilty. I shouldn’t be happy doing what I’m doing. (Laughs.) Maybe you’re not supposed to be having fun. I never looked on it as a duty.
I think a lot. (Laughs.) Oh sure, I daydream. Everybody does. Some of ‘em are big and some of ’em are silly. Sometimes you dream you’re still a kid and you’re riding your bike. Sometimes you daydream you’re really someone special and people are asking you for your advice, that you’re in a really big deal. (Laughs.)
I have very simple pleasures. I’m not a deep reader. I can’t understand a lot of things. I’ve never read—oh, how do you pronounce it, Camus? I’m not musically inclined. I go as far as Boston Pops and the Beatles. (Laughs.) I don’t know anything about art at all. I could never converse with anybody about it. They’d have to be right, because I wouldn’t know whether they’re right or wrong. I have no special talents in any direction.
I just read a new Peter De Vries book. I can’t think of the name of it, that’s terrible. (Suddenly) Always Pa
nting. I was the first Peter De Vries fan in the world. I introduced my sister to it and that was the one big thing I’ve ever done in my life. (Laughs.) Now I’m reading Grapes Of Wrath. I’m ashamed of myself. Everybody in the family has read that book and I’ve had it for about fifteen years. Finally I decided to read it because my daughter raved about it.
There is a paperback copy of The Savage God by A. Alvarez nearby. I indicate it.
I just started a little bit about Sylvia Plath and I decided I would read this book. Ms. magazine has an article about her. Sure I read Ms. I don’t think it’s unusual just because I live around here. I don’t agree with everything in it. But I read it. I read matchbox covers too. (Laughs.)
I think Woman’s Lib puts down a housewife. Even though they say if this is what a woman wants, it’s perfectly all right. I feel it’s said in such a snide way: “If this is all she can do and she’s contented, leave her alone.” It’s patronizing.
I look on reading right now as strictly enjoyment and relaxation. So I won’t even let myself pick up a book before ten ’ at night. If I do, I’m afraid I might forget about everything else. During lunch time I’ll look through a magazine because I can put it down and forget about it. But real enjoyable reading I’ll do at night.
I’d feel guilty reading during the day. (Laughs.) In your own home. There are so many things you should be doing. If I did it, I wouldn’t think the world’s coming to an end, but that’s the way I’m geared. That’s not the time to do it, so I don’t do it.
When I went to school a few years ago it was very startling around here. Why would an older woman like me be wanting to go back to school? They wouldn’t say it directly, but you hear things. I took some courses in college English, psychology, sociology. I enjoyed going but I didn’t want to continue on and be a teacher. I still enjoyed being at home much more. Oh, I might go back if there was anything special I’d like.
I enjoy cooking. If it was a job, maybe I wouldn’t like doing it. As low on the totem pole as I consider being a housewife, I love every minute of it. You will hear me gripe and groan like everybody else, but I do enjoy it.
I’ll also enjoy it when the kids are all gone. I always had the feeling that I can really—oh, I don’t know what I want to do, but whatever that would be, I can do it. I’ll be on my own. I’m looking forward to it. Just a lot of things I’ve never taken the time to do.
I’ve never been to the Art Institute. Now that might be one thing I might do. (Laughs.) I’ve grown up in Chicago and I’ve never been there and I think that’s terrible. Because I’ve never gotten on the train and gone. I can’t spend all that time there yet. But pretty soon I’ll be able to.
I haven’t been to the Museum of Science and Industry for ten years at least. These things are nothing special to anybody else, but to me they would be. And to sit down and read one whole book in one afternoon if I felt like it. That would be something!
When the kids leave I want it to be a happy kind of time. Just to do the things I would like to do. Not traveling. Just to do what you want to do not at a certain time or a certain day. Sewing a whole dress at one time. Or cooking for just two people.
That’s what makes me feel guilty. Usually when kids go off and get married the mother sits and cries. But I’m afraid I’m just gonna smile all the way through it. (Laughs.) They’ll think I’m not a typical mother. I love my kids, I love ’em to pieces. But by the same token, I’ll be just so happy for them and for myself and for Bob, too. I think we deserve a time together alone.
I don’t look at housework as a drudgery. People will complain: “Why do I have to scrub floors?” To me, that isn’t the same thing as a man standing there—it’s his livelihood—putting two screws together day after day after day. It would drive anybody nuts. It would drive me wild. That poor man doesn’t even get to see the finished product. I’ll sit here and I’ll cook a pie and I’ll get to see everybody eat it. This is my offering. I think it’s the greatest satisfaction in the world to know you’ve pleased somebody. Everybody has to feel needed. I know I’m needed. I’m doing it for them and they’re doing it for me. And that’s the way it is.
