In the Trenches

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.

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?"

It's more controversial than my being a lesbian.

Mind you, the only people who ever ask me this are working moms. Not other SAHMS, because they understand the complexity of it. "Enjoy?" You mean the way I enjoy a fine piece of dark chocolate? Right. Working men don't ever ask; I'm not sure it would occur to them. Frankly, I just don't know many working men, except the husbands of my playgroup friends who are more mythic than real to me anyway. And they aren't going to ask. And DP--who is in the fairly unique position of being a working mom with a mom at home for childcare, which eliminates--usually!--worries about the quality of care the kids are getting--doesn't need to ask.

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.