It’s only 8.30 in the evening, I am coming down with a cold and would love to go to bed. But I have a long night ahead of me. It is, after all, the Eve of International Women’s Day, the 100th Anniversary no less, and I am spending it as any respectable multi-tasking, over-extended, sleep-deprived woman would; exhausted. In the midst of the final details for the main event tomorrow evening, dinner for 150, I feel myself slump on the sofa, laptop in hand.
My 7 year old son comes over to give me a bed time kiss. He takes one look at me and says, “Mommy, I wish you had so much money, you didn’t ever need to work,”. Either I must really look bad or he must actually realize how lucky he is to have the tree house bunk bed his father has been busy assembling all weekend.
I tell him that he might be surprised to know that it not always for money that I work. He looks puzzled, and not wanting him to get the wrong idea that only Daddy works for money, I explain that some of the things I do are just because I think they need to be done or should exist.
He doesn’t even venture to guess what International Women’s Day is all about, so I explain that women didn’t always have the choices they do now in education, in work, in life. He perks up and tells me that just this afternoon they learned that girls used to have to stay home to help their Mommies and weren’t allowed to go to school. He goes on to explain that this was over 100 years ago, and they didn’t even have Coca Cola back then either.
I am glad to hear the equality topic is being discussed at his French primary school. It almost makes up for them calling the pick up time at end of the school day, l’heure des mamans, the hour of the Mommies.
Suzy Ogé is an American born business woman living in The Hague, The Netherlands. 