Call Me Mother!
by Margaret Whiting
Radio Television Mirror, July 1951

Most women expect at some time in their lives to become mothers. Most people expect most women to do so. News of approaching motherhood is usually greeted with delighted cries of "Darling, how perfectly wonderful," or "I'm so happy for you," or "Gee, that's really great." I know, because I've said the very same things myself countless times to others. But what happens when I have a little announcement of my own to make? People look at me in disbelief and gasp, "Oh, no! Not you!" It's disconcerting to say the least, but then all those people couldn't possibly know that the Maggie Whiting who was telling them this news was not the same girl they had known in the carefree days of old. Not so very long ago I was strictly the career girl. I loved to stay up late, go to nightclubs, parties, see every show in town. Sometimes on an hour's notice I'd throw some clothes in a suitcase and hop a plane to some distant city just to visit with an old friend or member of the family whom I'd hadn't seen for a while. I remember the time my sister Barbara called me from New York. She didn't want anything special. She said she just got lonesome for me and wanted to hear my voice. Without the slightest hesitation I said, "Honey, just start heating up the coffee. I'll be on your doorstep by noon tomorrow."

And off I went. Something like that was always happening. To me home meant my address and telephone number.

But that was before I married Lou Bush.

Lou is the kind of man every girl's mother dreams of as a son-in-law. The idea of a family and home is terribly important to him. In fact you might say he's a mite old-fashioned about the whole thing. I guess that's why I fell in love with him.

Maybe that sounds paradoxical, since I had always considered myself a modern independent woman, but the way I figure it, until I met Lou I just wasn't grown up enough to know what I really wanted.

So here I am, Mrs. Lou Bush. And now, the mother of a most wonderful blue-eyed baby daughter named Deborah Louise--Debbie for short--and I love it! In fact I'm so sold on being a mother that I go around insisting that all our friends must start right in having babies.

Lou says I sound as if motherhood were an idea I invented myself. And sometimes I almost feel as if I did. I guess most new mothers feel this way, and I'll probably simmer down after a while.

Naturally people ask me whether or not I expect children to interfere with my career. My answer is "Not at all." As far as I am concerned, Debbie hasn't interfered one whit. She has enriched it.

For one thing, I feel better physically than I ever have. My figure is trimmer than it's ever been, and Lou says it's made me absolutely glowy all over. People I haven't seen for a long time remark about how healthy, happy and relaxed I look.

It's true. The changes are visible in my personality as well. I seem to be more interested in people and more at ease with them.

I remember something a business acquaintance said to me just a few weeks ago. He had come to the house to discuss a television idea. Instead of our usual small talk about show business, for almost an hour my visitor sat there with me, discussing the various problems and delights of parenthood, and I found myself terribly interested in the stories he told about his kids, and I found myself becoming aware of him as a real person and not just a vague personality who represented another side of show business.

"You know," he said to me finally, and there was new respect in his voice, "this is the first time I've noticed what an attractive woman you are. Attractive as a woman that is. Not as a singer. That you've always been. But that on-stage personality of yours, vital as it is, can't hold a candle to the charm you have when you relax and let the woman in your take over."

When he left, I put Debbie back in her crib and thought about what my visitor had said. And about all the things that had happened to me in the past year...

First there was Lou. An old friendship ripening into love. The beginning was all very casual. I enjoyed my dates with him tremendously, but I was still "Fiddlefoot Maggie," as my mother used to call me. "She travels fastest who travels alone," I reminded myself firmly when I caught myself thinking of Lou.

I began to have more and more dates with Lou, and in a short time the courtship assumed full regalia. Roses, slim volumes of poetry, and huge boxes of chocolates. he even composed a song for me. He writes wonderful songs, when he isn't busy at Capitol Records.

I was clinging weakly to the last outpost of The Independent Woman when he asked me to marry him. I said "Yes," just like that. We got married a few days later.

When we discovered that Debbie was on the way, Lou was of course delighted, and so was I--despite moments of anxiety as to whether or not the baby would arrive without complications.

I needn't have worried. Everything went off like clockwork. Debbie arrived without a hitch. All nine pounds of her.

By the time I could leave the hospital there was another addition to our household, Mary Turner, an extremely competent young nurse who fitted herself into our lives with quiet ease. She's not only excellent with Debbie, but with all of us.

At first I was terrified at the thought of handling such a tiny baby. But Mary assuaged my fears, and within a few days I was dressing and changing and bathing Debbie like a veteran mother.

I found myself wanting to do these things, not out of a sense of duty, but because doing them made me feel important to my daughter. Feeling the warm, struggling new life under my hands, watching new responses was a thrill I had never experienced.

Even Lou has his turn at taking care of our Debbie. Like most fathers with their daughters, Lou is completely enchanted. I can tell who's going to play the "heavy" if there's any discipline to be meted out. It won't be Papa.

People ask me how I fit motherhood into my career. Well, in a manner of speaking I think it's the other way around. I am fitting my career into motherhood. I'd give up doing a show anytime if Debbie needed me.

Actually with a minimum of organization my days aren't too complicated. I have my radio shows to do, and twice weekly visits to entertain the veterans at the nearby hospitals. And outside of a few guest shots here and there and interviews, I'm pretty much of a homebody.

Fortunately Lou doesn't feel that a wife with a career is a threat to marriage. We were discussing some recent Hollywood break-ups with some friends one evening and Lou summed up our attitude by saying "I don't think wives with careers affect a good marriage one way or the other. The only important thing is to learn to accept and respect each other without reservation. Just keep concentrating on the positive things in a relationship and the little differences become completely unimportant."

That's the way it's been with us. And that's why we think Debbie is going to grow up into a happy, well-balanced individual. We're going to give her the best thing that parents can give any child...a sense of belonging. And the only way that can be done is for there to be real harmony between a mother and father.