I made the mistake recently of looking at parenting.com. Not for fun, mind you, as I try to avoid anything that is aimed at making me feel like a crappy mom or person in general, but some of my ads run on there and I wanted to see what the space looks like. So I came across a bunch of articles on the so-called Mommy wars, or the debate about being a stay-at-home mom or a working mom. You may, particularly if you are a man, be thinking, Why is there a debate about that? It’s not like there’s a vote and it’s going to be one or the other for all women.
For some reason, be it societal norms or just the way that we females are wired, women worry way too much about what other women are doing and love to look down on those that aren’t meeting their expectation of correctness. The hardcore breastfeeders act as though a woman who gives her baby formula is a criminal, prompting all women who didn’t breast feed to explain themselves, “I didn’t have enough milk”, “He wouldn’t take it”, etc. Seriously, have you ever once heard a woman say “I just didn’t want to”? No, because they’re scared to. TV Nazis looove to go around explaining the evils of TV to the less-informed/intelligent of us. Don’t even get me started on organic food superiority. Where I’m going with this is that you might think that it would take a very insecure woman to listen to, or even care about, what other women think about their choice to work or not work, but it has become so commonplace to make and to accept judgments that we do.
It is my opinion that there is no right answer here. What is right is what works for you and your situation, though I will say that it has been my observation that my friends who work part-time seem to be the happiest overall. In my five years as a mom I have covered the spectrum. I had always just assumed that I would work, and I went right back to teaching when my daughter was four months old. The thing that I could not have predicted was that I couldn’t handle childcare. In fact, in the course of a ten-month school year, I went through three day care situations. Every day of that year was absolute torture for me, imagining my little girl lying unattended with a dirty diaper on the floor, crying in a crib, being tolerated but not loved. I was also pregnant with my son that year, and the hormones no doubt fueled my paranoia. Needless to say, that was my last year teaching. My son was born and I was officially a stay-at-home mom. This was a necessity for me; I literally could not deal with daycare (and god do I envy those who can). About a year into my stay-at-home stint, I realized a definite loss of identity. Just about any stay-at-home mom will tell you that they experience this; there is pretty much no societal value put on staying home with your kids. It’s mentally draining and there’s no transition-it’s the same job all day, until the kids go to bed, including weekends. That said, it’s not the worst situation in the world-if you use your time wisely, you can keep the house clean, keep up with laundry and go to the grocery (albeit, with kids) during the day, which leaves your nights and weekends much more open to enjoying family time and time with your husband. About a year and a half ago, I started my business and work part-time from home. This would be ideal except that I haven’t yet contributed to our family’s income because I have this thing about paying off my business before I take a paycheck. So I basically work for free, but it has done wonders for restoring my identity.
I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to judge me for my choices, to have said, “She’s neglecting her child” when I worked, to have said, “She’s wasting her career potential” when I wasn’t working. But I’m sure that they did, and I’m sure that they still do. Whatever. They aren’t me and they aren’t in my situation, and they aren’t in your situation either. I’ll do what’s right for my family and sanity and you should do what’s right for your family and your sanity. And for god’s sake, we’re not in the 8th grade, let’s all stop worrying about what other women are doing.
