I've been avoiding using this phrase, but I couldn't hold out any longer: Mommy Wars. I’m referring, of course, to the alleged battle between stay-at-home moms and working moms tipped off by Lisa Belkin's 2003 NYT article about professional mothers choosing not to work.
Since then there have been books for work (Get to Work: . . . And Get a Life, Before It's Too Late), against work (In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms), and neutral (Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families). I hate this publishing meme for myriad reasons, but the most substantial: the war only includes educated women holding or abandoning positions of power or creative careers. What about the baristas? The Target clerks? The civil servants? The discussion is decidedly slanted towards tenure-track, but I’m living in an adjunct’s world. [For an snappy take on this deficit in the debate, check out Sandra Tsing Loh's 2008 Atlantic piece: "I Choose My Choice!".]
The Motherf**cking Mommy Wars don't have anything to do with me because I don't exactly have a high-powered career to abandon. Alas, my masters in professional writing is no Harvard MBA. I’m not being asked to choose between 80 hours a week of grueling but gratifying lawyering and ever seeing my baby. In fact, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t get a job right now if I tried.
I say power to the working moms AND power to the stay-at-home moms. But honestly? My baby’s only three-months-old and I’m getting a little bored staying home and the preponderance of mommy blogs (holla!) suggest that I’m not the only one.
I go on walks every day, sometimes for an hour or two at a time. I attend a few different mothers’ groups. I play peek-a-boo and I keep a decent, not immaculate, home. I listen to NPR while I do chores so that I can stay in touch with current events and I read as much as I can. I'm not lacking intellectual stimulation and I don't resent my baby. I’m not jealous of my husband for having a job because I don’t want to be apart from my baby for as long as he has to be (and also, work: eh). I don’t wish I were a lawyer and I don’t long for a nanny.
But I’m just a little bit bored. And poor.
So what’s a mom to do? Thoughts?
jjk
P.S. I called my husband, Alden, at work and asked, "Remember when Homer got that job and Marge was bored because the appliances were, like, really efficient? Can you send me a pic?" And he did. Based on that. Awesome.
6 comments:
Is the focus of the Mommy Wars on high-prestige, higher salary jobs simply because for many baristas, clerks, or government employees there is no dilemma because there is no choice?
Today, Michelle Obama gave a speech to the Corporate Voices of Working Families about the plight of working parents and how the balance of raising kids and working just is not there any longer.
"When I look back on my childhood and the life that my parents provided, working-class folks with not a lot of money, my father was a blue-collar city worker who worked a shift job," she said. "But because he earned enough as a shift worker without a college degree, he could still support a family of four on that salary. And because he could, with that salary, support us -- we rented a home, we didn't live lavishly -- my mother was able to stay at home. She could afford to make the choice not to go to work while we were growing up. That was how families balanced back then."
oh...
My timestamps show that there was less than a two minute window from answering the phone to identifying the exact episode and having the image in your hands. Scary.
God, I love Michelle Obama. I think I'm going to start writing her fan mail ("Dear Michelle, I never thought I'd write one of these but...") I would add to what she's saying that even when women can stay home (usually causing financial distress) there's no cultural matrix to support that decision. The proverbial damned if you do and damned if you don't.
First of all, I like this post a lot. It went to my heart.
Brief tangent for perspective: in my history, the "Mommy Wars" seemed way more intense when I had young babies than they do to me know (kids aged 5 and 7). One reason (methinks) is that people start to know themselves and chill the f*ck out a bit as their kids grow. Because honestly? I have never met as many judgmental ladies (I initially typed "bitches") as moms to new babies. Seriously. It's understandable though, if you think about it; I have come to believe the Mommy-judgment (and helllllooo? Where are dads on all these issues?) is the flip side of the existential "who-am-I" coin that I went through when I had a baby. I remember being intensely aware of other people's choices and feeling hyperaware of identity / WAHM / SAHM, etc. discussions. These days I am far, far more secure in my choices and though I love a discussion, I don't feel the sense of angst around the issues. As for lifestyle choices, most of my friends - if not all? - have made different ones specifically with regard to kid-care; fine by me.
Another reason (methinks) Mommy Wars dissipated in my support community (though the battle online and in the media will rage on and on) is that while people can be stressed about daycare / nannies / etc. when their children are small, most people accept school (public usually, or private) as "acceptable" and most people put their kids in school, freeing up the second person in the household (if there is one) to take a job.
The above is just my perspective; my personal and anecdotal history.
OK, so, you wrote, "What's a mom to do?" I just want to say: I was bored, antsy, and LONELY when I had my first baby. I kept a good house and cleaned us all up and carted the baby here and there. What I mostly remember is TOTAL FREAKING BOREDOM. I just want to tell you that just because you're bored now does not mean staying at home isn't your calling. It is definitely mine; and yes I had a career, and I wasn't all that nurturing, and truth be told I had this little bias back in the day that said working as an engineer was more important than being an at-home fat lazy housewife.
I could write a lot more about my experience and why I'm so happy to be at home with kids; however my post is talky and stalky enough as is.
Final tangent: I love that quote by Michelle Obama. My family of four has worked very hard to live in the single-income way and we are so glad we did; we do not see this decision supported often. Not so much by other people we know, but by our culture. It's very typical and normal for people to have two incomes, but as Admiral Ackbar says, "It's a trap!" (nerdy Star Wars link to follow):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddAi8FF3F4
I for one am glad we avoided the two-income life although yeah yeah, we're a little poor.
Kelly -- I'm so glad to hear that other moms get bored. Sometimes I'm totally overwhelmed, don't get me wrong. But I spend a lot of time climbing the walls over here. I'm glad to have the opportunity to go back to work for 4 months, see how I feel about it, and then either look for more work or enter into SAHM/WAHMing. I think I'll feel a lot better about when Bea is old enough for craft projects, games, reading, learning, etc. Right now we just have tummy time and jumperoo time and I play a lot of sorority life on facebook. And yeah, I'm more or less resigned to never be a homeowner, but that's cool. I'd rather be able to spend time with my lady.
I liked having 2 kids better because I didn't have to think of what to *do* - the way I did with my first. With baby #2 I was just out in the world doing stuff, and my secondborn was on my hip the whole time. This was great, and if only I'd lived that way with the first kiddo!
So you know, just drop another one, it'll all be good. (TOTALLY kidding there!)
Oh, you joke, but the day Bea popped out I was like, "MORE!" When I bought a jog stroller I made sure it had a jump seat. I'm not quite ready yet, but I don't plan on waiting too long. Two under two is fine by me.
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