Being A Stay At Home Mom Is A Real Job

I have been thinking a lot about my role in our family lately.  And I've been thinking a lot about my role in life as well.  I've said in this blog before that I've never been a career driven person.  I actually went to college for an education rather than job training and as a way to pass the time while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.

I had very little experience with children when I fell into momming.  Though I had always wanted kids and always considered/ prided myself on being something of a nurturer, I didn't know that it would be my calling in life.  I couldn't have predicted how satisfying I would find this role in my family.  I'd never suggest that a mom who also balances a career finds motherhood less satisfying than me.  That would be ridiculous, so I don't want to misrepresent my opinion.  The difference between she and I is that motherhood is my career.  I don't make any money, but I sure do save us a bundle.  I can't imagine how much it would cost to pay for before and after school care every day, pay for a tutor to help with homework, pay for someone to drive my kids to after school activities and sport events and pay for someone to provide breakfast, lunch and snacks.  I think that's probably very expensive.  But if you have a career that you love and fulfills you, it's likely worth it to shell out the dough for someone else to provide excellent care for your children.  I don't have a career that I love and I don't have any job that I am interested in doing...  so, why the societal pressure to do something different than what's working for me?

Why in the world do people feel the need to pressure and guilt stay-at-home mom's to get jobs when their kids go to school?   No one has EVER asked my husband if he was going to get a second job to fill his down time.  Why am I expected to?  It boggles my mind.  People say these rude, arrogant, demeaning things like, "Oooooh.  I would just be so bored..."  Guess what?  When you have two little girls who are barely 16 months apart in age and are 7 and 8 years old... folding laundry, washing dishes and scrubbing your floors in peace and quiet is not boring, IT IS LUXURY.

Pardon my tangent, but it's like this:  I work my fucking ass off 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I have for the past 8 years.  It took Bunny 7 years to sleep through the night.  7 YEARS.  Jay is a great dad, but when my girls are sick/cranky/tried/needy/upset/fighting or sad, I am the one that they come to and need.   I always have been. I am the one who disciplines.  I am the problem solver. I am the one who does our grocery shopping and am responsible for everything that goes into my children's mouths.   I work tirelessly creating healthy meals that take me hours to make.  I take them to sports and sit through (excruciating) practices.  I take them to school and I pick them up and I sit at our kitchen table with them for hours upon hours every afternoon working on homework, making sure that my children understand each and every new concept that they've been taught.  Usually as they do this they are eating a healthy, homemade snack.  I am by their side, sleeping in their beds when they are sick.  Any opportunity to be in their classroom- I am THERE.  Any opportunity to help out in the school in any capacity- I take it.  I am in the front row at every performance (even the performances that just happen in our back yard.) that they have.  I am crafting with them.  I am joking with them.  I am having deep heart to hearts and mending their hurt feelings when someone has made them feel badly.  And on top of that, I run a tight ship and keep a pretty clean home and keep our pets all alive (for the time being).

I work really, really, really hard.  I mean, REALLY hard.  And I love the work that I do.  I don't find it mundane.  I don't find it tedious.  I understand that other people have or would.  People are always very quick to loudly express how unfulfilling my job is.  But parenting is my career.  Someday my children will go to college and I will semi-retire, but for the next 11 years, this is what I want to do with my life.

I am very lucky because Jay has a good job.  I appreciate this so much because at one point we were really struggling financially and I had to go to work.  I loved my job but I was exhausted.  The fact was that I did everything that I do now, and I went to work for six hours a day while my girls were in school and missing time with them on the weekends.  And I ended up feeling incredibly stressed out and emotionally and physically taxed...

So, why, when I have a few hours a day to work alone, in my home and enjoy life, should I be expected to get a job?  I am a person not just a mother.  I have interests.  When my girls are at home I don't' have the time to peruse those interests or do much but parent my children- which is the way it should be.  But I would like to be able to do other things as well.  I mean, Jay has hours upon hours upon hours of down time on his days off when we are all sleeping, but no one suggests that he should fill this time with some money-making strategy.  It's just so sexist.  And it pisses me off.

Le Conflict

I've always considered myself a feminist.  Back in my 20's, when I was less comfortable in my skin and constantly in a battle for my rights and my equality, I was loudly a feminist.  But, as I've gotten older and settled into life, become comfortable, made choices and learned to respect and tolerate the opposite choices of my friends and peers, I have started to speak instead of scream.  I've stopped labeling myself a feminist and started to just be who I am.  I used to use the word "feminist" to define myself.  And now I use other words too.  One of them happens to be mother.  And none of the words that I use pay my bills (feminism didn't either).

I imagine that many people from my past would be surprised to learn that I became a stay at home mom.  Some might even think that I would be miserable in this role.  After all, feminism is largely seen as a movement away from stay at home parenting and towards career.  Men had more choices and rights.  Now women, generally have as many choices and rights, so a failure to utilize this freedom must be an oppressive backlash to progress, right?

