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Motherhood ‘Myth’ Miffs Mother Who Works

By Sue Cronk

AN AWARD-WINNING
Washington biochemist who
combines a more-than-full-
time job with marriage and
mo therhood ina
“will have no
truck with
the great
American
myth that
children turn
out terrible if
their moth-
ers are not
at home to
watch them
every day.”
On weekdays, Maxine F.
Singer sees her three

Miss Cronk

  

youngsters — Amy, 4, Ellen,
2, David, 11 months—only
briefly.

“Yet I think my children
are happy, alive, interested
in the world around them,
and not difficult to deal
with,” she said last week.

Mrs. Singer always tries
to get home on time from
her job at the National In-
stitute of Arthritis and Met-
abolic Diseases to play with
the children before their
bedtime.

Even when she is in the
middle of an experiment
and is “tempted to stay late”
in the laboratory, she heads
for home, “taking my paper

work with me to do late at
night. The men around here
can work much longer hours
that I, but that’s one of the

compromises one has to
make.”
At home, near Chevy

Chase Circle, the children’s
hour ends when the supper
hour begins.

She and her husband, at-
torney Daniel M. Singer,
“eat alone, because if the
children ate with us, we’d
never have a chance to
talk.”

The children get their say

on weekends, when the
Singers take them to play-
grounds and read to them.

A PETITE, 32-year-old
brunette with an “Oliver”
haircut and green eyes, Mrs.
Singer met her husband
when both were students at
Swarthmore College.

Although her primary in-
terest is in biology, she took
her bachelor’s degree in
chemistry “because I felt
that one understands more
about biology through chem-
istry and nothing I’ve

learned since thet has ever
dissuaded me ‘rom this
view.” :

She earned a FhD. in bio-
chemistry at the National
Science Foundation at Yale
University aad came to
NIAMD as a postdoctoral
fellow. Now a permanent
a member, she is a GS-
In a ninth floor laboratory
in the sprawling red brick
Clinical Center at the Na-
tional Institutes of Health,
she works on the chemistry

of heredity in the general
area of nucleic acid.

For her contributions on
the mechanism of action of
the enzyme polynucleotide
phosphorylase -—- “which cat-
alyzes the chemical reaction
which results in the forma-
tion of nucleie acid-like ma-
terials” she recently re-
ceived the Iota Sigma Pi Re-
search Award.

The award, which carries a
$300 honorarium, is given
every three years by the na-
tional honorary society for

THE WASHINGTON POST

86 “4 “Saw. Sel
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Sundav, Juz.

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women in chemistry to an
outstanding woman chemist
under 40. She was chosen
from 14 candidates around
the country.

CHEMICAL structures and
reactions in genetics fas-
cinate Mrs. Singer. “Best of
all,” she said, other sci-
entists in this field “are ac-
tive all over the world. It
would be impossible not to
be excited. The curve is just
cresting. If you stay away
from your work for two
weeks, you’re behind.”

Nevertheless, she left yes-
terday with her family for a
month-long vacation at
Bethany Beach, Del. “The

schedule I'm on is very ex-
hausting, and I feel the need
of a long vacation,” she said.

But she took a briefcase
“full of lab work” in addi-
tion to a bathing suit.