My Mother Never Worked- Bonnie Smith-Yackel
When Bonnie
Smith-Yackel was a young homemaker in the early
1960s, she began writing, and during the following fourteen years, she
contributed essays, short tales, and book reviews to publications like Catholic
Digest, Minnesota Monthly, and Ms. This narrative essay, which was first
published in Women: A Journal of Liberation in 1975 and is based on a true
story, also makes a general statement about how society views women's labor.
Social Security is a federal insurance policy that entails employees paying
into a fund with a portion of their salaries to be eligible for
benefits should they become disabled and unable to work. The legislation still
prohibits the survivors of a homemaker who never earned a living wage from
receiving a Social Security death benefit, notwithstanding legal challenges.
Bonnie Smith-Yackel recalls the day when she called Social Security to request her mother's death benefits in her narrative essay "My Mother Never Worked." Smith-Yackel is put on hold by Social Security so that they can review their files on her mother, Martha Jerabek Smith. She thinks back on her mother's many accomplishments and the sympathy she had for her husband and kids as she waits. Smith-Yackel is informed by Social Security when they pick up the phone that she is not eligible to receive her mother's death benefits because her mother never had a wage-earning position. The irony in the title piques readers' interest in the essay's thesis and the author's perspective of the circumstance. She demonstrates, nevertheless, that her mother did work—just not in the government's eyes. When the Social Security employee stated, "Well see-your mother never worked," I was curious as to how she responded. I can see that she was unhappy and startled that the government disregarded the labor her mother did daily, even if she didn't voice her thoughts about not receiving any benefits in the wake of her mother's passing.