I am having a really tough time these days deciding where I can do the most meaningful work in my life. On one side, I believe nothing is more important than raising my kid(s) well, but on the other side, if I used those same skills outside of the house, I might impact many lives in a positive way.
I believe that the apparent state of anomie we live in can be traced to the fact that most children today were raised in child care, where overworked caretakers left them unattended and half-neglected while they dealt with too many other children. They saw their parents for an hour or two a day, being fed processed food from parents too exhausted from working to take much interest in them or their health because they were too busy trying to survive. The result? Oversexualized, overmedicated youths that are raised on television and act like it.
I was lucky enough to have a SAHM, but most my life I looked down on her for having so little ambition and having jobs, but never a career. Perhaps because I always saw her place as in the home, I remember spending my childhood thinking that women could not make music, were never funny in t.v. and movies, and should just stay out of politics. I remember resenting Hilary for bossing Bill around and for not understanding her "place" as we watched her completely remake the roll of the first woman from tea party hostess to feminist activist.
I grew up and realized I was a woman, and I slowly figured out when I didn't think women could or should achieve things in life, that didn't just apply to other women, that applied to me as well. I went into college and was told by everyone that I could be WHATEVER I wanted to be. And it was true. Unfortunately, adult life doesn't mean I get to be EVERYTHING I want to be, I had to make choices and decide whatever it was that I wanted to be. All through college and my pregnancy I knew that what mattered most to me was the my child see me working and know that both of it's parents were capable of working and supporting our family.
That lasted until I went back to work after the baby. It was a disaster. I hated our childcare provider, I REALLY hated paying her money I earned at a job I hated so she could have the job I wanted. I was exhausted, my husband was exhausted. The baby became terribly clingy. I got mastitis. I hated pumping boob milk. The house was a disaster and we were living off of McDonald's. In all of the time before I went back to work, it had never really sunk in that all of the time I spent at work was time I was not home taking care of my family. I quit.
I miss working (outside of the house). Or, more accurately, I miss the feelings of worth I got from working. And even though I always said a kid is happier living in a family where their mom is happy rather than martyring herself for her kid (who needs that kind of guilt) but even though I miss work, I don't feel like it is the right choice for me or my family right now. I like raising my daughter. I like getting to see all of her firsts. I like being the one who reads stories to her, sings songs with her, and takes her to playgroups. I like full-assing being a mom rather than half-assing teaching and mom-ing. I'm prioritizing. Yes, I miss work, but not as much as I would miss raising my daughter and I thank whatever-God-there-is every day that my husband and I are lucky enough to be able to be with her and raise her ourselves.
Both of my parents were lucky enough to grow up with SAHMs in a society where SAHMs were the norm. But they also grew up in a society where women achieved very little outside of the house. Was that society better or worse than today's? Children got their needs met by their moms, but their moms had little to no other identity. Which is more important? Children growing up loved and cared for, or children growing up in a world where all adults have a chance to be successful? Can children grow into successful adults if they grow up without parents?
My grandma died in her 50s. An exceptionally bright and attractive women, could she have been CEO of a company, a congresswoman, or created an nation-changing NPO? And, would those contributions have been more important than the contributions she made to my family, its land, and our town by staying home and taking care of my dad, his siblings, her husband, their house and her volunteer work?
I love watching Tina Fey and Amy Poehler redefine comedy. I feel like they are the first women to prove me wrong when I claimed "women aren't funny" when I was younger. But I also know they have each had babies at the same time I have. And I wonder: are my contributions as valued as theirs? And to who? To my daughter they probably are, whether she ever realizes it or not. To the world she is going to grow up in? No. Am I okay with that? I don't know.
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