I cannot believe how much time has past since I last posted in this space. Krissy was thoughtful enough to send a search party and I talked to Nicole on Facebook, but for all intents and purposes I took a sabbatical from personal blogging.
So, what brought me out of retirement? You know something got my granny panties so twisted that I jumped onto my laptop. It's the the New York Times article about stay-at-home moms clawing their way back into the workforce because life at home raising the kids did not pan out for one reason or another (divorce, economic crisis). To me, the overall tone was that college-educated, professional women are kidding themselves if they think they'd be living a fairytale at home. You can roll up that newspaper and just fan the flames of the latest mommy war. I really don't know why moms re-entering the workforce is even a big deal. Why it should pit us against each other. Moms make family decisions based on what's best for their family at that time. It should go without saying that they can and will often change course. It's not a generational thing in my opinion.
The NY Times expose' comes on the heels of the August TIME Magazine article about couples who consciously chose to remain childless, which is now defined as "having it all." Got that? Having it all means double-income, no kids.
This is all in the wake of recent "news" coverage of moms who proudly display extended breastfeeding. The horror! Moms who admit they put their marriages first. For shame! And even a British mom who confessed she regrets having kids at all. Burn her at the stake!
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| By Denis Gustavo [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons |
The polite phrase is: hey, whatever works for her!
6 comments:
I agree. We never know what someone is going through or may have went through to feel this way.
LOL! DH and I were just discussing the TIME magazine article today. I missed the NY Times article, though I think I'm just going to let that one pass. As much as I am not like that mom who regrets having children, her article has really resonated with me ever since I read it after you posted about it. It really gave me some food for thought. Sometimes, reading about people who have the exact opposite opinion as I do is exactly what I need. To not question things is to get stuck in a rut. As long as the person is respectful in expressing their opinions, I enjoy reading opposing view points.
I read the NYT article (I think the whole thing but I've had a lot of interruptions recently). The feeling I got from it wasn't that these were unfulfilled moms - most seemed to speak of loving their time at home. I thought it was about the difficulties that they have when they decide it's time (unless they're upper class...). That's what made me most angry about the article, actually. It's like it can be so difficult to re-enter the workforce, but here's 100 examples of rich women who didn't have any trouble.. and one mom who has to live in a *gasp* town house!
We could do a better job supporting women's decisions!! Nice to see you back!
You're right Christa. None of the moms stated that they felt unfulfilled being SAHM. I inferred that from the overall tone of the article which made lots of references to them missing using their professional skills and intellectual capacity. I should have chosen better words. I rephrased that section of my blog post. :-)
Welcome back and excited to read your thoughts. The NYT article has been especially on my mind. There is an over-arching focus on materialism I see running rampant through many of these topics and "keeping up with the Joneses." Basically, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. Too bad all that extra energy about worrying what everyone else is doing can't be focused on improving our home environments and spurring political action to change the infrastructure so there are more choices available for families period. (and thank you to for stopping by my blog!)
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