I Was the Child of a Working Mother

Published April 12, 1985. I recently received an invitation to speak to a group. The date and time were open, but it was the topic they wanted that concerned me. They wanted me to speak on “The Negative Influence of Working Mothers on Children.”

I could go give the speech. There are some things I could say. But this particular topic struck me a little close to home. You see, I was the child of a working mother.

I grew up in Centerfield, Utah, which is a suburb of Gunnison. At the time there were 602 people in the community, and on occasion we traveled into Gunnison, population then 2,000. In that small rural community everyone worked. Fathers, mothers, and children worked mostly on farms and ran dairies. Everyone assisted in providing for daily needs and wants. Family members all worked where and when it was necessary, side by side.

Our family was a little different.  My father Alvin ran a combined gas station and grocery store. (He now claims he was 20 years ahead of the 7-11 stores.) My mother Ruth worked also. Not in our store, but in the classroom. She was a school teacher at the Centerfield Elementary School a half block away. Ruth Barlow was an excellent teacher.

Much of the time I didn’t know my mother was gone . . . working. Grandpa and Grandma Barlow lived next door, and I spent a lot of time there. Aunt Erma lived across the street with her family where I loved to play. And Dad’s grocery store and gas station was also just across the street. Come to think of it, I spent a great deal of time with my uncle Lloyd Scow who worked in my father’s store for many years. Much of what I learned about life, real life, I learned from my Uncle Lloyd.

Each day, Mom left home at 8:15 a. m., walked the half-block to the school, taught, and returned home at 4:30 p.m. Even though she quit work for two or three years after each child was born, she still worried. She often wondered, as others raised the question, what impact her particular type of work would have on her children. But she continued to work all during our growing-up years, somewhat out of necessity, but mostly for the love of teaching little children.

The day I received notice that I would obtain my Ph.D. from Florida State University, I phoned and told mother. Still, she worried. She wondered if I would really make it in life, because she had devoted 30-plus years to teaching kindergarten.

Mother died in December 1976. At the viewing we three children, Jane, Karen and I, and our father, met people who came to offer their condolences. And as the evening progressed, person after person came up, most of them in their late 30s or early 40s and said simply, “Ruth (or Mrs. Barlow) was my kindergarten teacher, and she was one of the best.”

Before the night was over, we began to reminisce about Mom’s teaching career. She taught at Centerfield Elementary School and Gunnison Elementary School most of her teaching career. Later, when she and Dad moved to Hunter, mother taught kindergarten at Taylorsville and Carl Sandburg Elementary Schools in the Granite School District.

While she was rearing her three children, she also taught more than 2,000 other little boys and girls in kindergarten. We did not comprehend, until mother passed away, what a tremendous influence she had on so many other children. And we were both pleased and proud of her accomplishments.

Perhaps all the data is still not in on whether Jane, Karen and I will turn out to be normal because our mother worked. And if I know mother, she is still worrying about whether her working hurt her children. Enough people reminded her about it while she was living.

I could accept the invitation and go and give the speech. But I don’t think I will. I have a difficult time convincing myself that either my mother, her 30 years of teaching school, or her children turned out to be all that bad.