Today I was staring at my 4 page long project list and thinking of all the people who aren't as smart as I am who make way more money and don't have half the stress. Then I realized that they really are smarter than me - because they figured out how to skate through life while I was issued a shovel and a bucket and boots - and that bugged me even more. So it's time for a random spin around the blogworld, visiting people who cheer me up by being smart and funny and snarky and having either cute pets or kids. I got as far as Amalah and got stalled when my cranky mood and the contents of her comments created the perfect bitchstorm.
My daughter introduced me to Amalah and her adorable family about a year ago, before the babalah was hatched. I think I mentioned the shit she had to endure from strangers on the Internet when she went back to work, and how it pissed me off. So now she has the opportunity to go freelance and she's taking it, and those who reviled her are now happy because she is going to be "a stay at home mommy!" She has seen the error of her mothering ways and has given up working! Well, no, not really, she's going to be working freelance from home with a baby at home, and that's going to be harder than going to the office, but only some of the commenters have been down that path and GOT it. I'm excited for her because I think she's a talented voice and she should be making her own money off her talent, not making money for a corporate entity. And I wish her the best on her new professional venture. But it was remarkable to read through the comments on the last few posts and see how many SAHMs were delighted that she gave up that working nonsense and is going to sit around watching Noah pick up Cheerios, because God forbid you miss a single O by, oh, earning money to pay for them. The first wave of posts congratulated her on taking the plunge as a freelancer - then the tone changed and it was "Yay for you for quitting work!" Apparently freelancing doesn't count as work?
If I could pay my bills and have health insurance as a consultant/freelance person, I'd do it tomorrow, and my kids are grown. So would every man I know.
I also loved her touching story of the day care ladies' reaction to Noah's departure - and that photo at the end! Too precious! Then the comments - especially the ones about how the day care ladies were faking, shouldn't have made her feel guilty (by loving her child!) And the mommy wars were on again. I followed the link from one of the lucid voices and met a fellow Floridian: Jonniker, and how did I not find her before? I know, wrong demographic - I came into blogging in the knitblogger world and there I have pretty much stayed. I need to keep reading this one.
I'm so glad we didn't have Mommy Wars on the Internet when I was raising my kids. I can't remember hearing crap from anybody about working. My daughter drove past her old day care a few months ago and began to wax nostalgic about daycare and the teachers and the things they did - and she remembers what day of the week was devoted to which activity, and I could hear the happiness of those memories when she talked about it. Through the years the day care arrangements changed - for several years my husband was a work from the home dad - he was able to work from the house and occasionally hauled a kid to a customer site with him. They enjoyed that too. They came to work with me now and then, and even got paid to help out once in a while - I'm surprised my daughter still wants to go to law school, I thought the hours of making copies and assembling exhibits to an appeal when she was around 11 would have gotten that out of her system.
Why do I care about this issue, when my baby is almost 23? Because I have a daughter who wants to go to law school and possibly spawn as well (and a son - and it's indirectly his issue too). And every time I read these blogs with these nice young working moms being beat up for daring to want to continue to earn an income and have an identity beyond Mommy, it pisses me off. The Mommy Wars reduce the choices to Stay At Home - Good Mommy! and Work - BAD Mommy! They don't address the possibilities of Daddy working from home, Mommy working from home, job sharing, part timing, freelancing, consulting, and all the other ways MEN AND WOMEN can combine parenting and having a life and identity beyond their offspring. I know it's real because I know many, many people who do it and don't think it's a big deal. I've worked with female attorneys with three school-aged kids, and male attorneys who brought their kids to the office on days off school.
And of course the Demonizing of Daycare is a big factor here - never mind that there are corporations even here in Right To Work State that offer fab on-site facilities to help retain good employees, places where mom can pop in to breastfeed and dad can go eat lunch with a preschooler, oh, no, All Daycare is BAD!!!
Until we shift this discussion to "How do we help PARENTS combine work and family?" and quit this Mommy Wars bullshit, we are not going to make real progress to finding solutions. And THAT is a women's issue, and it's inflicted on them by other women.
people like dr laura piss me off. i AM my kids' mom, even though i work. and how exactly did she earn that degree? between the morning nap and the afternoon walk? bullshit. she had to devote full-time energy to it. goddamned bitch (sorry, dr laura pisses me off). i'm in an interesting stage of my life as far as mommy wars go: liam is 13 & sean is 11. almost too old for daycare. and i'm ETERNALLY grateful to the daycare i use right now, because they work with me, and haven't kicked my son out, like a couple of daycares have (he's adhd, ocd & odd, makes for a tough kid to love). the director CARES about how her kids turn out, and work with the parents. i'd be lost without her. if it weren't for the fact that i'm quitting my job in september, after mark & i are married, to pursue my fibery dream (maybe i can spin some silk or linen for ya, lol), sean would stay at that daycare.
