Bonnie smith -Yackel narrates her mother, Martha Ruth Smith who was 26 years old when she had her 1st child. She had 8 children (5 daughters and 3 sons). After her marriage, she was limited to the household chores. Her mother set hen, raised chickens, fed pigs, milked cows, plant, and harvested a garden. She carried water nearly a quarter-mile from the well for the laundry. She gradually started shucking grain, feeding threshers shocking and husking corn, and also feeding corn pickers. After having 4o acre field Smith looked after mustard crops and raised a flock of baby chicks. She spaded up, planted, hoed, and harvested a half-acre garden.
When her parents had a 5th child she prepared food out of rabbits as they got a shortage of food. She to look after chicken, ducks, pheasant, and grouse. She used to make pillows out of the feathers of birds. During the hardships of her life, she had to beg for clothes from her relatives to remake them to fit her 4 daughters and a son.
Till the age of 42, she was bearing baby and looking after all the household chores. She had to look after the herd cattle. She was doing all the activities till her last child graduated from high school. She lived an active life but in the year 1969, her mother and father got an accident where she got paralyzed from the waist down. Her husband died in 1970.
After her mother's death, she talks to the Social Security Office to find out if she has acquired any social security benefits. She gets the reply Martha Smith's survivors aren't entitled to a death benefit when she dies because Security Office doesn't recognize her as working citizen of the US. According to federal law, a woman who is homemaker, who has never been a wage earner, is eligible for Social Security benefits only through the earnings of her deceased husband. Therefore, a homemaker's survivors wouldn't be eligible for the death benefit.
The government defines work as a performance through which a certain percentage of their wages to be contributed to a fund that may draw benefits from if they get unemployed and through which survivors get modest monthly benefits. For that matter, workers should have a paycheck and employers must contribute a matching amount.
Yackel makes a point on Social Security benefits that haven't been effectively functioning as it doesn't include household chores as work. She points out the case of a homemaker who has never been a wage earner, whom the federal government has failed to recognize as a worker.
She narrates the whole story and the thesis is not explicitly published. I think she does so because she wants to unfold the whole story of her mother in a narrative form. The narrative is her own experience she embeds her major statement in each and every task. She wants to present a story in a realistic way. She wants the reader to believe her mother has worked all over her life yet after her death Social Security Office can't recognize her as a wage earner. She pictures the ironic situation of women citizens in the US.
In her essay, Smith Yackel mentions little about her father. She has mentioned just in 5 places about her father. She recalls him as the one who hired others to work with him on the farm and it's like her father brought all the works for her from buying barn, cattle, and looking after children.
This essay was published in 1975 yet still today it is relevant because the Federal government still doesn't recognize homemakers as wage earners and they are still not entitled to a Social Security death benefit. The state doesn't value the housemaker's contribution.
The author is trying to make the point that one can work just as hard independently as one might in the type of career that the government recognizes as "work". She sees the lack of death benefit after her mother's death as a failure, on the government's part, to recognize how hard her mother worked throughout her life.
Her thesis is not explicitly stated because it can be inferred through the essay's structure. The author begins by recalling a phone conversation in which she attempts to obtain a death-benefit check following the death of her mother. She then goes on to recall all the different types of strenuous labor her mother performed throughout her life. The article ends with the author being told that her mother wasn't entitled to the death benefit because she "never worked". The juxtaposition of these segments alone is an adequate explanation of the author's point.
While the problem the author is describing is more common for women, a lack of social security benefits is an issue that could apply to other groups as well, such as people with disabilities or those who work non-traditional types of jobs for which they are not entitled social security benefits. The article, while it does display feminist ideals, is left more or less open to interpretation and is a story that many different types of Americans could relate to. It is difficult to argue that the author's mother was not a hard worker. Because of this, the essay could fit well into a publication with more traditional views of gender roles.
The author's father was not important to this story, which was about the contrast between the amount of work the author's mother did and how the government did not view this as "work". Her father is mentioned when necessary, and it is clear that he and the writer's mother had a loving relationship (and that her mother received benefits after his death), but expanding on his role is not relevant to the essay's thesis.
The issues discussed in the article are still relevant today. The topic of "women's work" is something that is still frequently spoken about. The topic fits well into the discussions many are having today about paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers, pay inequality, and the devaluation of work that is considered traditionally feminine.
The essay's title, "My Mother Never Worked", is an effective one. It prompts the reader to reconsider their idea of what work is by highlighting how inaccurate this statement was for this author.
The passage of time is indicated by noting the years in which significant events occurred, such as the birth of a child,, moving to a new home or plot of land, or a tragedy.
The writer includes such a massive amount of content and details to thoroughly emphasize all the labor her mother did. The list comes to feel overwhelming with its length and detail, which is appropriate for the essay's thesis: the author's mother likely spent most of her life feeling overwhelmed.
This repetition helps to emphasize how Martha Smith persevered and continued working no matter the circumstances.
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