I'm in the trenches of the Mommy Wars.
SAHM vs. working moms.
Ann Romney vs. Hilary Rosen.
Mother vs. child, sister vs. sister, neighbor vs. neighbor.
But are we actually fighting?
I've written before about my choice to be a SAHM (here and here): how it wasn't a path I would have ever chosen for myself until I was already on it and didn't want off, how I've been repeatedly told that I am too smart to stay at home, how I realize that my ability to stay home is as much a result of white, educated, upper-class culture and privilege as personal choice (though I'm learning that now the majority of SAHMs are working-class Hispanic women. Also here.), and the like. And I've read so much about the Mommy Wars--how working hurts kids and how working encourages kids; how staying home encourages kids and how staying home hurts kids. Pick a side and find a study.
Is it cliche to say that some of my best friends are working moms? It is equally true that the majority of my friends by virtue of having the same schedule I have are SAHMs. I don't choose SAHM friends because I value them more or believe we are "right." They're who is around when I want to play. And because our lives are similar, we can discuss and debate choices. But the friend I speak to the most works full-time and has a life-structure totally different from mine. Yet we still find mutual support, value, respect, inspiration, and enthusiasm. We just have to work harder to schedule talking about it! And any bittersweet cravings for the other way of life are met with knowing nods. It does not, however, make us enemies.
But I'd be naive not to admit that the groups are different--not so much from the outside or in any tangible child-rearing way, but in what we worry about when we discuss some of our fears. And mind you, these worries about ourselves come behind our worries about our children and school, behavior, development, friends, etc. Then it's our marriages/relationships. Or maybe our houses/housework. And finally, only after we get all that out, stereotypically, do we talk about ourselves. And even then it's about our work/not work as it affects our children.
My working friends, if I may speak for them, feel disconnected from the community of the playground, mourn their inability to attend all of the school-day functions or volunteer their time regularly, stress about the double workload of home and profession squeezed into the same 24-hour day, and envy the more relaxed days of the SAHMs. At the same time, they also feel great pride in their professional accomplishments, are happy to model their work ethics and feminism, and not-so-secretly glad to escape the tyranny of the home at least part of the time.
Similarly, my SAHM friends, if I may speak for them, worry about their languishing professional skills and declining ability to re-enter the workforce anywhere near where they were, wish they contributed in a tangible economic way to the family especially in these challenging financial times, wonder if their children will understand or respect their "opting out," and miss intellectual and professional stimulation. However, they also generally love their time with their kids, at their kids' schools, and in their homes, creating enriching activities and environments, and in many ways are grateful to have escaped the less-glamorous aspects of working (office politics, long hours, bureaucracy, whatever your bugbear was). But neither group seems hostile to the other, even if at times the grass sometimes seems greener in our neighbor's yard (especially if the neighbor is child-free!).
Actually, the majority of my SAHM friends work part-time, either because they want to or can't find full-time to compensate for childcare (or even at all). They squeeze in work in their fields off-hours--library work at night, social work during school hours, substitute teaching, real estate. And a few are direct marketers for products like WildTree and Tupperware, those uniquely mom jobs. And I think, perhaps, these part-timers embrace many of the positives and few of the negatives in my list above. Some of us--mainly me--are volunteering in our field, which provides the intellectual stimulation without the economic benefits while still affording flexibility.
All of us roll our eyes at specifying "works outside the home," recognizing as few of the pols or pundits did in the recent skirmish, that the accepted cultural definition of work implies for pay (now, we can get into value and free-market economics some other time), even if what SAHMs do is work of a different kind. We don't get hung up on those semantics when we're hanging out. If I say, "Mama Teacher works," I don't have to say "for money." I've noticed that the only times my SAHM friends protest that they work is when they're talking about tasks they don't like; curious, no?
I think, however, speaking for myself, what I see in these Mommy Wars is the fight for respect, support, and choice for all women. Neither side feels helped, valued, or even heard. Working moms don't want to be demonized by the "if you wanted to work, why did you have kids?" brigade. They want equal pay. And, most likely, affordable childcare and maternity leave, maybe even public preschool. And co-parenting and co-houseworking, which is still not the national norm, even if it is increasing. Similarly, SAHMs do not want to be judged as lazy or stupid just because they made the choice to stay home. They want tax breaks for caregivers. They would like affordable child care and preschool, too. In fact, if there was more governmental support, more SAHMs might work and more working moms might stay home, because their decisions to do either are not always free but determined by economic factors often outside their control.
And when women, both SAHM and working, don't get to choose at all, they want the power to do so.
