This barf-inducing letter from a working mom to a stay-at-home mom was doing the rounds of social media recently. Some choice quotes:
"Dear Stay at Home Mom
Some people have been questioning what you do at home all day... I admire your infinite patience, your ability to face each day cheerfully and bring joy into your children's life even when they wear you down..."
and
"Dear Working Mom...
I know that when you are at work you don't waste a single minute. I know you eat lunch at your desk, you don't go out for coffee and you show complete dedication and concentration to your job..."
Of course. Motherhood is martyrdom, no matter what kind of mother you are!
As the currently non-earning-on-a-kind-of-sabbatical-and-parenting (the phrase 'stay-at-home-mom' gives me the dry heaves) member of our household, obviously I have a lot of time on my hands to while away on Twitter and Facebook, getting annoyed about things.
"Dear Stay at Home Mom
Some people have been questioning what you do at home all day... I admire your infinite patience, your ability to face each day cheerfully and bring joy into your children's life even when they wear you down..."
and
"Dear Working Mom...
I know that when you are at work you don't waste a single minute. I know you eat lunch at your desk, you don't go out for coffee and you show complete dedication and concentration to your job..."
Of course. Motherhood is martyrdom, no matter what kind of mother you are!
As the currently non-earning-on-a-kind-of-sabbatical-and-parenting (the phrase 'stay-at-home-mom' gives me the dry heaves) member of our household, obviously I have a lot of time on my hands to while away on Twitter and Facebook, getting annoyed about things.
Life as a CNEOAKOSP person is actually pretty sweet. When I'm not sipping a grande half-fat decaf vanilla latte in Starbucks or working out in pilates class clad head-to-toe in Lulu Lemon, I spend my time judging working parents, sneering at their daycare-raised spawn and admiring my martyr-like countenance in the mirror.
It's not that I think I'm perfect. I just know that I personally made better choices for me and my family, you see. And I don't need to earn money for holidays and cars because I'll get my reward in heaven. Wherever heaven for atheists might be (Richard Dawkins' living room?).
It's not that I think I'm perfect. I just know that I personally made better choices for me and my family, you see. And I don't need to earn money for holidays and cars because I'll get my reward in heaven. Wherever heaven for atheists might be (Richard Dawkins' living room?).
Seriously though, why do we have to label each other as SAHMs or WOHMs or even CNEOAKOSPs? These days it's pretty rare for anyone to be either a working or stay-at-home parent completely. The role of 'housewife', outside of reality TV, is largely a thing of the past.
Most parents only go down the stay-at-home route for a few short years while their children are babies or in preschool, at most. Many working parents will take career breaks from time to time, if they can afford to, or will switch to part-time hours or opt to work from home, if they can, too.
A whole host of women who call themselves SAHMs are in fact community volunteers, writers, bloggers, activists and educators who just happen to not have much of a pay check to go with the work that they do.
So why assume that WOHMs or SAHMs are some kind of species coming from different planets who need to reach out to one another or who judge one another for their choices?
'Choice' is a misleading word anyway. As parents, we are operating within a pretty limited range of choices to begin with. Most of the non-earning parents that I know are out of the workplace for practical reasons. Childcare is too expensive or their former employer didn't support flexible hours or they moved to support their spouse's career and haven't been able to maintain their own or whatever.
Most parents only go down the stay-at-home route for a few short years while their children are babies or in preschool, at most. Many working parents will take career breaks from time to time, if they can afford to, or will switch to part-time hours or opt to work from home, if they can, too.
A whole host of women who call themselves SAHMs are in fact community volunteers, writers, bloggers, activists and educators who just happen to not have much of a pay check to go with the work that they do.
So why assume that WOHMs or SAHMs are some kind of species coming from different planets who need to reach out to one another or who judge one another for their choices?
'Choice' is a misleading word anyway. As parents, we are operating within a pretty limited range of choices to begin with. Most of the non-earning parents that I know are out of the workplace for practical reasons. Childcare is too expensive or their former employer didn't support flexible hours or they moved to support their spouse's career and haven't been able to maintain their own or whatever.
Very few SAHMs that I know have made their decision for ideological reasons, out of some activist 'choice'. The few that did and that emphatically say they want to be hands-on for their children's early years are usually teachers or social workers by profession and so have a professional interest in child development already.
Mostly though, it's just about the practicalities of life. Working mothers run the gamut from high-powered executives with full-time nannies to struggling single parents working two jobs on minimum wage and leaving their kids with relatives to make ends meet.
Stay-at-home mothers run the gamut from high-powered corporate wives with live-in nannies and endless charity lunch dates to women in low-income households cutting coupons and trying to stretch a tiny income because their own income doesn't cover childcare.
Mostly though, it's just about the practicalities of life. Working mothers run the gamut from high-powered executives with full-time nannies to struggling single parents working two jobs on minimum wage and leaving their kids with relatives to make ends meet.
Stay-at-home mothers run the gamut from high-powered corporate wives with live-in nannies and endless charity lunch dates to women in low-income households cutting coupons and trying to stretch a tiny income because their own income doesn't cover childcare.
I've seen all sides of the debate and only a tiny number of people I know are working because of some feminist ideology or staying home because of some conservative ideology. So why stick labels on one another? It would be much more productive to have a discussion about why choices for parents are so limited in the first place.
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