ReplyDeletewhat unmitigated crap. who gives a damn WHO takes care of the child, as long as it's done properly, and the parents are involved? ask my sons' teachers how often we visit them/email them/call them. sounds like involvement to me.
sorry, this is a HUGE pet peeve
A-freaking-MEN, but you knew that already.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm seriously so flattered that you were so kind. And I, too, am a knitter, though I don't talk about it too much.
And I'm happy to find a fellow Floridian. I'm new here, and struggling to adjust. :)
The thing that irks me is the implication your kid will turn out to be a crack addict or in jail unless they are parented 24-7.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as someone who had a lot of nannies and babysitters, and who was responsible from the age of 10 on for looking after myself and my younger brothers until Mom was home from work, I resent that. I resent the hell out of it. If anything, my brothers and I are much more independent because we were made responsible for things much earlier in life.
I often point this out to morons who start ranting about how children shouldn't be in daycare.
dragon knitter - Dr. Laura would be a joke if there weren't so many stupid women (and some men) who take that hypocritical bitch seriously.
ReplyDeleteJust a tiny snip from Wikipedia:
"Schlessinger's current advocacy of high moral standards is often contrasted by critics with her past, given that
she is divorced
she dated a married man with three children, who, subsequently, left his wife for her
she posed nude for a boyfriend/supervisor when she was in her 20s, who in 1998 posted the pictures on the Internet. [10]
she converted to Orthodox Judaism and then left it two years later.
she was estranged from her now-deceased mother
she remains estranged from her sister" and on and on it goes.
All those conservative harpies are alike, they got advanced degrees and make six figure incomes themselves and are vague about who raised THEIR kids (if they bothered to have any), while preaching that a woman's true fulfillment comes from wiping asses and cleaning toilets. And some women actually listen to them - which baffles me.
Dr Laura's advanced degree is not in Psychology. This is directly off her website:
ReplyDeleteEDUCATION
BS, Biological Sciences, SUNY Stonybrook, Long Island, NY
MS, M Phil, Ph.D. (Physiology), Columbia University (College of Physicians and Surgeons), NY
Post-Doctoral Certification in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling, Human Relations Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Licensed Marriage, Family and Child Counselor (MFCC), California, formerly in private practice for 12 years
Past member of the Biological Sciences faculty of the University of Southern California (five years) and the graduate Psychology faculty of Pepperdine University (eight years)
It's in physiology. There's a reason she is no longer in private practice!
I think the people who call her just want to get yelled at.
It's so important for women to, not only make decisions based on sound, fact-based information, but also to trust those decisions and the events that follow. Nobody knows what you need better than you.
A subject dear to my heart, I find it odd that people in general have a hard time accepting the fact that what is right for one person or family isn't right for another person or family. Sometimes doing whats best for your children involves a mom who leaves the house every day; sometimes for the money, sometimes for the sanity. Sometimes doing what's best for your children IS putting them in daycare where they are learning, socializing, and being loved; sometimes it isn't.
ReplyDeleteI swear that my childrens' needs always come first, and in doing that sometimes it appears that they come second. I've missed a few school functions and I've missed out on checking homework every single night when I've been working instead. But my job helps provide the income to ensure that we live in a good neighborhood, that my children have the opportunity to attend the schools that are best for them, that we have a reliable car, decent health insurance, can pay for necessary dental work, and that we can afford to enjoy time together doing something other than watching television.
Oh HELL yeah!
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'm not even a mommy (and won't adopt for another 2-3 years) but this crap pisses me off. Especially since I've been seeing my friends getting that SAHM-pressure from their relatives lately, now that they are all breeding. Personally, I think people are naturally devisive, if we don't have something to argue about then we implode or something. Used to be religion and ethnicity (still is in some places) now it's life choices, I expect arguments about bottled water vs tap water in a few years. "You let your child drink TAP water?! I'm calling Child Services right now!"
Don't even get people started on the spanking vs not-spanking thing. That argument gets a thousand times uglier than SAH vs $Work$
- Auntie M
Auntie M - I agree about the divisiveness - that's what irks me about the way the "War" is conducted. Happy Working Mommies must be lying! It's a no win for them - in the War, you can't really be happy and your kids can't be fine, you're kidding yourself and your life really sucks and you're ruining your children! To a mother of a young child, without the perspective that kids tend to turn out just fine either way, it's really demoralizing and just plain mean.
ReplyDeleteAmalah got sniped at by a few bitches for telling the story of the loving, caring day care ladies -"They pretended to like your kid." I've worked in a male-intensive environment for many years, and they DO talk about family things all the time, and I have never heard this sort of nasty judgmental shit from a man about someone else's parenting.
It's simple, don't have kids unless you can stay home with them. Otherwise you turn out F*cked up kids who will turn out the same.
ReplyDelete