Blog Post 3

The biggest similarity in the two stories, in my opinion, is two mothers are all working for their children without letting them know the truth. The most significant connection of two stories would be the miscommunication, misunderstanding, and the big generation gap between mother and child. "New York Day Women" is another story about the relationship between mother and daughter. From the title of two stories we can easily tell that two mothers in the stories have totally different works, one works at night, on works in the morning. But, they are all working for one purpose, their children perhaps. They are both trying their best to offer the children a better life. In the US, the women can work as a baby-sister like Suzette's mother, this job doesn't require any degrees or certificate from universities or any other requirement like when you are applying to a high-level job. Plus, this job does not require people need to speak a certain language. Also, it is a really stable job and has a stable, reasonable amount of salary. However, in Haiti, women either have to do jobs that are really hard and heavy, like what men usually do, or they just have no income which is totally not working for the mother in the story "Night Women." Plus, these jobs in Haiti are low-paid jobs, which would not be able to afford the mother and the son. So, the mother decides to work as a Night Women, even though she is ashamed of this job, this job gives her a stable and much higher salary than those job in the factory. Both of the mothers did the job that they think their children will be ashamed of. So, they did not tell their kids. In the "Night Women," the boy was too young to know about all those stuff, so in the book, the author did not mention what happened after the son grows up and knows about his mother's job. But, normally people will think, he will be ashamed of his mother and blamed on her of the choice of jobs. Here is where the misunderstanding and generation gap appears. In the story "New York Day Women," the mother did not tell the daughter about her job for 26 years, and it is found out by the daughter herself by accident. In my opinion, if the daughter did not see the mother on the street of Manhattan, the mother will keep the job as a secret for another long time, maybe until she retires. For the 26 years, the daughter has lived, she has been misunderstanding her mother for the whole time, she thinks her mother just sit at home and watch TV for the whole day, and then ask she to give the seat to her on the subway. For all the voices in the book from the mother's voice from the past, it actually has the couple foreshadowing of that mother has been working as a nanny for a long time, long enough to have enough money to afford her finish college and get a not-bad job. 

About gender roles, I am not sure, But I will throw an answer out here. Both of the stories said that both of the mothers are ashamed of their jobs, so they keep them as a secret. In my opinion, it shows that no matter what kind of job you are working as, no matter "Night Women" or "Day Women," as long as you have a job that is without any requirements, you will be considered to be ashamed of your job in your minds. Also, another thought about gender roles, in the US, women can have a stable and normal job, but in Haiti, women can not, they either choose to be poor or choose to have a job that they are ashamed of.