PHOTO PROMPT © Valerie J. Barrett
FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS
The more household chores I take on because of the wife’s medical situation, the more I am impressed and amazed at my dear, departed Mother.
Toilets won’t clean themselves. Unattended laundry will not voluntarily enter a washer. My mother ran a house without modern conveniences. Laundry water boiled in a big copper tub on a wood stove. The washing-machine had to be rolled out from a corner. A rinse tub filled with a pail.
Growing up, I thought I ‘did my share’ around the house. I now know that she let me off easy. A woman’s work is never done.
***
Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.
Archon's Den 
But that’s not fiction!
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Sadly, it’s not! If I made it about your mother, would it be fiction then?? 😳
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I can’t help but think there’s some non-fiction here.
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I think the only fiction, was the part about me ‘doing my share’ as I grew up. My Mother was one rawhide-tough, Scottish, pioneer woman. In later life, I am embarrassed that I didn’t see and do more than I did. I am honored that she let me have all the freedom she did, and didn’t demand more. 😛
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Clear to see she was an amazing Mom.
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Yes she was! I hear what other people’s parents were like, and realize just how fortunate I was. 😀
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Amen to that.
My mother grew up in a cold water tenement in NYC. Fill the pots, heat your water, fill the tub, empty the tub. No wonder they only bathed now and then.
The husband’s mother had 9 kids and one ancient wringer washer.
I think I would have slit my wrists after 2 loads.
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Sounds like we both had tough, hard-working ancestors. I was 12 before we installed a water heater. 😀
Your comment holds a technology-language shift. Millennials sometimes write about putting something/someone through the ‘ringer.’ 🙄
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And we have a wooden ringer washer in our barn!
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Ahhh, so true!
~Donna
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Technology has helped, but being a mother is still a 24/7/365 job. 😯
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Excellent take, Archon. Most of my flash fiction ain’t fiction at all 😉
It gives me hope that one day my boys will see what they had…
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It’s nice to be a legend in your own time, but, take it when you can get it. 🙂
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Ain’t it, though?
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Hard lesson to learn. I don’t know yours wife’s condition. I do hope for your sake that she gets better.
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Thanx for the visit and the good wishes, but she will only get worse. Some of it is age-related. She just turned 70. I approach 75. She has OCD, ADHD, insecure narcissism, clinical depression, sleep apnea, fibromyalgia, arthritis and type 2 diabetes. What problems the illnesses don’t cause, the side effects from the medications do. 😯
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Truly sorry.
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A good story based on real life, Archon. Well written. I’m sorry to hear your wife has health problems. —- Suzanne
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Thank you, Suzanne. I still have enough time to maintain my blogging. 🙂
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Kudos to you! Not all husbands see or value the work that is done by their mothers and/or wives. I’m the one who had medical issues, and my dear husband does all he can to relieve me of work that demands I bend, lift, use the stairs, etc. He gets it, too 🙂
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You said it right. A lot of work needs to be done to keep the house in order, to feed, clean and look after all the kids and men of the house.
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