something i read on chucklehut's blog this evening pissed me off.
bill and i married when we were 19 and 20. sometimes i think that it was because we were so young when we met that we avoided that power thing some couples experience. we knew each other as kids. we grew and experienced and planned together.
bill was between his junior and senior year in college when we married. i, on the other hand, had not had the choice of college. it was not an option, my parents dictated. ah well. i knew my time would come. so, i went to secretarial school. bill and i became engaged right after my high school graduation, and we planned that i would support him through the rest of college and whatever grad school there would be. then he would take his turn while i went to school.
i planned for a long time to go to school for an engineering degree. as soon as bill graduated from law school, i started. after avoiding pregnancy for many years, i became pregnant during my second year. a planned pregnancy. we decided that it would be easier / more flexible to start a family while i was in school. i vould take whatever time i needed to finish. there was no hurry, we decided. we wanted it all. i never, for one second, considered staying home and not finishing up and then working.
when i started to feel the physical effects of my pregnancy in january, i took an engineering co-op job and opted out of classes until after the baby was born. matt was due in june, and i planned to be back in school in the fall.
but in may, honest to god, it was may 5, 1981, that i was sitting in the lab at work. we were in the middle of an infrared spectroscopy computer presentation / training that our lab had purchased. i was happy to be off my feet at almost 8 months pregnant. i sat there, feeling and enjoying my baby's kicking; and in one instant, my life changed. i realized that i could not go back to school or work for the forseeable future. i wanted to be home with this baby. wtf? who the hell was i?
it scared the crap out of me. this "decision" just happened. i could only do what i felt i could do. and i just couldn't go back.
what would bill think? would he now look at me differently? would i? when i told bill that night, he was all like, "yeah, sure. whatever. cool." wha? could it be possible that i was not any less the feminist i believed i was, not any less of anything? that i was still just me? that whether i worked or went back to school or stayed home, i'd be the same person?
i wound up "staying home" for almost 20 years. i don't regret it for one second. i know there are many people who think i'm "less than" or at least not in the same league or universe as they are. that i'm not a feminist. that i couldn't possibly be. that i'm pedestrian. bourgeois. that's their problem. their insecurities. wanna have a contest? make my day.
if you don't allow or respect the choice for a woman -- or a man -- to stay home and be the full-time caregiver of their children, then you're no better than those who didn't allow a woman the choices they now have to have any career she chooses. and you're a fool.
Posted by Stacey at June 12, 2006 11:35 PMYOU GO GIRL! I live in an area where many people believe if you don't work a public job, you are lazy, and just don't want to work. To heck with that already! I have worked harder at being a wife, homemaker, and mom, than I ever have in any public job. This IS a full-time job. I have been unable to work a full-time public job for some time; simply because I have had to be on a different, more flexible, go at my own pace schedule. I know I have worked; and, worked hard! I have made a family for myself, a REAL home for my husband and daughter. I do work part-time now; meantime, at home, I am a full-time secretary, treasurer, cook, maid, lover, friend, mom, and pet caretaker. If more people would stay at home with their children during their young, impressionable years, we wouldn't need to have commercials about "The Family Table" because we would BE at the table with our family.
Posted by: Trace at June 13, 2006 12:24 AMI consider that I was fortunate to be able to be with my children as they were growing up. I used to child mind too. I've observed that there are some people who don't really care who looks after their kids. Our children are the most precious things we have. I still think it's important that women have a choice.
Posted by: Anji at June 13, 2006 04:49 AMI've known you for quite some time now and let me tell you there is no doubt that you are more accomplished, more interesting and more intelligent han most women I encounter in the workplace.
No.
Doubt.
I'll never understand why some people think you can't possibly be a feminist and choose to stay home with your children.
I am a feminist the way I am green-eyed. It's just a part of me and always has been. AND I stayed home with my child. Now that she is twelve, I look back and don't regret one second of it.
Posted by: moonandsun03 at June 13, 2006 12:17 PMI was a stay-at-home mom by choice. And I am not the least bit sorry. I loved it.
Now I work, and love that. I have a career that I really enjoy, and, unlike many others my age, am not burned out.
I think it's important to do what you love best. Children are young for such a short time. If you want to be home - do it. And if you want to work - do it.
Posted by: cassie-b at June 13, 2006 12:25 PMyou make a cogent point, very persuasively. But your head is screwed on pretty damn straight, too - you're not taking your cues from the television or the neighbors. Your kids had the benefit of you being there for them, but more than that - much more, in fact: that their parents were self-possessed and self-directed. No greater lesson can be conveyed, regardless what specific direction the parents choose to take. But nationwide so many moms are in a sysiphean struggle to perform so many functions at such high levels that, if they don't destroy themselves, they alienate their family. The american family has turned into a microcosm of societal anomie. We must look to people like you, Stacy, for our guidance out of this madness.
I'm so glad you read my blog! sorry for pissing you off!
Posted by: dan at June 13, 2006 01:19 PMHere here! You are so totally and completely right.
They love to make you feel small when they work and you don't. Correction. They love to try and make you feel small. I love to come here and get reassurance that I've done the right thing for the past 18 years when I have done what I have needed/wanted to do. Thank you for this brilliant piece. I have to go direct another writer this way. She needs to read here and get some reassurances of her own today. :)
Smooches, Stace.
Posted by: Keri at June 13, 2006 11:45 PMAll I know is that when I say something less than nice about SAHMs, it is jealousy pure and simple. Well, maybe not pure and simple, maybe all mixed up with sadness and regret and justification and reassurance and forgiveness for cheating my only child out of a home-for-him-all-the-time-good mama. I know in my heart if I coulda, I woulda.
Posted by: Vicki at June 15, 2006 10:22 AM