"I thought you were the mother?" That's a classic line from my story repertoire. It was spoken by twelve-year-old Rachel Goldbaum, the little girl who lived next door when we moved to La Jolla.
When Rachel uttered the famous (amongst us) line, Andie and Webb were four and two and Rachel dropped in (which would soon become a daily occurrence) to scope out the "new kids on the block."
The age difference didn't impede a wonderful friendship because Rachel's seniority was diminished by her down's syndrome. She adored the Knudsen kids and they loved Rachel dearly.
But on that first day when Rachel was curiously checking us out she wandered through our house asking Andie and Webb endless questions: "Where will you sleep?" "Where is the playroom?" "Do you have a dog?"
But the doozer was when Rachel came into the kitchen and I was moping the floor (on my hands and knees, mind you). Rachel froze, watched in silence for a minute, and then quizzically stated: "I thought you were the mother?"
Well, my kids looked flummoxed! In their world my behavior (scrubbing floors on all fours) was exactly on par for a mother's duties. But from what we quickly gathered, in Rachel's world, this didn't compute. For Rachel, the mother and the maid were not synonymous. It took some explaining for my kids to understand why Rachel was tripped up by viewing a mother cleaning.
I immediately worried that we might have bought a home in a neighborhood that was out of our league. If moms in this cul-do-sac don't do housework I'd soon be quite the anomaly.
Fortunately it turned out that Rachel's perspective was not indicative of all the moms on the block. Phew! And Rachel soon figured out that some women are the mom and the quasi maid too.
Rachel became a fixture, dropping in most afternoons, and we looked forward to her visits. Whenever our doorbell rang, 9 times out of 10 it was Rachel, standing with her hands behind her back, urging me to pick the hand that held the flower she just plucked from my front yard to give me (or give me back in an altered state if you want to be technical). So Rachel's question about my role (mother? cleaning help?) is understandable. Clearly she had some confusion over who owned the flowerbeds in our front yard too.
From holiday correspondence with our former Jewish neighbors, the Goldbaums, it sounds like Rachel Goldbaum is still happy, healthy, and thriving (she must be about 36 years old)! Or, as Andie might say to describe Rachel: "What a cutie!"
