A Working Woman’s Shame
Here’s how a woman is betrayed and betrays in the working world. It took a painful lesson to do the right thing.
Act I: Stripes
There was, of course, the babysitting. That was back in the day when desperate for their night of escape from their domestic daily grind, moms would toss their newborn to you, a kid yourself at nine years old, with barely a minute of instruction about bottles or bedtime before they shut the front door. Babysitting aside, I’ve been working since I was 12 because I was so anxious to get to work. Why I’m not sure. I was the youngest in my family and just a girl. I wanted to prove my worth and earn my keep.
My parents wouldn’t let my sister and I deliver the morning papers like my brother got to do. They were worried about two young girls out alone at dawn. I looked elsewhere. Since I was an aspiring nun, I wanted to get my first God job as an altar boy. Despite the fact that St. John’s Church couldn’t find a boy to do the job, Father O’Flanagan wouldn’t hear of allowing a girl upon the altar. I turned my sights on medical work. If not a nun, in response to the irritating grown-up question, “What do you want to be?” I told them I wanted to be a nurse, which was a lie. I made the mistake at seven of telling my beloved second-grade teacher I wanted…
