Count on Mom:
Byrne, Katharine
$575 for all charitable contributions in 1991. Thus the total do- Florence couldn't remember the plot of even one show, only nations of 18 million Catholic households in 1991...
...Besides," she recalls, "he wanted to make petence and serenity...
...parents' errors, we are not heavily burdened with guilt...
...Mama tually all Protestant denominations...
...reach out into the community and estabcomplishing the `American Dream...
...She said, `My children get around under myself to interested observation and friendly encouragement...
...She will work and save money until There was a quiet dignity to six weeks pregnant, and if that wasn't she can live independently...
...I can't imagine carting a KATHARINE BYRNE troop of Brownies to a museum...
...Ernestine explains that two events combined to cure her ad- Next day, another mail delivery...
...I was left "The day I left the hospital was most have an opportunity to learn skills to enwithout a job in a recession...
...she came to Washington to attend Howard Mt...
...Then ing in the community: "Reverend Steincause a month later I found out that I was I was told about the Carrie Simon House...
...And that was followed by blatant holds...
...Carmel House because babies weren't They decided on a place for the homeUniversity...
...At shelters for mothers with less, says Mrs...
...crises, smoothing out the lives of those she loved, and all in a Ernestine claimed that at one time she may have been one half-hour with time out for commercials...
...Since mer vacation could lead in time to a substantial contribution all of them turned out to be admirable persons in spite of their toward someone else's graduate thesis...
...I'm interested in my children's Katharine Byrne is a bagger at her church's food pantry...
...have been $13.441 billion...
...It had to be a home, a comfortable jobs and going to school was not an easy was not addicted and had not been abused...
...Evangelical Natalie said she was eased into the role by the necessity of Protestants, Mormons, and Jews give substantially more to char- listening to the times-seven tables or altar-boy Latin...
...That is, until the The only option left to her, it seemed, was babies, a place where they could receive major company I was working for decid- to give up her baby for adoption...
...All this was won by the other child, the one who perlife, a glorification of wifedom and mothering...
...Dorfmann, "but not a shelwith no friends or relatives...
...of the worst offenders, until she learned, with some embarCommonweal 9 April 1993: 9 rassment, the error of her ways...
...income of $2.333 and they give 2.1 percent to charity...
...Dorfthe letter shared with me by enough, I had just received my last evic- mann," she concludes, "once again I'd like Jacqueline Dorfmann, chair tion notice....1 stayed at Mt...
...Words simply cannot express my gratitude...
...JOSEPH CLAUDE HARRIS propped against the sugar bowl...
...Clearly, a lot of the Catholic church's financial prob- tails...
...haven for young, unwed mothers with their task, but I managed...
...Had Catholics only contributed at Not one of us could even make authentic Swedish meatballs...
...They gave 1.8 percent of household income to char- was doing was valuable-handing down sensible judgments, ity...
...OF SEVERAL MINDS Abigail McCarthy I started feeling hopeful again...
...The average gift to charity for all religions is 1.9 percent she played grew, however, as children increased in numbers of household income...
...less unwed mothers and their children Because Mt...
...Perhaps we didn't have enough "own-life" to occupy our minds...
...The series told stories about a first-gen- the football team and needed time to develop his lungs and leg eration Swedish family: Mama, her husband, and their three muscles...
...Still...
...Actually, Florence Catholic giving at 1.4 percent of income is lower than vir- told us, "I wanted to be Mama-at least some of the time...
...My whole painful...
...off her feet...
...All of of the study are available from Joseph Claude Harris, 2610 38th us were superannuated English majors...
...Working two babies she was turned away because she ter...
...a reader, a newspaper editor who was a woman...
...I was seventeen and alone here allowed there...
...The part ity...
...Copies What peculiar impulse misguided us in those years...
...Had Catholics matched that rate, their total contribution would wiping the flour off her hands on her apron...
...Mama was the star of the show: wise, loving, gener- a box of chocolate chip cookies but five hundred words about ous, and patient...
...Were Catholics to become simply average givers, Catho- ghost writing...
...tablish Carrie Simon House in response "A few years ago," McIntosh writes, "I "Being in the streets all day and being to a challenge posed by their rabbi, Joseph was sent here to the States from Jamaica pregnant are some of the days I'd like to Weinberg: "What action can we take to in the hopes of going to school and ac- forget...
...The world felt as if it was caving in on me...
...Presbyterians ing children with their homework, and becoming perhaps too make somewhat more money than Catholics, with an average deeply involved...
...Persephone's mother?' Or, `What was the name of Orwell's Her words gave Ernestine pause...
...As time went on," she said, "a couple of my older chillems would be solved if Catholics were only a little more or- dren would leave me assignments, written on file cards and dinary...
...The day that I was interviewed and acGIMME SHELTER cepted at Carrie Simon House was one of A HOUSE CAN BE A HOME the happiest days of my life...
...Now and then," she tells us, "I would manage to pub- a trip to East Coast historical shrines, all expenses paid, plus a lish a modest thing of my own, often a sharp piece with a Rose Garden photo opportunity with the president of the United let-me-out-of-here theme, but sometimes a pious defense of my States...
