Domestic chores and never-fail pastry

Betty, my late mother, was a full-time homemaker. Her primary task was to mind her two boisterous offspring. Anyone who knew my ambitious father, John, understood the necessity of that decision.

“If I didn’t stay home, who knows what would have become of you two kids,” Mum said. It’s true. She raised us single-handedly.

Elizabeth Alberta Brough was born in Winnipeg on April 8, 1935 — on her mother Elizabeth’s 20th birthday. It was the height of the Great Depression. During the 1950 flood, the Brough family was displaced from their Norwood home.

While other women in Betty’s generation took up the feminist cause, she happily played a supporting role in the background. Betty didn’t attend protest rallies or defend the clinic like her outspoken daughter. Instead, she washed laundry, made homemade soup and transcribed Rusty Staub of the Expos for my father’s first book.

To my discredit, I devalued her housewife role. These days, Mum would be condescendingly dubbed a “Trad Wife.” She graciously endured the disdain and judgment of younger, hipper women like me. It didn’t matter what we thought. Mum knew her intrinsic value. And she never wavered from her task as mother.

“My happiest times were spent at home when you kids were little,” she would tell me, a dish towel slung over one shoulder as she stirred a freshly made five-bean soup with a wooden soup spoon.

“If you’re not busy, my girl, could you unload the dishwasher?”

I hated that Harvest Gold portable dishwasher. Tim, my younger brother, was typically still at hockey practice. He never had to unload it. Dad was downstairs pounding out a column and a game story.

“Why me?” I’d whine.

“Why not you? It’s important to contribute and earn your keep. You’ll thank me one day.”

Now I refuse all offers of a modern dishwasher and do dishes by hand while I listen to music producer Rick Rubin wax on about creativity on Audible. In her prime, Mum preferred the manic tones of CJOB’s Peter Warren.

Mum listened to local radio in her kitchen, which made her feel connected to the news of the day. As the doting wife of a busy journalist, it was a job requirement.

Mum read every daily newspaper in whatever city we resided and she subscribed to Reader’s Digest, Sports Illustrated, Maclean’s, Canadian Living and Chatelaine.

Whenever I challenged the traditional Robertson family hierarchy, dad, much to his credit, had the same pat reply: “Listen to your mother.”

It never varied. Whether I was demanding release from chores, an extended curfew or some other privilege I hadn’t earned, dad still backed Mum.

Tim, who was temperamentally better-adjusted, thanks to hours and hours of hockey practice, always obeyed Betty. Without fail. This earned him the upbeat nickname, “Sunshine.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are, my girl. Other kids have to fend for themselves after school. At lunch hour, you arrive home to hot tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.”

In 1990, when John and Betty retired to Winnipeg Beach, Mum inscribed her mother’s “Never Fail Pastry” recipe into my Sunset International Vegetarian Cook Book. Her trademark cursive handwriting and “Love Mum” sign off still brings me to tears all these years later.

Mum was soft-spoken and shy. She didn’t like to be “demonstrative,” as she called it. She did little things, every day, with great love and no credit. As job descriptions go, Mother isn’t a highly valued opportunity. It’s ceaseless, unpaid and mostly thankless.

Yet Mum far preferred mothering to her work as a legal secretary. Dad was the breadwinner and she was the chatelaine. Their roles never wavered. Except when dad retired and assumed my job in the dish pit.

In his prime, John didn’t even know where the coffee cups were kept. His retired domestic role proved that even the most patriarchal male can adapt.

Now I find myself defending my kitchen like it’s my personal territory. My spouse, Grant, loves to cook and put the clean dishes away. Grant logged lots of kitchen time with his Prairie mother, Irene.

“I’ve always enjoyed the company of women,” Grant says with a knowing wink.

When we visited, Mum marvelled at Grant’s domesticity and how well we worked as a team. “You don’t know how lucky you have it.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, Mum. Grant does laundry, too!”

“He does if he wants cleans clothes,” Mum jabbed back.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mum. I miss you every day.

Patricia Dawn Robertson’s new book, Media Brat: a Gen-X memoir, can be purchased at MeatDrawBooks.com