So maybe we've misunderstood the meaning of "Mommy Wars." Maybe it's the battle women with children wage against the forces that demean, denigrate, and deny them choice, power, and respect. Maybe if we all had those, we wouldn't be fighting.
Showing posts with label SAHM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SAHM. Show all posts
Friday, April 20, 2012
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
A Different Kind of Mommy Blog
In reflecting on how I see my blog, about which I just posted, I find myself reading blogs more than ever before. Sure, I have more time on my hands now than I have since I was pregnant (when I read infertility-turned pregnancy-turned mommy blogs like So Close, A Little Bit Pregnant, and Here Be Hippogriffs), but I enjoy following blogs and also want the information they contain--either updates on RL (for Gommie: that's "real life") friends or family or recipes, craft tips, household management info, inspiration, etc.
Over and over again these days I'm drawn to one type of blog: professional organized mommy-homesteader blogs! Okay, I made up the category myself, but I don't know how else to describe usually SAHM and homeschooling (frequently rural) moms who are dedicated to natural living, all things homemade, beautiful photography, and often some kind of blog-based business. Now, that doesn't describe all of the blogs below, but it's close (and for those it doesn't apply to, my guess is the greater part of the readership is in this category). Of course, I'm not quite in that category--a SAHM but not homeschooler, not rural but interested in DIY and natural living, and not a member of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) or a Christian church (yep, that's another big part of it sometimes, the glorification of motherhood and the Proverbs 31 wife. See this NPR feature on "Biblical Womanhood" and the blogger who tried to live it.), but I like is the general interest in family, home, homemade, and doing everything as efficiently and mindfully as possible. Not because it is biblically proscribed, but because I enjoy it and find value in it and am good at it. As one feminist, non-LDS writer in Salon described of her Mormon Mommy Blog obsession,
Over and over again these days I'm drawn to one type of blog: professional organized mommy-homesteader blogs! Okay, I made up the category myself, but I don't know how else to describe usually SAHM and homeschooling (frequently rural) moms who are dedicated to natural living, all things homemade, beautiful photography, and often some kind of blog-based business. Now, that doesn't describe all of the blogs below, but it's close (and for those it doesn't apply to, my guess is the greater part of the readership is in this category). Of course, I'm not quite in that category--a SAHM but not homeschooler, not rural but interested in DIY and natural living, and not a member of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) or a Christian church (yep, that's another big part of it sometimes, the glorification of motherhood and the Proverbs 31 wife. See this NPR feature on "Biblical Womanhood" and the blogger who tried to live it.), but I like is the general interest in family, home, homemade, and doing everything as efficiently and mindfully as possible. Not because it is biblically proscribed, but because I enjoy it and find value in it and am good at it. As one feminist, non-LDS writer in Salon described of her Mormon Mommy Blog obsession,
But the basic messages expressed in these blogs — family is wonderful, life is meant to be enjoyed, celebrate the small things — are still lovely. And if they help women like me envision a life in which marriage and motherhood could potentially be something other than a miserable, soul-destroying trap, I say, “Right on.”
And that's how I feel about my recent blog reading, too, which includes these new additions:
- Unplugged Sunday is one of my new favorite blogs. It contains essays by contributing writers who relate how they spend their time "unplugged." A recent favorite was "Journaling the Seasons"
- SouleMama, written by Amanda Soule Blake; I like her books on creativity and family
- Fimby, or Fun In My Backyard.
- Weaving with children (a Pinterest collection from Mariah Bruehl, who blogs and authored Playful Learning)--ideas for hula hoops, sticks, and other projects
- SimpleBites, a new food/recipe site I'm watching (along with its parent site, SimpleMom)
- Eating Rules, which is sponsoring "Unprocessed October." I like the simple food rules: 100% whole grains, no HFCS, no hydrogenated oils. Add organic and that almost covers it. (Mmmm, Maple Apple Chips!)
- Plan to Eat sells a meal-planning service, but I'm more interested in the recipes (like Almond Butter Balls) and tips (DIY goldfish cracker cutter!)
- Mom Kids Books
Next up, Lesbian Mommy Blogs!!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis
I am always a little bit homesick after visiting the city. I feel that way after I go back to Texas, too. It's not that I want to live in NYC or in Houston again, but that I have a bittersweet nostalgia for all that is good and a selective blindness about all that is not. We chose to live in the 'burbs even before there were kids, wanting a home, a yard, more space, a slower pace, at a price we could afford. But then we were both commuting into the city five days a week and enjoying all of its charms and few of its hassles. Then for a bit, Mama alone commuted while I was at home with the babes and I could feed off of her city energy and enjoy things and tales she brought back. Now, of course, she has a much easier commute and I like having her not-so-far-away, but I miss the city.
