JENNIFER COLTON

"Why I Quit Working"

Good Housekeeping, September 1951

Just over a year ago, I was suffering from that feeling of guilt and despon­dency familiar to most working mothers who have small children. Dur­ing the hours I spent in the office, an accusing voice chanted continuously, "You should be home with the children." I couldn't have agreed more, which only created an additional tension: the frustrated anger of one who knows what is right but sees no way of doing it. Children need clothes as well as attention; they must be nourished with food as well as love.

Some mothers can eventually talk themselves out of this feeling; they conclude that the material advantages they can provide are worth more than their presence in the home. Some, unable to rationalize this way, gradually grow more despondent. Others try to find a compromise. For the fortunate ones, the problem is solved by a substantial increase in the husband's income.

One; day in 1950, I finally worked out a compromise: a way to be at home with the children and still do some work for which I'd be paid. At that moment, I knew only two things: that I would never again rage against a delayed subway for costing me my painfully brief hour with the children, and that at last I would be able to serve a dinner that took more than half an hour to prepare and put on the table.

A year has passed, and I've had time to judge the advantages and dis­advantages of leaving my office job. How they will total up ten years from now, I don't know. But here is my balance sheet of the results to date.

Lost

The great alibi: work. My job, and the demands it made on me, were my always accepted excuses for everything and anything: for spoiled children, neglected husband, mediocre food; for being late, tired, preoc­cupied, conversationally limited, bored, and boring.

The weekly check. And with that went many extravagances and self indulgences. I no longer had the pleasure of giving showy gifts (the huge doll, the monogrammed pajamas) and the luxury of saying "My treat." And without the extra money, I couldn't rectify or camouflage such mistakes as an unbecoming hat, a too-big canasta debt, a too-small pair of shoes.

The special camaraderie and the common language. The warm but impersonal and unprying relationship among working people is one of the most rewarding things about having a job. People who work, even in unallied fields, speak rather the same language, which can't be translated for the uninitiated without going into the whole psychology of business. I missed the crutch of shoptalk when, later, I struggled to reach people through interests outside the business world.

One pretty fallacy. For some reason, most working mothers seem to think they could retire with perfect ease; that they could readily adjust themselves to their new role. I don't think so. When you start to devote all your time to homemaking, you run into a whole new set of problems. The transition from part-time to full-time mother is difficult to make.

One baseless vanity. I realize now (and still blush over it) that during my working days I felt that my ability to earn was an additional flower in my wreath of accomplishments. Unconsciously-and sometimes con­sciously- I thought how nice it was for my husband to have a wife who could also bring in money. But one day I realized that my office job was only a substitution for the real job I'd been "hired" for: that of being purely a wife and mother.

The sense of personal achievement. A working woman is someone in her own right, doing work that disinterested parties consider valuable enough to pay for. The satisfactions of housekeeping are many, but they are not quite the same.

The discipline of an office. The demands made on you by business are much easier to fulfill than the demands you make on yourself. Self-discipline is hard to achieve.

Praise for a good piece of work. No one can expect her husband to tell her how beautifully clean she keeps the house or how well she makes the beds. And other people take her housewifely arts for granted. But a business coup attracts attention.

Found

A role. At first I found it hard to believe that being a woman is some­thing in itself. I had always felt that a woman had to do something more than manage a household to prove her worth. Later, when I understood the role better, it took on unexpected glamour. Though I still wince a little at the phrase "wife and mother," I feel quite sure that these words soon will sound as satisfying to me as "actress" or "buyer" or "secretary" or "president."

New friends and a wider conversational range. It was sad to drift apart from my office colleagues, but their hours and, alas, their interests were now different from mine. So I began to make friends with people whose problems, hours, and responsibilities were the same as mine. I gratefully record that my friendship with them is even deeper than it was with busi­ness associates. Although we share the same pattern of life, we are not bound by it. As for conversation, I had been brought up on the satirical tales of the housewife who bored her husband with tiresome narratives about the grocer and the broken stove. Maybe it was true in those days. But not any more. I've had to exercise my mind to keep up with these new friends of mine. They have presented me with that handsome gift of expanded interests.

Normalcy. The psychiatrists say there is no such thing, but that's what it feels like. My relationship with my children is sounder, for instance. I have fewer illusions about them. I have found I can get bored with them. Exhausted by them. Irritated to the point of sharp words. At first I was shocked, and then I realized that when I worked and we had so little time together, we had all played our "Sunday best." The result: strained behav­ior and no real knowledge of one another. Now I'm not so interesting to them as I was. I'm not so attentive and full of fun, because I'm myself. I scold, I snap, I listen when I have time. I laugh, I praise, I read to them when I have time. In fact, I'm giving a pretty good representation of a human being, and as the children are going to spend most of their lives trying to get along with human beings, they might as well learn right now that people's behavior is variable.

The luxury of free time. This is one of the crown jewels of retirement. The morning or afternoon that occasionally stretches before me, happily blank, to be filled with a visit to a museum or a movie, a chat with a friend, an unscheduled visit to the zoo with the children; the production of the elab­orate dish I'd always meant to try, or simply doing nothing, is a great boon.

Leisure. The pleasure of dawdling over a second cup of coffee in the morning can be understood only by those who have, sometime in their lives, gulped the first cup, seized gloves and bag, and rushed out of the house to go to work.

Handwork. This may seem trivial, but making things at home is one of the pleasures the businesswoman is usually deprived of. Homemade cookies, presents, dresses, parties, and relationships can be worth their weight in gold.

Intimacy. The discovery of unusual and unexpected facets in the imag­inations of children, which rarely reveal themselves in brief, tense ses­sions, is very rewarding.

Improved Appearance. Shinier hair, nicer hands, better manicures, are the products of those chance twenty-minute free periods that turn up in the busiest days of women who don't go to business. Of course, such peri­ods crop up in an office, too; but you're not allowed to make use of them for personal. affairs.

Proof Positive. If I hadn't retired, I would have remained forever in that thicket of self-delusion called thwarted potentials. It was almost too easy. the shrug, the brave little smile, and the words "Of course, I've always wanted to write (or paint or run for Congress), but since I'm working, I never have time." And it's time that gives you proof positive of what you can and cannot do.

Relaxation. Slowly, I'm learning to forget the meaning of the word ten­sion. While I was working, I was tense from the moment I woke up in the morning until I fell into bed at night.

There is no way of measuring or comparing unrelated work. I don't know whether I work harder or less hard now. I walk farther, but there are often free periods during the day to enjoy as I like. I do a greater vari­ety of things, but at my own speed, and without the pressure common to all offices. I get sleepy instead of tired.

Sometimes I ask myself, "What would persuade me to go back?" And my answer is, "Barring big medical expenses or a real need for something for the children or my husband, nothing." And I mean it.

But I'm glad I had the experience of working. I can understand my hus­band's delight in his work, and I can still talk sympathetically with friends who work. And what else could make me so acutely conscious of every blessing and so humbly aware of the potentials of my new role?