Working Mom vs Stay At Home Mom
Posted: Sunday, March 26, 2006
by Sharon Lauer
Simply The Best Baskets
A recent story on a nationally syndicated talk show brought to light a major struggle I have seen and live with among the women of our society. While most women long for a sisterhood among their fellow women and while most men already fear there is one, there exists a battle so intense it causes us peace loving, nurturing women to turn to our fellow sisters with claws drawn and teeth bared. I'm talking about the issue of the working mom versus the stay at home mom. Ah-hah, see, you flinched.
The women's movement changed the face of America as surely as the Civil War did. Women were encouraged to go out, "bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, never let you forget you're a man" (If you're too young to remember this, it's from an old perfume commercial). For many years women thrived under this encouragement. They became everything they wanted to be and they supported each other in their endeavors. They cheered each other on and rejoiced in the advances of women. It was a strong sisterhood. It was intense and it had a life of it's own.
Something terrible happened in the midst of that success. The primary role of women in days past became scorned. Those in the throes of the successful women's movement could not understand why a woman would lower herself and actually choose to be only a wife and mother. Women who stayed home to nurture their children and make their families their first priority became looked upon as oppressed, lazy, or lacking the intelligence needed for further advancement. Suddenly, in the span of 20 years the most important job in the world became a disgrace and a shame.
It's seems that this movement has now come full circle. Many women are finding that they no longer want to endure the daily battle of trying to find a balance between having a full time job and raising a happy family. Filled with stress and guilt from both of these important arenas in their life they are finding they are not happy and fulfilled in either. For some, they find that the successes of the boardroom do not come close to salving the wound of missing their child's first home run. So they make a tough decision. They go home. They raise happy families and everyone lives happily ever after. Not so.
Women have become their own worst enemies. Those that choose to work often look at stay at home moms as academically unchallenged and blind to the things they could become if only they had the ambition. They are seen as settling for the life they have and weak because they won't stand up and take more. I've even heard it said that they are traitors to the women's movement and have set it back decades. The other end of the spectrum can be just as judgmental. Some stay at home moms look at working moms as greedy and self centered. One wonders why a woman would have a child and then pay someone else to raise it. Their children are pitied and the time is counted until they become ax murderers and bank robbers.
We seem unable to accept that maybe both sides are right. Maybe it's because we both envy each other a little. As women we often strike back at things which make us feel inadequate and there is no other topic more able to make us feel that way than mothering. In an area where we are our own worst enemies, always questioning our every chore given and discipline meted out it is no wonder why we would crush the opposite camp which makes us feel all those things with blinding and frighteningly accurate blows.
I believe in these facts. No one can replace a mother. No mother who loves her child wants to be replaced. There are some bad mothers out there who never should have had children. A happy mom makes her children happy. A mom who stays home to raise her children and is constantly resentful and moody raises children who feel inadequate and unworthy. So maybe all moms shouldn't stay home and maybe all moms shouldn't work either.
While we would never let our children be categorized or labeled we have done the very same thing to ourselves. We have divided ourselves into two camps. While we would rather not admit it, each has it's best to give. Each loves its children. Each of us has our gifts and can offer unique things to our children. How nice it would be to support each other in our choices and help each other and our children to make their lives loving and complete. It's no less than what we ask our children to do every day. We ask them to have tolerance and compassion. Maybe some day we can grow to accept our differences and our strengths and weaknesses and work together so that all our children can flourish.
Sharon Lauer is the marketing director for www.simplythebestbaskets.com.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Very interesting article. I can see both sides of the story since I was a working mom for the first three years of my son's life but for the following three years I have been a stay at home mom. Was pregnant with my second child when I had became a stay at home mom. While being a working mom I was constantly feeling guilty about not beginning home with him and about having someone else care for him and get to share all of his milestones with him. I would feel bad when dropping him off at the sitter because sometimes he would cry for me not to go and I would feel jealous when picking him up because sometimes he would not want to come home, lol. But since I have been home I do feel bad that my husband is the only one of us earning money, and he makes sure to remind me that on a regular basis. And even though you'd think staying home instead of working would be much easier, well it has it's downfalls as well. For example since I have been home my husband treats me as a maid, where before he would actually clean up after himself. I will be returning back to work very soon (job hunting now) because we need more income coming into our household. But in my ideal situation I would stay home with my kids until they were both school age.
I didn't have a choice when my husband's injuries became a problem and kept him from having to work. I LOVED being a stay at home mom. Right now I'm working and I want OUT! The catch is my income is the only one sustaining this family right now as we battle long-term disabiltiy. We have 4 young children together ages 9 months to 6 1/2 years old. Sometimes I feel like mothers who are raising children in a Christian way and who volunteer/give back to the community, but are strained financially, should get some type of grant from the government. This is work. We are raising people who will influence your future as well and mothers who are positively doing a good job should be rewarded as well. Why not financially? We spend billions to destroy babies how about cutting that money and putting it towards women who choose to have and raise a healthy Christian family. And before anybody says anything about the separation of Church and State, Lincoln was Christian, Martin Luther King Jr. was Christian, and the majority of people in this country are Christians. Our laws are based on the Judeo-Christian beliefs and the whole world benefits from that. Mothers who want to raise their children should not be scored...only a selfish, unloved person would think that way, and what has selfishness gotten us so far in America?
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