(My one Connecticut joke: do you know what they call people from Connecticut? Connecticutters? Connecticutians? Connecticutites? No. Commuters.)
We want to raise our children here in Connecticut, where the laws support our family as does the community of which we are a part. I had a suburban childhood and loved it, wanting that for them. And with mommies with a familiarity and love of the city, the kids will have the best of both worlds, especially with grandparents still in Queens. At least we are going to try to go down regularly, knowing that as life gets more hectic and scheduled, visits will probably be fewer and farther apart.
I wish there was a way that I could easily do that with my career, the other thing from yesterday's visit for which I still yearn occasionally. Like living in NYC, working takes on an afterglow when you aren't actually doing it. Long meetings with curators who can't explain the exhibition for which you must program? Budgets that don't allow you to do what you dream of? Audiences that don't show up? All that email and voicemail and still more meetings? No, I remember the great tours and the packed lecture halls and the crisp new brochures and the comrade-in-arms colleagues and the engagement with art and scholarship. I'm homesick for my career. But I can't have that for 2 hours twice a week, or even next year for 2 hours three times a week--especially because I only want the good parts, not the annoying ones, which is why I haven't tried too hard to find something professional to do just yet (to the disappointment of my professional friends, those without kids). Just as we wanted to live in the burbs, we wanted a stay-at-home-mom for the kids, someone totally focused on and available for/to them in these early years (not to say that work-away-from-home moms like Mama aren't totally focused in a philosophical way on their kids, but there isn't the same kind of present-ness/presence. And believe me we talk about it. We're like the "Blue and the Grey"--or was it "North and South" with the split family?-of the Mommy Wars. It's Reconstruction here now. Except no one won and no one lost). And just as I'm not ready to sacrifice my community here for the city, I am not ready to sacrifice my SAHM-ness for my career. I want it all, know that's not possible, and am just a little down right now. At least, with art and the city, there is always something to go home to.
(My one Connecticut joke: do you know what they call people from Connecticut? Connecticutters? Connecticutians? Connecticutites? No. Commuters.)
We want to raise our children here in Connecticut, where the laws support our family as does the community of which we are a part. I had a suburban childhood and loved it, wanting that for them. And with mommies with a familiarity and love of the city, the kids will have the best of both worlds, especially with grandparents still in Queens. At least we are going to try to go down regularly, knowing that as life gets more hectic and scheduled, visits will probably be fewer and farther apart.
I wish there was a way that I could easily do that with my career, the other thing from yesterday's visit for which I still yearn occasionally. Like living in NYC, working takes on an afterglow when you aren't actually doing it. Long meetings with curators who can't explain the exhibition for which you must program? Budgets that don't allow you to do what you dream of? Audiences that don't show up? All that email and voicemail and still more meetings? No, I remember the great tours and the packed lecture halls and the crisp new brochures and the comrade-in-arms colleagues and the engagement with art and scholarship. I'm homesick for my career. But I can't have that for 2 hours twice a week, or even next year for 2 hours three times a week--especially because I only want the good parts, not the annoying ones, which is why I haven't tried too hard to find something professional to do just yet (to the disappointment of my professional friends, those without kids). Just as we wanted to live in the burbs, we wanted a stay-at-home-mom for the kids, someone totally focused on and available for/to them in these early years (not to say that work-away-from-home moms like Mama aren't totally focused in a philosophical way on their kids, but there isn't the same kind of present-ness/presence. And believe me we talk about it. We're like the "Blue and the Grey"--or was it "North and South" with the split family?-of the Mommy Wars. It's Reconstruction here now. Except no one won and no one lost). And just as I'm not ready to sacrifice my community here for the city, I am not ready to sacrifice my SAHM-ness for my career. I want it all, know that's not possible, and am just a little down right now. At least, with art and the city, there is always something to go home to.
Monday, January 12, 2009
A Time to Keep, A Time to Clean
We were cleaning out the basement tonight, as we work towards our goal of going through everything down there and getting the basement ready to be "finished" (by the time we finish cleaning it, we will have the spare change to afford remodeling. It's a long-term goal).
Anyway, my task tonight was several boxes of papers from my school and work days. And so I journeyed back in time through college, grad school, and my first, second, and third big museum jobs. There were syllabi from favorite classes, papers I'd written on Pygmalion and on Dutch genre paintings, transcripts from my three schools, bibliographies from my oral exams, folder upon folder from my dissertation research and writing including numerous edited outlines and drafts, plus grant applications from programs I created and administered, fliers for lectures I gave, outlines for tours, drafts and final proofs of articles I published, programs from conferences I presented at, emails and letters from colleagues all over the world, and everything from articles working with special needs visitors to photocopies of 19th-century British parliamentary records.
