A Daughter at Work '50s Style

The Boston Herald 

It would be the height of political incorrectness to denigrate in any way the 'Take Our Daughters to Work' effort. What, after all, is not to like about the idea? Grab a young girl and if you teach, take her into the classroom, if you litigate, take her into the courtroom, if you work anywhere, take a young girl along.

'If all you're told to be is a good girl, how do you grow up to be a great woman,' is the promo for the day and it's a catchy one. Photos of successful women as children - author and activist, Gloria Steinem; actress, Marlo Thomas; opera star, Jessye Norman - are meant to inspire girls to be all that they can be. My mother used to take me to work with her long before it was trendy, not to inspire some hidden desire in me, but out of sheer necessity. She worked full time and didn't want to leave me at home, alone. The summer I was 14, except for a few weeks blissfully spent with a friend's family at Brant Rock, I was my mother's reluctant appendage.

I begged her not to drag me to work. I begged her to let me stay home and sleep late and hang around with my friends and read the books with the torn-off covers my grandmother always forgot to take home. I wanted to ride my bike to Fisherman's Beach and the Dairy Queen like everyone else. I wanted to do whatever I pleased.

But some bell must have gone off in my mother's head the summer I was 14. She wasn't thinking of molding me into a great woman, I know this for sure. She was thinking of keeping me out of trouble.

'I want to be able to keep my eye on you,' she said. And so every day while everyone else slept, I worked. I moaned about having to wake up early and dress up and give up lazy summer days. 'I don't want to do this. I'm too young to work,' I complained.

The word 'work' exaggerated what I actually did. Mostly I hung around the Primrose Shop in Quincy Center, unpacking boxes, straightening out drawers, praying people wouldn't come in because when they did, when the little bell over the door jingled, my mother would call on me to locate some oversized bra or girdle for a customer. My mother managed an underwear shop, of all things, and she forced me to work with her there.

A shoe shop I could have endured. A Fanny Farmer I would have loved. But there I was peddling unmentionables. They hung in the window of a store my friends regularly walked by. Sometimes I was in the window, too, fiddling with a bra, struggling to stuff a mannequin into a long-lined, tummy control panty girdle. It was the summer of my unending embarrassment.

There was a silver lining, however. He was more gold than silver, the most handsome human being ever made a blond boy who handed out pamphlets in front of a store just a few doors away. He was a Mormon, from Utah on mission duty for two years. I had a major crush on him. He was 19, and a man. I was 14 and just a girl. But I had a mission of my own. I was determined to get him to notice me.

I think I actually wanted him to marry me but after a few weeks I settled for notice. Such were my lofty ambitions. My mother's taking me to work didn't inspire in me a desire to achieve business success. I didn't want to manage an underwear store. I didn't want to schlep off to work every day. I wanted to run away with what's-his-name.

I learned a lot about Mormans because of him. I read the Morman Bible, which he gave me, and memorized a map of Utah, which he gave me, too, and read a biography of Brigham Young from the library. I remember I even slept on hair rollers because of him. It seems impossible that now I can't even remember his name.

Rosemary, who was privy to all my obsessions, doesn't recall it either. 'The only thing I remember is the day a lady who wore at least a size 40 DD insisted she wore a 34 C and made you help her into it.’

'Last year, over a million girls went to work with aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, grandparents and friends.' One day is ideal. I could have stood this - even in an underwear shop. But a whole summer?

I know it's impolitic to admit this, but only what's-his-name made it bearable.