Henrietta Hay's Column

If you are a working mother in the latter part of the twentieth century and expect any encouragement or kind words from the establishment, forget it. If you are a poverty level mother, married or single, and expect any kind words from the establishment, forget it. Either way, Uncle Sam is sending you a very chilling message and either way the guilt trip continues.

If you are a mother on the bottom of the pile, unmarried, no education, no income, they say, "Get on the ladder. Get training. Get a job. Be self-supporting. Society won't support you any more."

If you are a working mother on the top of the pile, the law may say, "Get off the ladder. You are not spending enough time with your children. Stay home and raise them or we'll take them away from you."

Marcia Clark's greatest battle today is not in Judge Ito's courtroom at the O. J. Simpson trial, but in a different courtroom where she is fighting to retain custody of her two sons. Whatever she chooses to do, she is guilty. I don't know, of course, whether she is a good mother, or whether her ex-husband is a good father. That is not an issue, which in itself says something about the case. But right now she is in the most intense and difficult project of her professional life. She is working extremely long, stressful hours, but this case will be over, in my lifetime I hope, and life will return to some sort of normalcy for her. Meanwhile her husband is suing, not for temporary, but for permanent custody of their two little boys.

Ideally they would work out an arrangement wherein he takes more care of the children during the trial, and she returns to full care afterward, without going to court and trying to change the custody arrangements. But to demand that she give up the best career opportunity she will ever have or risk losing her sons is laying the kind of burden on her that no successful man would ever have to face. Guilt trip again.

On the other hand, if you are on the bottom of the pile, you're really out of luck. The current Congress, in the name of "family values" is waging war on poor mothers, married or not. They are told to go to work, get a job. In another breath they are told that daycare is bad for children. That leaves orphanages, which have been suggested. Doonesbury has Father Duke working on that problem.

Coming under fire are pregnant teenagers, "welfare queens," crack mothers. The problems are overwhelming and nobody knows the answers, but I question solving them by throwing away the children. I haven't heard of any legislation forcing the males who do the impregnating to take over the responsibility. As Katha Pollett pointed out in Nation, "it is not the mother's care that welfare replaces, but the father's cash."

We have not forgotten Jennifer Ireland. She was found "guilty of child Care" last year when she chose to get an education. She finished high school and was admitted to the University of Michigan. She arranged day care for her daughter Maranda age three, while she was attending class. When she sued the father for child support he counter-sued and the judge gave custody to him, on the grounds that Maranda would be cared for by his mother rather than "strangers" in day care. Jennifer had a choice. She could have quit high school at 16 and gone on welfare and kept her daughter.

Most of the working mothers I know fall between those extremes. They are blending the two jobs with remarkable skill. They have a measure of financial security and some flexibility in the their jobs. More fathers are sharing the parenting responsibilities. Their children are well cared for and are turning into solid citizens. But whatever the economic status the major burden is still on the mothers and the cost is great.

What is the answer? I don't know. If mom is on top of the economic heap she may lose her kids. If she is on the bottom, she may lose them. Society in the nineties is not very kind to working mothers. Whatever her economic status, the guilt trip is heavy. I think it's time to stop blaming and start solving.