It was amazing, inspiring even, to be reminded of everything I had done, things so far from where I am now. And it was also very liberating to toss (actually, recycle) so much of it--I just won't ever need outlines, notes, edits, and copies of Chapter 2 anymore! Nor do I need a complete bibliography on art of the ancient Near East, with a focus on Assyrian cylinder stones. And I've given enough tours that I didn't need to keep "nitty gritty notes on designing a docent tour." But I did keep every photocopy I ever made of museum cartoons in Punch. I know I have another Punch article in me, probably on museums and the marriage market in late 19th-century London. And I kept three edited drafts of my complete dissertation, one each from three of my readers, including complimentary emails from my advisor. And I kept several outlines from talks I gave in Chicago. Plus syllabi from my favorite undergraduate art history classes, just in case I ever need inspiration for my own teaching.
Oddly, happily, I wasn't depressed by any of this, as I thought I might be. I really enjoyed the walk down memory lane. Sometimes I get in a real funk about having so completely left my academic, achieving, career-oriented self so far behind and become fearful that I won't ever be able to reclaim some part of that self again. I miss it at times, even if I love being a stay-at-home-mom to the kiddos. But reading through it all brought it back so vividly, so clearly, so immediately, that I know with just some effort, I could be back in the swing of it again. I was strongly reminded of how much I really do love it. And when it's time, there are 8 folders of cartoons from Punch just begging to be explored and explained.
Anyway, my task tonight was several boxes of papers from my school and work days. And so I journeyed back in time through college, grad school, and my first, second, and third big museum jobs. There were syllabi from favorite classes, papers I'd written on Pygmalion and on Dutch genre paintings, transcripts from my three schools, bibliographies from my oral exams, folder upon folder from my dissertation research and writing including numerous edited outlines and drafts, plus grant applications from programs I created and administered, fliers for lectures I gave, outlines for tours, drafts and final proofs of articles I published, programs from conferences I presented at, emails and letters from colleagues all over the world, and everything from articles working with special needs visitors to photocopies of 19th-century British parliamentary records.
It was amazing, inspiring even, to be reminded of everything I had done, things so far from where I am now. And it was also very liberating to toss (actually, recycle) so much of it--I just won't ever need outlines, notes, edits, and copies of Chapter 2 anymore! Nor do I need a complete bibliography on art of the ancient Near East, with a focus on Assyrian cylinder stones. And I've given enough tours that I didn't need to keep "nitty gritty notes on designing a docent tour." But I did keep every photocopy I ever made of museum cartoons in Punch. I know I have another Punch article in me, probably on museums and the marriage market in late 19th-century London. And I kept three edited drafts of my complete dissertation, one each from three of my readers, including complimentary emails from my advisor. And I kept several outlines from talks I gave in Chicago. Plus syllabi from my favorite undergraduate art history classes, just in case I ever need inspiration for my own teaching.
Oddly, happily, I wasn't depressed by any of this, as I thought I might be. I really enjoyed the walk down memory lane. Sometimes I get in a real funk about having so completely left my academic, achieving, career-oriented self so far behind and become fearful that I won't ever be able to reclaim some part of that self again. I miss it at times, even if I love being a stay-at-home-mom to the kiddos. But reading through it all brought it back so vividly, so clearly, so immediately, that I know with just some effort, I could be back in the swing of it again. I was strongly reminded of how much I really do love it. And when it's time, there are 8 folders of cartoons from Punch just begging to be explored and explained.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
SAHM I Am
Hello, my name is J. And I'm a stay-at-home mom.
Before I had kids, I had a career. Advanced degrees, my own office in Manhattan, people I supervised.
Well, I still have the advanced degrees but that's about all in my life, besides DP, that has stayed the same.
And on a regular basis, I am asked, by complete or nearly complete strangers, to explain my life and choices, with the simple question, "Do you enjoy being a stay-at-home mom?"
But working moms want to know. I think they're trying to find out, or to confirm, that they are doing the best thing for themselves, their kids, their families. And they all look at me incredulously and laugh when I answer:
"Most of the time."
I'm honest, right? Most of the time I do love being home with my kids daily, by myself, for 12 hours, just us, at home. Truly. We do fun stuff, silly stuff, boring stuff, embarrassing stuff and I won't remember most of it, except the things that I write in my journal and here. And for now, they won't remember any of it. And "it" is always changing. But I know it all has value, so in addition to loving those moments, most of them, it's important to me and to DP that one of us is there.