JESUSITA NOVARRO
She is a mother of five children: the oldest twelve, the youngest two. “I went on welfare when my first husband walked out on me. I was swimming alone, completely cuckoo for a while. When I married this second man, I got off it. When he started drinking and bringing no money home, I had to quit my job and go on welfare again. I got something with this welfare business and I don’t like it.”
She is working part-time as an assistant case aide at a settlement house in the neighborhood. The director “says I’m doing real good and can have a job upstairs with a little bit more money. It’s only four hours, because in the afternoon I want to be with my children. They’re still small.”
She has just come home from the hospital where she was treated for a serious illness. On this hot August afternoon—it is over a hundred degrees—the blower in the kitchen isn’t doing much good. The three children in the house are more fascinated by technology—the tape recorder —than the conversation, though they are listening . . .
I start my day here at five o‘clock. I get up and prepare all the children’s clothes. If there’s shoes to shine, I do it in the morning. About seven o’clock I bathe the children. I leave my baby with the baby sitter and I go to work at the settlement house. I work until twelve ’. Sometimes I’ll work longer if I have to go to welfare and get a check for somebody. When I get back, I try to make hot food for the kids to eat. In the afternoon it’s pretty well on my own. I scrub and clean and cook and do whatever I have to do.
Welfare makes you feel like you’re nothing. Like you’re laying back and not doing anything and it’s falling in your lap. But you must understand, mothers, too, work. My house is clean. I’ve been scrubbing since this morning. You could check my clothes, all washed and ironed. I’m home and I’m working. I am a working mother.
A job that a woman in a house is doing is a tedious job—especially if you want to do it right. If you do it slipshod, then it’s not so bad. I’m pretty much of a perfectionist. I tell my kids, hang a towel. I don’t want it thrown away. That is very hard. It’s a constant game of picking up this, picking up that. And putting this away, so the house’ll be clean.
Some men work eight hours a day. There are mothers that work eleven, twelve hours a day. We get up at night, a baby vomits, you have to be calling the doctor, you have to be changing the baby. When do you get a break, really? You don’t. This is an all-around job, day and night. Why do they say it’s charity? We’re working for our money. I am working for this check. It is not charity. We are giving some kind of home to these children.
I’m so busy all day I don’t have time to daydream. I pray a lot. I pray to God to give me strength. If He should take a child away from me, to have the strength to accept it. It’s His kid. He just borrowed him to me.
I used to get in and close the door. Now I speak up for my right. I walk with my head up. If I want to wear big earrings, I do. If I’m overweight, that’s too bad. I’ve gotten completely over feeling where I’m little. I’m working now, I’m pulling my weight. I’m gonna get off welfare in time, that’s my goal—get off.
It’s living off welfare and feeling that you’re taking something for nothing the way people have said. You get to think maybe you are. You get to think, Why am I so stupid? Why can’t I work? Why do I have to live this way? It’s not enough to live on anyway. You feel degraded.
The other day I was at the hospital and I went to pay my bill. This nurse came and gave me the green card. Green card is for welfare. She went right in front of me and gave it to the cashier. She said, “I wish I could stay home and let the money fall in my lap.” I felt rotten. I was just burning inside. You hear this all the way around you. The doctor doesn’t even look at you. People are ashamed to show that green card. Why can’t a woman just get a check in the mail: Here, this check is for you. F
orget welfare. You’re a mother who works.
This nurse, to her way of thinking, she represents the working people. The ones with the green card, we represent the lazy no-goods. This is what she was saying. They’re the good ones and we’re the bad guys.
You know what happened at the hospital? I was put in a nice room, semiprivate. You stay there until someone with insurance comes in and then you get pushed up to the fifth floor. There’s about six people in there, and nobody comes even if you ring. I said, “Listen lady, you can put me on the roof. You just find out what’s the matter with me so I can get the hell out of here.”
How are you going to get people off welfare if they’re constantly being pushed down? If they’re constantly feeling they’re not good for anything? People say, I’m down, I’ll stay down. And this goes on generation to generation to generation. Their daughter and their daughter and their daughter. So how do you break this up? These kids don’t ask to be born —these kids are gonna grow up and give their lives one day. There will always be a Vietnam.
There will always be war. There always has been. The way the world is run, yes, there will always be war. Why? I really don’t know. Nobody has ever told me. I was so busy handling my own affairs and taking care of my children and trying to make my own money and calling up welfare when my checks are late or something has been stolen. All I know is what’s going on here. I’m an intelligent woman up to a certain point, and after that . . . I wish I knew. I guess the big shots decided the war. I don’t question it, because I’ve been busy fighting my own little war for so long.
