The Mommy Wars

For many years, in my mind, my mom was an oxymoron. She was a feminist who told me often, “Sarah, you’re smart. Go to school, get a job, and then make enough money to pay someone to watch your children and mend your clothes and clean your house.”



She also stayed at home with me for the first nine years of my life, being room mother, cleaning house, ironing my father’s clothes every morning at 6:00am. My stay-at-home mother, who was of the generation who fought hard to get management level jobs while raising the kids, was always telling me that the job was key. I could have both, of course, the children and the job, but the job was key to not having to scrub bathroom floors, or vacuum in pearls.


The job was also key to not having to rely on someone, like a man, even if he is your husband.


Then, well, then I was raising a child on my own, without a husband, at the age of 16, with the odds stacked against me, and I just did what I needed to do. Work? Yeah, needed the cash. School? Sure, why the hell not? I would love to make more than minimum wage someday. I worked nights and weekends to avoid daycare and rocked a pumpkin seat in lecture halls, while taking notes or multiple choice exams. That was my attachment parenting self in action.


My mom had my back. There’s no two ways about that. She was my biggest fan, my cheerleader. I was trying to do it all, and in her mind, that was exactly how it should be.


I grew fierce. I defended my right to work and go to school, and be the best damn mother possible. I challenged people to try and categorize me or to look upon me disparagingly.


Then years later, I dated, and got married, and still poor, we did what we needed to do. Work? Yup. Masters degree to earn a better salary? Sure, I’ve taken night classes before.


Of course I had personal interests in what type of career I would have. I was also academically interested in the idea of self-actualization, and Dewey’s concept of positive freedom in a democracy, and all of that. I dreamed (and still do) about getting a PhD, and researching and writing, and sharing knowledge.


I’ve worked towards that for the past thirteen years. Every day. Actively. It hasn’t stopped me from cleaning the bathroom or folding the laundry, however.


There’s a lot of back and forth in our society today about the different roles of women. Damomma wrote a blog post today concerning the battle between the two major stereotypes. You see a lot of this on the Mommy blogs. Which one is right? How do you know which one is right for you? Why does each keep going head to head with the other?


Damomma, of course, takes the stance that neither stereotype is right, and that is why she is my blog hero!


Sometimes I get frustrated because I really wonder exactly how many families there are, especially now, who have the available resources to consider this somewhat esoteric question. I honestly think that most families out there, right now, are not thinking about the ramifications of ‘to work or not to work’. I think most couples with children sit around every evening, thinking about what needs to be done, whether that involves work or laundry or paying the bills or caring for a parent.


Is it like the talking heads/pundits we sometimes see on 24 hours news channels that really have nothing of value to say, but want to be in the mix of it all? Is this just a small, but vocal minority, who is fighting it out in the blogosphere?


And then sometimes I get riled up because I read some Mommy blogs from SAHMs who revel in their personal choice to stay home with the children, and everyone venerates them, and it makes me feel as if the undercurrent is that my choice to work is WRONG. That I must be power hungry, or not adequately parenting my children, or any other thing. That I am MISSING OUT.


Not that it’s about getting done what needs to be done. Or that perhaps this is how I actualize my potential and share it with the world. Or that I can be a good mom and vested in my children’s development while still working 9-5.


And then, recently, sometimes I consider what it would have been like to stay home full time. I can’t really see it for me, and that makes me feel guilty. How can even come close to passing ‘judgment ‘on a SAHM when I have no idea what she goes through?


The point of all this rambling, I suppose, it that I think this whole argument should just fade away. Why don’t we just do what we need to do, actualize the different potentials that were gifted to us, and leave everyone else be? Why do we measure and judge? Why do I even consider that what is right for you is wrong? All I am entitled to is the idea that what is right for you may not be right for me, and nothing more!


I realize now that my mom was not pushing her own personal agenda upon me (although I wondered at times). She was a good mom because she KNEW me. She could read me; she could see the person I would grow up to be. She pushed me in the ways I needed to be pushed, so that I would not stagnate. And then she focused on herself, as well. I think this is the most admirable thing a mother can do for her child. Know them. Push them—not in a krispy way—to develop to who they want to be. And push yourself. You are not a martyr. You are a human, and you are here for a reason. Whether you are here to be a mother, a professional, a free spirit, anything, it doesn’t matter. Be who you are supposed to be, and make that possible for your children.