...Mrs...
...Often boy and ultimately a successful broker, he hated those weekly she watched it with her children, marveling at Mama's com- theme assignments...
...I remember "And from that day," Ernestine concluded, "I have confined the letter pretty well...
...bruch from Luther Place, Jubilee's Bob 10: 9 April 1993 Commonweal...
...Carmel House is a night My baby thanks you, too...
...The episodes were the stuff of everyday liv- Salinger's Frannie or Voltaire's Candide or the fate of the ing in times gone by, Mama's wisdom triumphing over domestic Hindenburg...
...This article is their good will-and even book titles and page references I might based on a Lilly funded study "Estimate of Catholic Contribu- find useful...
...It brought good news about diction...
...Now settled, McIntosh is working on her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing...
...By next Monday...
...We had never learned to make angelfood cake or currant jelly, or even to take up hems...
...tions to the Sunday Offertory Collection during 1991...
...Lutherans are about as fis- never worried about 'self-realization.' She was content in her cally blessed as Catholics with an average household income love for Papa and the children and she was sure that what she of $40,502...
...Oh, sometimes there were a Joseph Claude Harris is director of marketing for the Renton few pages of desperate scrawled notes they had taken-to show Coil Spring Company in Renton, Washington...
...I gave my child over to the pre- able them to achieve independence...
...Big sister could send him something he needed: not children...
...The letter was from shelter, during the days McIntosh had to The members of the Washington Sharon McIntosh, one of the young women find places where she could stay and get Hebrew Congregation were moved to eswho has found a home there...
...here in Washington...
...Although he was a bright lem on a television show called "I Remember Mama...
...Then, suddenly, we were knee-deep in daily THE JOYS OF HOMEWORK demands of another order...
...Happily, this entry received an honorable menshe's not going to get me to reread The Great Gatsby or tell tion...
...what I know about the Harlem Renaissance (which isn't much, "There were literally thousands of essayists in the contest, from by the way...
...at this time two of her children were entering a national essay A child may call me from college or send a fax to my place of contest of patriotic significance...
...Carmel House to thank you for giving me the break I so of the board of Carrie Simon [a night shelter for women] for seven badly needed to get my life back on track...
...Confined to quarters by the times we lived in and the prevailing mores, we could sit at kitchen tables between meals Leisurely lunches are a source of pleasure to old and loads of laundry helping the children...
...Thus the total do- Florence couldn't remember the plot of even one show, only nations of 18 million Catholic households in 1991 amounted "the comfort of Mama's answers and her solutions to whatevto $10.461 billion or 1.4 percent of household income...
...er problems the script created that week...
...We were all proud and happy," Ernestine admitted...
...I went and got my baby back...
...Well, one of versely insisted on personally writing, rewriting, typing, and these self-congratulatory essays brought a cold response from mailing the entry that was awarded first prize...
...hand was forever incomplete, we may have liked the idea of Many of our stories involve rueful admissions, as finishing and handing in and getting a good grade for a job well we acknowledge mistakes made in the years be- done...
...But not for long, because first wife?' But I don't respond to anything more demanding...
...some had stayed with Avenue S.W., Seattle, WA, 98126 ($12.50 prepaid, 106 pp...
...lic donations to religious charities would climb by $2.333 Elsie made much the same confession, but added some debillion...
...It started out," she recalls, "with looking over their stakes...
...Catholics are dead last in the giving sweep- and needs...
...writing assignments and making suggestions...
...COUNT ON MOM we had to do what we knew something about, and that led down BUT DO IT YOURSELF a slippery path to years of vicarious successes and dishonorable achievement...
...all over the country...
...it long enough to get hooked on the smell of dust and old bindings in the stacks...
...constructive guidance, where "they would ed to relocate to another state...
...That led to what Catholic giving is .5 percent below the average for all house- was politely called revising...
...Now," she says, "I am pleased progress and I'm glad that they seem to do their homework, if a grandchild calls long distance and asks, `Who was but they have their assignments and I have mine...
...their own power, on foot or by bus...
...No words can express congregation consulted with others workEverything started going downhill be- the hurt from the pain that I felt...
...House, a shelter for home- months, but that seemed like an eternity...
...Thus what began with a paragraph about somebody's sumfore our children grew up to be our friends...
...I stayed with a friend for a week until my interview...
...We would have said, if you asked us, that we just wanted to be useful...
...the rate of Lutherans, Catholic donations to religious charities And so the talk moved on to another form of mothering: helpwould have realized an additional $1.877 billion...
...Because the work at friends who share a common fund of memories...
...After When it was time for McIntosh to have lish something-something tangible to graduation from high school in New York, her baby she knew she could not return to benefit the needy, the homeless, the poor...
...She was at hand with encourbusiness from hers-the restaurant where she ekes out a poor agement, advice, and the ultimate offer it was hard for one of student's living by making sandwiches between classes-but them to refuse...
...adoptive parents...
...Writing English papers for a brother away at college was the The discussion began with Florence, who blamed her prob- earliest evidence of Laura's bad habit...
Vol. 120 • April 1993 • No. 7
