When the swings were in sight, Iain was excited. We rolled in and I was relieved to see only one other Mom and her two kids, instead of a bunch of neglected youth causing trouble. The other Mom had a boy about two years older than Iain and a girl that was right about his age, with another one scheduled on my birthday. Coincidence? We started talking, just getting those peripheral comments out of the way. Age spacing. Do you live around here? What church do you go to. New Mommy asked, "Do you stay at home with your kids?" Yes I do, what about you? "Oh yes, I stay at home with my kids, and we are SOOO fortunate. So many of my friends are jealous that I am able to stay at home with our children."
There must have been an extra surge of adrenaline pumping through me, because the next words out of my mouth, I guess, can shake up the Mommy world:
"Well, they choose to work, just as we choose to stay at home. Everyone has a choice in whether they stay at home with their kids."
"Well, they choose to work, just as we choose to stay at home. Everyone has a choice in whether they stay at home with their kids."
Why do so many Mom's feel that there needs to be an amendment to the "I am a stay at home mom" statement? Amendments that overstate our blessings in penance to those who are "work away" Moms? I know that I came on too strong for this perfectly nice, but still a perfect stranger, but this has really hit a nerve with me? I never thought that I would enjoy being a wife, mother and homemaker, but it is the best job/career change I have ever made! I couldn't change it for anything. Why is it stay at home vs. working? Oh that's right! Stay at home mom's lie around on the couch eating bon bons and watch their favorite shows. We don't "work" like a true "working mom" does. *Aaoooww*
I will admit that I did have a very hard time adjusting from a very handsome salary, to a paycheck-less existence, but everyday that I spend with my babies the dollar signs become a distant memory. I actually think that making the commitment to stay at home to raise your own offspring could be harder than being a working mom. Now don't freak out, just hear me out on this. Working moms get the children up in the morning and do those morning things that any SAH mom would do like getting breakfast ready, getting Husband out the door to work, getting herself ready and then packing the kids up to head out to day care. Drop the baby off to have someone else change diapers, wipe noses, feed, hold, put down for naps, read to, engage in activities, etc. while she goes to work and completely checks out of her baby's life. She might get to have lunch with co-workers, friends, or husband, and it is a completely child-free meal that she would get to have each day. Interacting with adults and earning that pay check to keep the baby at day care. She goes to pick up the baby and then head home to figure out what to make for dinner...if she cooks. She finally spends some time with her offspring and husband, but not for long, because getting up at 6 or earlier each day to get the offspring to a surrogate caretaker means that you all need to be in bed by a reasonable hour...8ish?
Why do women feel this pressure to earn money like a man when there is offspring involved? In the beginning, it was very difficult for me to give up that pay check, but I watched myself, in disgust, be so attached to the dollar sign and I became disgusted with myself! What did I really need to buy with that money? Why did I think that we needed to have that extra money? There is joy in having babies and there is an equal joy in taking care of their every want and need. There is a purpose in training and discipline and there is a point to passing on your ideology as a parent to your child. It is important, and why do we skirt around the issue of motherhood? Why is it some sort of hippie idea to do with less in order to fulfill the most important role that anyone on this earth can have? Being a mother.
If I was the dictator and dealing with our "economic crisis," I would decree that any dual income home that has offspring would be required to have one person stay at home to take care of the offspring and the dwelling of the family. We would have more jobs available, and offspring with the one-on-one contact that they need. I know that I am not a dictator, and I don't intend to be one. If it isn't obvious, I am not a feminist, so this is flying right up in the face of feminism. I am fine with women having an equal opportunity to pursue careers and life paths that do not include motherhood, however, for those women that choose to have offspring, take care of them! Why is it socially acceptable to abandon your children in the care of a complete stranger? What other mammal or animal would do such a thing to their very fragile and important brood?
Back at the park, our conversation didn't explode as much as I have in my own little space with my own ideas on Planet Joe. I could see how this sweet mother was very taken aback by my little burst. She understood, but I could tell that she didn't want to offend me or anyone else for that matter. So is it the chicken or the egg? What comes first? Since I still believe that people have choices to make, my next commentary to this unsuspecting housewife was how perplexed I am when a friend, acquaintance or family member is distressed about an infertility issue and yet they have no intention of taking care of their baby. Why is there stress over a pregnancy that will not come, and will end in another baby being raised by strangers?
While talking to my baby brother two weeks ago, I was reminded about some of the things I learned during history about the former U.S.S.R. Parents were allowed to keep their children/child living with them until they were about 3, and then the government mandated that the children were taken by the state for the rest of their lives. The Communist government wanted unpolluted children to be able propagandize, and by becoming children of the state they took on the ideology of the state. I am not a sociologist, but I would bet that there is a new generation of parent that doesn't know any better than to send their child off to day care or government run programs for before and after school. There is a generation of institutionalized children who are entering the workforce and who are starting families. If the parents were institutionalized, why would they not give the same "care" to their offspring?
Currently, it is not normal to stay at home with your children, it has become a "privileged." Currently, it is not normal to stay in a marriage, divorce is rampant. Public school is the only school, and children are not to be seen in restaurants or in church. Children are to be hidden at home with a babysitter while Mom and Dad enjoy an evening out on the town.* They are whisked away to the nursery or Sunday school so as not to disturb anyone during a church meeting. Their parents hide them away or pay someone else to take care of what is a parent's responsibility.
