Look Dude, let me start by saying that I like your words.
I’ve been a fan, for real.
Let’s also have it be known that when I saw the quote the Huffington Post highlighted from your recent article, I actually gasped out loud I thought it was such a beautiful tribute to your wife; a mother’s love.
Reading this passage won my instant support; I shared the link across my social media channels without even feeling a need to proofread content.
I thought you had my back dude; I thought you stood behind the value of Mothers.
The problem, apparently, is that I’m a working Mother. The problem, noticeably, is that you don’t think that I do the noble things aforementioned. My problem, totally, is that you neglected to credit the investment, effort, influence, and little-people-making-power that all loving Mothers give; possess.
Nope, in toting off about the irreplaceable Mother role your wife owns it turns out you also executed a (not so) silent argument against what kind of value my Mother role holds. It’s true. Your ode-to-stay-at-home-Mothers implies that Moms who work out of the home don’t do royal devotion too. Well, you’re trippin’; we do. I do it well.
I hate to call you out man, but those ladies you ran in to weren’t the only ones acting “rude, pompous and smug”. You also need a lesson in manners.
After all, I too immerse myself “in the tiring, thankless, profoundly important job of raising children”. I also live and breathe the “beautiful and complicated and challenging and terrifying and painful and joyous and essential” task of making humans (quality ones). I haven’t quit motherhood because I am employed and I haven’t stopped mothering because I am at work. I am not a reject or a sometimes Mother. I do both; I do it all.
I’m a dress up “professional” who will be up by 5am hustling my ass from daybreak to sunset both nurturing my children’s spirits and maintaining excellence in my career.
It doesn’t make me better, but women who stay at home full time aren’t better than me either.
And, rest assured, I come across my fair share of condescending and patronizing remarks from women who are at home. More than your wife I bet. And now that your love letter has gone viral, I’ll be victim to be even more unsolicited comments.
As it was, stay at home Mothers regularly asked about my life as a working Mom only to proceed without genuine interest and a combo infusion of shock and pity. Because I am not at home full time, alarming comments have been made about our life, our choices, and our deal.
“I just couldn’t put my kids in a daycare / I think it’s my responsibility to parent my own children / I just don’t know how you do it / Your son goes to daycare? Poor baby! / How much time do you spend with him? / How do you know you can trust the childcare provider? / Don’t you just wish you could stay home with him? /You choose your career? / I stay at home to give my children the best / Don’t you miss him? / My job title is Mother now / I didn’t go back to work until my children were old enough to manage without me / I just don’t want to miss any of their growing up, they are only young once / It’s not just the cost of daycare, but the cost of my children not having me around / All those different priorities! For me, it’s easy: my family comes first / It just seems so unnatural to give them to someone else to take care of / I would worry too much about mine / I just can’t justify paying someone to raise my children / My family is my work now / I just find with taking care of my kids well, there isn’t enough time to work / We can’t really afford for me to be at home, but it’s the right thing to do, so we get by / I sometimes don’t want to be at home but it seems so selfish to work / I’m just not comfortable handing my children to a stranger / I’m a full time Mom”
I kid you not.
You think your wife’s got it bad because people are interested in whether she has a return to work plan?
Sorry man, I win.
I can’t begin to tell you how may times an innocent conversation ends up being a public shaming; when the dialogue inevitably shifts to why they are or were stay at home. Why the choices they made are better informed than mine. Why their set up is healthier. Why they are better Moms.
I try to remain curious when I feel as though I am being patronized, judged, or used as an example of how not to be. I try to be patient, assume that the conversation has nothing to do with me, and hope that they are simply defending their script. I hold my head up and try not to get rattled by what I think they might be saying about what kind of person or mother I am.
And then, your piece.
Your piece wasn’t “quietly presumptuous and subversively condescending”. Your piece was bold; a loud defence for stay at home Moms that quietly assaulted the contributions of working mothers; what we don’t give our kids. I don’t need to question whether your stance has something to do with me. It did.
My mothering is my business and out of respect for the other mothers, I just go ahead and trust that they are doing what works for them; their families.
I don’t ask women about if or why they are a stay at home. I don’t tell them all the reasons I’m not. I don’t care to find retaliations to the statements made about women like me or the inferences implied about my children’s experience as a result. I don’t go ahead and expose what I may perceive some of the stay at home flaws to be for children; for “civilization”.
I don’t think I invite these conversations, and I can’t remember starting any of them. I know I don’t engage all that readily, and I try to ignore them into submission and hope they go away.
I try to be considerate of how personal, and frankly, political, our differences are and for the sake of not offending anyone, I just don’t go there.
I don’t go public with my opinion. I wish you would have done the same.