Mom’s strike leaves impression

LONGVIEW, Wash. – When 13-year-old Kym Fleming got off her school bus in 1986 and saw her mom brandishing a picket sign, she was mortified.

Today, the 34-year-old mother of three children of her own completely understands.

Gina Smith’s 18-day strike against her ungrateful and unhelpful children gained the Vader, Wash., woman national attention and a trip to the Tonight Show. It also, her children say now, taught them a valuable lesson about just how much a mother does for her family.

At the time, Gina told them they’d never understand all she did for them until they had their own kids. Twenty-one years after the strike, they heartily agree.

“I know exactly why she did it now,” Kym said from her home in Georgia. “There were some days when I’m like ‘Oh my gosh I am so done with this job.’ “

“It was pretty embarrassing, but looking back now it was something that she had to do to get a point across,” added son Shawn Elmore, who lives in Florida with his wife and two sons. While they all laugh about it now – and say it made them closer – there were plenty of strained feelings during the actual strike. Name-calling, whining and defiance became public, especially as it became clear Gina wasn’t backing down.

“It was only 18 days?” 37-year-old stepdaughter Tracee Stoner, asked Gina recently. “It seemed like an eternity.”

Gina had been fed up with the kids’ attitudes for quite a while before breaking out the picket sign.

They didn’t help with chores and complained when they did. And they never thanked Gina for all she did while still working as a waitress.

“We took her for granted. She did everything for us and we didn’t appreciate it,” Kym said.

It also didn’t help that they were a recently blended family and that Jim – who hates being the bad guy – often didn’t back up Gina in her requests. And, trying to befriend Tracee, Gina herself didn’t always require the same chores of her stepdaughter. (Jim’s son James, now 40, lived with other relatives at the time and wasn’t party to the strike).

“I thought I had it made for quite a while and then all heck broke loose,” Tracee said.

The final straw, Gina remembers, is Kym making the comment “You don’t do anything anyway.”

“Oh yeah?” Gina thought. “I’ll show you me not doing anything.” She made a “Mother on Strike” sign, slipped an “I’m for Mom” sign around the family dog’s neck and met the school bus to lay down the new ground rules.

Shawn, Tracee and Kym were on their own.

If they wanted food, they had to cook it.

If they wanted clean clothes, Gina pointed them to the washer machine.

And – perhaps worst of all for a teenager – they had to ride the dreaded bus to school. Gina’s days of taxi driver were over.

The kids were shocked but assumed it wouldn’t last. As the days wore on, though, they began to worry.

“We had to fend for ourselves, and we did wear some dirty clothes because they weren’t clean when we needed them,” Kym said. Shawn didn’t even know when to add soap to the washing machine.

“I lived on mac and cheese,” said Tracee. “And I could make a really mean bowl of cold cereal, but that was it.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, all three also got a fair amount of ribbing from fellow classmates – some of whom worried it might give their own mothers ideas.

The story first appeared in the Jan. 14, 1986, edition of The Daily News, then appeared in newspapers and on television nationwide. Letters of support flooded in from similarly fed up mothers across the region. And garbage piled up in the kitchen.

Jim, ever the peacemaker, wanted to do the kids’ work himself. Gina, though, flatly forbade it.

“I told him if he did, I’d go on strike against him, ” said Gina, now 58. No fool, Jim stood down.

“I knew the kids wouldn’t starve or anything,” the 62-year-old explained recently. After 18 days the children caved.

They agreed to a rotating list of chores and Gina, just to be sure, had the contract notarized.

And things did change, she said.

The kids did their chores as assigned and didn’t complain.

“They knew what they were supposed to do after that,” Gina said. “And I’m real fortunate because we never really had any serious problems with any of them.”

“We had structure,” Tracee said.

The strike lessons carried over in their adult lives too.

Kym’s 4-year-old daughter now helps feed the family dog and do the dishes. Shawn’s wife is a stay-at-home mom and he’s quick to point out “she has the tougher job.” Tracee said her biggest asset is that her husband backs her up, taking their three sons to task if they don’t appreciate her.

“I tell him when I need help before it comes to a boiling point and I say, ‘I quit. I’m done,’ ” she said, with a pointed look at her father, who ducked his head.

So, looking back, was all the drama and notoriety worth it?

“Yeah, I think it was,” Gina said. The kids learned responsibility and Gina learned “sometimes you have to be a mother, not a friend.”

The “kids” agree, even though the strike embarrassed them at the time.

“Looking back, that was the turning point for her and what she needed to do,” Shawn said. “And I respect her for that.”