I will admit that I did have a very hard time adjusting from a very handsome salary, to a paycheck-less existence, but everyday that I spend with my babies the dollar signs become a distant memory. I actually think that making the commitment to stay at home to raise your own offspring could be harder than being a working mom. Now don't freak out, just hear me out on this. Working moms get the children up in the morning and do those morning things that any SAH mom would do like getting breakfast ready, getting Husband out the door to work, getting herself ready and then packing the kids up to head out to day care. Drop the baby off to have someone else change diapers, wipe noses, feed, hold, put down for naps, read to, engage in activities, etc. while she goes to work and completely checks out of her baby's life. She might get to have lunch with co-workers, friends, or husband, and it is a completely child-free meal that she would get to have each day. Interacting with adults and earning that pay check to keep the baby at day care. She goes to pick up the baby and then head home to figure out what to make for dinner...if she cooks. She finally spends some time with her offspring and husband, but not for long, because getting up at 6 or earlier each day to get the offspring to a surrogate caretaker means that you all need to be in bed by a reasonable hour...8ish?
Why do women feel this pressure to earn money like a man when there is offspring involved? In the beginning, it was very difficult for me to give up that pay check, but I watched myself, in disgust, be so attached to the dollar sign and I became disgusted with myself! What did I really need to buy with that money? Why did I think that we needed to have that extra money? There is joy in having babies and there is an equal joy in taking care of their every want and need. There is a purpose in training and discipline and there is a point to passing on your ideology as a parent to your child. It is important, and why do we skirt around the issue of motherhood? Why is it some sort of hippie idea to do with less in order to fulfill the most important role that anyone on this earth can have? Being a mother.
If I was the dictator and dealing with our "economic crisis," I would decree that any dual income home that has offspring would be required to have one person stay at home to take care of the offspring and the dwelling of the family. We would have more jobs available, and offspring with the one-on-one contact that they need. I know that I am not a dictator, and I don't intend to be one. If it isn't obvious, I am not a feminist, so this is flying right up in the face of feminism. I am fine with women having an equal opportunity to pursue careers and life paths that do not include motherhood, however, for those women that choose to have offspring, take care of them! Why is it socially acceptable to abandon your children in the care of a complete stranger? What other mammal or animal would do such a thing to their very fragile and important brood?
Back at the park, our conversation didn't explode as much as I have in my own little space with my own ideas on Planet Joe. I could see how this sweet mother was very taken aback by my little burst. She understood, but I could tell that she didn't want to offend me or anyone else for that matter. So is it the chicken or the egg? What comes first? Since I still believe that people have choices to make, my next commentary to this unsuspecting housewife was how perplexed I am when a friend, acquaintance or family member is distressed about an infertility issue and yet they have no intention of taking care of their baby. Why is there stress over a pregnancy that will not come, and will end in another baby being raised by strangers?
While talking to my baby brother two weeks ago, I was reminded about some of the things I learned during history about the former U.S.S.R. Parents were allowed to keep their children/child living with them until they were about 3, and then the government mandated that the children were taken by the state for the rest of their lives. The Communist government wanted unpolluted children to be able propagandize, and by becoming children of the state they took on the ideology of the state. I am not a sociologist, but I would bet that there is a new generation of parent that doesn't know any better than to send their child off to day care or government run programs for before and after school. There is a generation of institutionalized children who are entering the workforce and who are starting families. If the parents were institutionalized, why would they not give the same "care" to their offspring?
Currently, it is not normal to stay at home with your children, it has become a "privileged." Currently, it is not normal to stay in a marriage, divorce is rampant. Public school is the only school, and children are not to be seen in restaurants or in church. Children are to be hidden at home with a babysitter while Mom and Dad enjoy an evening out on the town.* They are whisked away to the nursery or Sunday school so as not to disturb anyone during a church meeting. Their parents hide them away or pay someone else to take care of what is a parent's responsibility.
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Who is doing the training? Is it a teacher in a public institution? Is it a babysitter who supervises throughout the day without imparting knowledge and love that is from a mother or father? I know that this is a world view that I am up against, but I am not apologizing for being a mother. I do not find my self worth in a pay check, but by the laughter from my babies mouths and the singing from their lips. There is something very feminine about taking good care of a household. Instead of the bondage and servitude that has been associated with the role of a homemaker, I have found that there should be no shame or embarrassment in knowing that there is a Divine purpose in the role that God has given me.
*I am by no means opposed to date nights for parents. I hate hearing stories about parents sending children to day care and not seeing them until the next morning because after work the parents went out with friends while a babysitter picked up the children and put them to bed. It disgusts me when this behavior seems habitual.
Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Who is doing the training? Is it a teacher in a public institution? Is it a babysitter who supervises throughout the day without imparting knowledge and love that is from a mother or father? I know that this is a world view that I am up against, but I am not apologizing for being a mother. I do not find my self worth in a pay check, but by the laughter from my babies mouths and the singing from their lips. There is something very feminine about taking good care of a household. Instead of the bondage and servitude that has been associated with the role of a homemaker, I have found that there should be no shame or embarrassment in knowing that there is a Divine purpose in the role that God has given me.
*I am by no means opposed to date nights for parents. I hate hearing stories about parents sending children to day care and not seeing them until the next morning because after work the parents went out with friends while a babysitter picked up the children and put them to bed. It disgusts me when this behavior seems habitual.
