“My Mother Never Worked” by Bonnie Smith-Yackel / BA/BASW/ BBS Note.

 

        

“My Mother Never Worked” by Bonnie Smith-Yackel 

This narrative essay begins with a phone call. A phone calls many people make after the death of family members-the call to social security. As Bonnie goes on hold, she thinks about her mother’s life starting from the time she graduated high school to the time she worked even in her old age.

Bonnie Smith-Yackel recollects the time when she called Social Security to claim her mother’s death benefits. Social Security places Smith-Yackel on hold so they can check their records on her mother, Martha Jerabek Smith. While waiting, she remembers the many things her mother did, and the compassion her mother felt towards her husband and children. When Social Security returns to the phone, they tell Smith-Yackel that she could not receive her mother’s death benefits because her mother never had a wage-earning job.

A tremendous amount of irony is used in this essay. The title, in itself, is full of irony; it makes readers curious about the essay’s point and how the author feels about the situation. Smith-Yackel uses the essay to convey her opinion of work. Her thesis is not directly stated; however, she uses detail upon detail to prove her mother did work, just not in the eyes of the government. Although her mother never was employed at a public or private business, she worked at home relentlessly. During the day, she worked on the farm, cooked for her family, and cleaned the house; at night, she sewed rugs and clothes for her children. Martha Smith continued to sew and plant a garden in her old age as well as when her children were grown and on their own. The passing of time was revealed in the years Smith-Yackel’s siblings were born. They were also revealed in the passing of seasons for farming.

I think this essay was very unique; she uses irony repeatedly in her essay. It keeps you interested throughout the essay and even after I finished. I wondered what her response was to the person at the Social Security Office after they said, “Well you see-your mother never worked.”  Even though she didn’t express her feelings about not getting any benefits from her mother’s death, I can tell that she was upset and shocked that the government overlooked the work her mother did daily. Smith-Yackel uses the telephone conversation as a frame for the essay, which is very interesting. It makes the story a little more realistic and it closes the essay nicely.

Jobs

At daytime, her mother tended to the farm, cleaned the house, coined for the family and ended to the cleaning of the house. She got into sewing rugs and mending clothes for her children. It was clear that Martha Smith had sawn and planted in the garden even in her old age. Time passed as explained in the years that saw Smith-Yackle become a parent and the passing of each harvest season.

The essay employs irony a lot of time as it serves to keep the reader interested without pausing although the piece. It was not clear what she replied to the person on the other end of the phone, who told her, well you see your mother never worked. It was clear that he did not give out any feeling from not getting any benefits. She, however, got shocked and upset in some way from the response claiming that the government never saw her mother’s efforts. Smith-Yackle relies on the telephone conversation in framing the essay and makes it for a good ending.

Response

Much to everyone beliefs, a mother is a role that cannot easily be taught or instilled. Mother Hood is perhaps one of the hardest jobs in the world. Despite it being this difficult, it happens to be the only job that is mostly ignored by people globally. It is hard to read the essay and fail to agree to share the sentiment that the author had as he remembered his mother life. It is hard to understand this paper without involving the emotions. The feelings that a reader gets are part of the author’s intention as each person has had a mother or has known a little that goes with being a responsible mother. Al the hours, put into in raising children, the sacrifice that often lures many out of their employment as mothering often is a full-time job.

The children are not aware of what went into raising them and at the time , the author made sure that as readers we get to pause and look into our mother and look into what they do or did or the recognition that they received. Truth is just like Smith, the feeling is mutual I believed that we cannot repay them for what they did not us as children, to top it off in their old age, the government fails to recognize their effort; it not saving or getting the benefit for their old age, maybe for raising better, respectable taxpaying citizens. The latter is perhaps the most important of all   roles that the government can see them making. Taking a look at all the work that Bonnie Smith’s mother did, it was obvious what the government wanted from each citizen and in this case, their records were not present of her work that had any tax deduction or receipt.

The irony in the book

The irony is that perhaps one of the cruelest acts of nature is that even in death; the government would instead take note of those who work government-related jobs as opposed to those whose years have been used up by the house, farm and family chores. Perhaps one of the critical parts of the story is that the child has stayed all this time without looking at what their mother had sacrificed or the amount of job she had to endure in what they saw as a happy life. She made sure that no one went to school hungry, dirty or torn and throughout their years growing up, Bonnie had not once taken a keen interest in this list that their mother often called work. It is impossible to compensate someone for all these duties in that long time; this had to be the saddest or lowest he had ever felt. It was a pity that it had taken him this long to appreciate his mother, lucky for him it was not late as she was still there to be recognized.

 Conclusion

The book is an emotional filed and driven plot that is well structured well within the call from the social security offices. An actual reader would get amid feeling, and most of the reaction would come to the author’s intended plot where the reader is required to explore the duty that their mother did for them in contrast to the response; this response can be different where many would feel agitated to be vulgar in their response. Other would plan to march to the department s offices to specifically look for the person at the end of the call to personally hear him or her say how their mother had not worked.

The bottom line is that the book is both entertaining and can be perceived differently by different reader depending on their relationship with their parent, some who have never seen the care of a mother would find it as dull as a surfboard whereas other would feel pushed to the limits. All in all, it is an exciting reader cleaning in defining the barrier and awakening hidden since. Other get the urge to appreciate their parent for all that they did and sacrificed for them. ‘Mother never worked,’ is intended for a mature audience for those who have an understanding of sacrifice and long-time commitment such as raising children

 

Note by: Keshab Bdr. Pun & Surya Sharma