Although his wife cannot ply her profession in the Netherlands, Eric Asp argues that her daily workload qualifies her as a ’working mum’, a terminology which, anyhow, Asp considers to be essentially oxymoronic.

"So are you a working mom?" the dental hygienist asks Marci, innocently, simply seeking to determine how to best advise a schedule for helping our kids brush their teeth better.

I can’t say exactly how my wife would feel about such a question, herself, but I cringe at the question on her behalf. In such a social situation, it’s hard to go into an explanation about the intricacies of the Dutch government’s view of our family -- granting work permits and residence permits which do not allow Marci to ply her profession as a physical therapist. It’s hard to discuss our family’s philosophy behind raising children -- which places a high value on the active presence and involvement of parents, so far as it is possible -- without sounding moralistic and defensive. But it’s also a moral dilemma to answer the question with the simplest and most direct provision of the information that the questioner is seeking: which would be, No (i.e. "I do not work for a company which pays me a monthly salary").

I guess the phrase "working mom" is essentially oxymoronic. Is there anything other than a working mom?

True, my wife does not log her hours on a time card. She doesn’t have set hours, outside of the children’s school schedules and such. And she doesn’t receive a regular paycheck, directly compensating her for her labour and toil. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t say that she isn’t a "working mom." In fact, I’d say just the opposite. She works her butt off.

It should be obvious, from the fact that she’s sitting in a dentist’s chair, having her mouth cleaned and examined and conversing with the dental hygienist -- while simultaneously holding a six-month-old baby on her lap (who was supposed to be napping in his infant carrier), and glancing out of the corner of her eye from time to time to check on her three-year-old daughter colouring on the floor in the corner of the dentist’s office! She has to balance dutiful dental care, with a squawking squirming baby on her lap, and a little girl prancing like a pony around the office. And though it nearly drives her crazy, she does it all with skill. Yes, yes, she is a working mom.

Believe it or not, the dentist’s office craziness is actually the third or fourth such chaotic conundrum of the day.

After getting up early to feed the baby, she hurried to prepare herself and leave the house by 7:45 am, so she could ride her bicycle to the grocery store and be there by 8:00. She rode to the "big" supermarket, even though she had to pass three other grocery stores on the way there, thinking that it would ultimately be quicker and easier to gain the advantage of "one-stop shopping."

However, when it turned out that the big supermarket hadn’t yet stocked its produce for the week, she ended up having to do just a portion of her shopping there and then stop at the smaller neighbourhood grocery store on the way home after all! And, oh yeah -- she had to do all of this in the rain. On her bicycle. Carrying the groceries home in her bicycle’s saddlebags.

Once the groceries were put away in the cupboards and refrigerator of her miniscule urban kitchen, she threw in another load of laundry (it’s astonishing how much dirty laundry a family of five can produce), and then finished the gruelling preparations necessary to take our three children for a trip to the dentist’s office.

Negotiating outfits with our three-year-old girl, coaching our six-year-old boy to think positive thoughts about the dentist’s office (and not spook his younger sister), bundling up our baby boy and trying to engage him enough to hold off his nap-time until the trip to the dentist’s (figuring that it would be best to overlap nap time and dentist’s office time as much as possible). Then, loading everyone into the family bakfiets (the mini-van of bicycles), she had to pedal hard, for perhaps 5 or 6 kilometres (about a half-hour’s worth of bicycling), in hard-gusting winds of perhaps 30 or 40 kilometres per hour. Wind and rain. And three kids in a bakfiets.

Of course, the dentist was already behind schedule, giving the baby just enough time to awake from his nap -- just about the time that everyone was being called back into the room. And then, as already painfully explained, the adventures of the dentist’s office proceeded from there. And all of this happened before 10:30 on Monday morning.

Yes, indeed, my wife is a working mom. She may not get the luxury of being able to tell her dental hygienist so. But she is. And I think she’s doing a wonderful job.

17 March 2008

Eric Asp is an American videographer/writer/pastor living in Amsterdam, together with his wife and three children. His casual and critical observations on life, love, and faith can be found on-line at www.ericasp.com.

[Copyright Eric Asp 2008]