So, before I get to the heart of this post, I want to preface it with two questions.  1.) Is it wrong to feel as fulfilled by traditional career-parenting as you would be by a career outside of the home?  2.) Does gaining financial benefit from an action make you realize it to a greater degree?  For instance, if I enjoy writing and blog every day am I less of a writer than someone who is equally productive but is paid for it?

Now to the point:

I catch up with my friend Julia on the phone most mornings.  She's one of the most intelligent women I know and over the years we've seen each other through many twists and misadventures.  We are both currently mom's and stay-at-home parents.  Julia and I discuss a great many things.  We enjoy talking about the books we read, our husbands, crafting ideas, our writing and, of course, our children.   When I have a problem, Julia is one of the first people I go to and I often feel that she bounces interesting, thought-provoking conversation off of me, to which I am very grateful.  Our conversations are often conceptual, rather than being about day-to-day goings on.

Today, she expressed a distaste for an article she read in this months issue of Marie Claire.  It was in interview with Elizabeth Badinter about her new book called The conflict.

Elizabeth Badinter is a french feminist and probably a pretty smart (though in my opinion, ass-backwards)  firecracker.  The premise of her book is that women are crazy to give up economic independence and return to stay at home parenting.  The movement towards green parenting (breastfeeding, cloth diapering, homemade baby food, co-sleeping) is oppressive and will have harmful effects on families as a whole.  In a nutshell, she believes that women are giving up their identities as women and as PEOPLE by giving up their jobs and staying at home with their children.  The relationship between man and woman will be harmed and strained by the relationship between mother and child and the relationship between father and child will be strained because the dad will not have as much opportunity to be present for the child.  The child is also harmed because it has spent too much time being nurtured which is unhealthy toward the development of independence (as an attachment parent, this is ludicrous to me). When the children grow and women have a few free hours in front of them, they will be nothing because they have identified as only mother's.  They will not be able to get their careers back and their children will not need them as much (or worse!  WILL need them as much) and they will be barren of purpose in the world, unable to be true members of society.

I'd like to address this under the canopy of my experience.  I'm only one person and I am only responsible for and representing myself... but I also think that I'm a rather common person  and my experiences are reflective of a great many people.

Growing up, I was never driven towards a career.  I deeply valued relationships (somewhat passionately).  I loved socializing and participating in creative actives, but there was never truly anything that I wanted to be when I grew up.  I am a hard worker and everything I do is done 110% and to its full potential, so it isn't an issue of drive.  One thing that I have always loved is caring for people.  Naturally, it's what I do and what I'm good at.  I find great fulfillment in nurturing.  Though, I wouldn't say that parenting came easily or naturally to me, it was something that I embraced, worked at and continue to work hard for and feel incredibly fulfilled by.  I absolutely love spending my time ensuring the happiness of my children.  When they were little they slept in bed with me... right there between Jay and I.  I extended my breastfeeding with Bunny and did not with Lila and never felt pressured to do it or oppressed by either feeding method.  I used disposable diapers.  I didn't make my own baby food more than a few times.  I laid down with them to go to sleep and still do if they want me to.  I walk them through their homework.  I work with them on their projects.  I read to them.  I play with them.  I cook with them.  I craft with them.  I'm at field trips and I'm in the classroom and I'm at every event that I know is happening in the school.  I'm screaming my face off at sporting events, holding cold water and a healthy lunch.  I hold them when they cry and I celebrate their accomplishments.  I have watched them closely for 8 years and I have been pushed to my limit and grown and struggled and worked HARD for my children.  I am proud to say that I am a good mother.  I'm not going to be insane and suggest that in order to be a good mother you have to do what I am doing.  I am saying that I am doing what I am doing and I know that it works for myself and my family and I am proud of the work I do.  

The choices that I have made were not obligatory.  I might be a cookie cutter stay at home mom, but I am truly doing what comes naturally and feels good to me.  And I love my life.

What feels restrictive and oppressive to me is the claim that I am not doing enough.  I feel squashed by the assertion that my role in the world is not important enough and that I am only a mother because I don't have a job.  Last year, I got a job because I needed to have one.  I worked hard.  I believed in my job.  I loved the people who I worked with.  I worked hard, before, during and after work.  But my heart was with my children and I eventually stopped working because I wasn't able to do what I loved to the extent that I wanted to when I was working.

It is true that I am a mother.  I am also a writer.  I am an artist.  I am a gardener.  I am a wife.  I am a friend.  I am a crafter.  I am a baker.  I am an adventure seeker.  I am an advice giver.  I am a listener.  I am an event planner.  I am many things and though being a mother is probably the most rewarding, it does not define me.  If I had to call myself anything, it would be "a work in progress."