But all the time? No way. They fight, they make messes, and reading Dora's Chilly Day for the fourteenth time in a row (though each time gets shorter because I want to be done) is brain numbing. I'd love to sleep in, play my music in the car as loud as I want, watch tv that actually has a complicated plot, take more than 5 minutes to eat a meal and sit in a chair while doing it! Not to mention use my passport more often, eat in restaurants that don't have chicken fingers (though, I love a good chicken finger), and spend more time in NYC.
Of course, these aren't things that working moms do either.
However, there are days when all of it gets to me, usually on days when none of us has had enough sleep and we have nothing planned to distract us from our exhaustion. And it's on those days that I long for the routine of my old career. I dream of polishing off my resume, of having a job that I get paid to do, of working only a set number of hours, in my own office, with assistance, with a lunch break, and other adults to talk to about things that aren't child-related.
But just as this dream gets started, I realize, that there isn't any time in my day that I would regularly want to give over for a job, even something part time. Miss those golden hours in the morning when they play best together? Miss outings to playgroups, stores, storytimes when they always do something surprising and endearing? Even the evil hours--between 3:30-5:30 often have some of the best moments--of baking, or painting, or just sitting on the couch watching tv. What would I want to give up? I'm glad I don't have to choose.
I never know how to answer that. I want to make them feel better about their choice, to be happy with what they've decided, just as I am. And I imagine they are--just like I am--happy. Most of the time.
Before I had kids, I had a career. Advanced degrees, my own office in Manhattan, people I supervised.
Well, I still have the advanced degrees but that's about all in my life, besides DP, that has stayed the same.
And on a regular basis, I am asked, by complete or nearly complete strangers, to explain my life and choices, with the simple question, "Do you enjoy being a stay-at-home mom?"
It's more controversial than my being a lesbian.
But working moms want to know. I think they're trying to find out, or to confirm, that they are doing the best thing for themselves, their kids, their families. And they all look at me incredulously and laugh when I answer:
"Most of the time."
I'm honest, right? Most of the time I do love being home with my kids daily, by myself, for 12 hours, just us, at home. Truly. We do fun stuff, silly stuff, boring stuff, embarrassing stuff and I won't remember most of it, except the things that I write in my journal and here. And for now, they won't remember any of it. And "it" is always changing. But I know it all has value, so in addition to loving those moments, most of them, it's important to me and to DP that one of us is there.
But all the time? No way. They fight, they make messes, and reading Dora's Chilly Day for the fourteenth time in a row (though each time gets shorter because I want to be done) is brain numbing. I'd love to sleep in, play my music in the car as loud as I want, watch tv that actually has a complicated plot, take more than 5 minutes to eat a meal and sit in a chair while doing it! Not to mention use my passport more often, eat in restaurants that don't have chicken fingers (though, I love a good chicken finger), and spend more time in NYC.
Of course, these aren't things that working moms do either.
However, there are days when all of it gets to me, usually on days when none of us has had enough sleep and we have nothing planned to distract us from our exhaustion. And it's on those days that I long for the routine of my old career. I dream of polishing off my resume, of having a job that I get paid to do, of working only a set number of hours, in my own office, with assistance, with a lunch break, and other adults to talk to about things that aren't child-related.
But just as this dream gets started, I realize, that there isn't any time in my day that I would regularly want to give over for a job, even something part time. Miss those golden hours in the morning when they play best together? Miss outings to playgroups, stores, storytimes when they always do something surprising and endearing? Even the evil hours--between 3:30-5:30 often have some of the best moments--of baking, or painting, or just sitting on the couch watching tv. What would I want to give up? I'm glad I don't have to choose.
I used to become defensive, even self-questioning (theres' a better word for this but it's late), at least internally, when asked this. Or especially, when one of my SAHM friends gave up the s-a-h part to return to work again. Should I? What did they know that I didn't? What made us different? What was I missing? I don't have those thoughts anymore--I've worked before, I'll work again, I know what I'm missing.
But many working moms haven't been SAHMs, or not for long. And, as far as I can tell from the ones with whom I've had this conversation, they hold almost mutually exclusive thoughts on the matter: they seem to idealize SAHM life and are surprised that I'm not happy with it all the time and yet they invariably tell me that, well, they could never ever be a stay-at-home mom--it would drive them crazy.I never know how to answer that. I want to make them feel better about their choice, to be happy with what they've decided, just as I am. And I imagine they are--just like I am--happy. Most of the time.
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