What is one of the most effective ways in which the woman’s movement was split early on? By culling out the domestics. You might know them as SAHMs [Stay at home moms] and Housewives.
The last few years have been tumultuous in this country for everyone, and as a result it has a lot of folks rethinking how they want to live their lives, how they want to allocate their resources. How do you make a good life? How do you define a good life?
Some women like myself, have gone back into the home, and much to the chagrin of other women, we have taken up the roles of mothers and wives, without necessarily taking on an outside job. And from the reactions I have seen in the world—this scares the hell out of some women. They seem to be under the impression that if one woman chooses domesticity [for whatever reason] that they [women] will all be forced to follow her [my example].
So the reactions after that point have been unfortunate. What this tells me is that there is an unofficial policy that states, that if you don’t get a paycheck, then your job isn’t “real.” Being a Wife and Mother ---no one pays you for those jobs, in money. The *payoff is far off in the distant future. Successful, well adjusted children and a family with mostly happy memories—those are your payoffs. Notice that dollar amounts aren’t directly popping up into this product?
It’s ironic. People who can afford to pay a woman to do these jobs call them maids and nannies. They make an honest living. But to do this for free for your own family, then you are setting a bad example and you are pushing women back into the slave days of the pre-Suffragette movement!
It never occurs to some of these geniuses, that the Suffragettes were mostly wives and mothers.
What has happened is that unpaid domestic services [what is traditionally referred to as women’s work] are no longer considered directly valuable in and of itself--unless of course it doesn’t get done. At which point you are neglecting your children and will be judged accordingly. But so long as you do this job it has no positive value. It has no visibility. And if these are your only jobs, then you are invisible too.
Until we women value the hard work of mothering and home making, no one else will. Because women will and have been setting that precedent, it is a self inflicted wound, totally unnecessary and stupid to boot.
For me, it was a very tough decision to make. One that I have stuck with for the past decade. If you had asked me in my early 20s if I would ever be a SAHM, I would have laughed in your face. When Hillary Clinton made that snarky remark about not being a cookie baker—I totally got it at the time. YEA!
Then reality hit. I am not Ms Clinton. I did not have the resources she has. And I had to make my decisions regarding how our family would be run based on those limited resources we had available. I became *gasp! The Cookie Baker!
It was a tough transition. I don’t like doing housework. I don’t care for cooking or changing poopy diapers or reading board books. But I did those things, because they needed to be done. Perhaps I benefited in some form from my military experience. You learn that you can hate the task sometimes, but that shouldn’t stop you from completing said task to the best of your abilities. The job has to be done, now get it done!
But there was another obstacle. It was unexpected. It was the longest crow eating banquet I have ever had the displeasure of consuming. I swallowed my pride and became the *cookie baker. That was hard. But the rest of the world isn’t so accepting of these domestic roles that I inhabit. And that was when I learned the real reason Why women wanted to escape domesticity.
It wasn’t the jobs themselves, that sucked so bad. It was the smug mistreatment by others who were just sure you did these jobs, because you were incapable of anything else. Somewhere in their shrunken little heads, they had convinced themselves that it was okay to dismiss anything I or any other SAHM had to say, because only stupid, willfully ignorant, uneducated female will stay at home ON PURPOSE!
If I worked as a maid or nanny—I would have been respected more. Oh sure I would still be looked down upon for working a job that didn’t *require a college education—but at least I had money to prove my innate worth as a human being!
But as a SAHM—I was giving it away. And as an “ignorant uneducated” SAHM, I should have no say in any matter of importance.
Pre-Suffragette movement: Women almost exclusively inhabited the domestic sphere. Their world was the kitchen, the bedroom, and the nursery. They were pigeonholed and it was assumed that they could KNOW nothing else. So men blocked women’s ability to participate in society and government in any meaningful capacity, using the excuse that women were cloistered domestic servants.
So women’s response: Okay I get it! I run away from the domestic work that [still] needs to be done, and get a “real” job [as opposed to that fake domestic job] and then I can have a vote, and an opinion, and pay taxes, and have freedom too!
Meanwhile, the work still needs to be done. This is something women wrestled with over and over—see “the problem that has no name.” Limiting women’s role to the domestic sphere cut their intellectual development off at the knees. And for really intelligent, driven women, this is a fate worse than death. What they wanted to accomplish was placed in direct opposition to the pre-approved role. It didn’t have to be that way, and women could have changed that, but for some reason that escapes me, they didn’t.
Enter the *Mommy Wars, which is in my experience, totally contrived, and yet another prop used to split the women’s movement by pitting moms who also work outside the home against moms who work inside the home against each other for status and recognition. What a load of bullshit! So much for Every mother is a working mother.
Instead of sticking together and showing a unified front to forces that are genuinely trying to take our rights away—we are at each other’s throats, often to the cheers and jeers of the press, who loves nothing more than girl on girl violence.
I chose to stay at home with my kids because I felt, given the current circumstances in this country regarding education that it was necessary. I felt it was more important for me to raise my kids myself and be their global tour guide. {another very long story}.
I perceive that our society has gotten too complicated. That people have lost their time and their freedoms to the corporations they work for. That people make money, but they have precious little time to really enjoy it, to enjoy their families or to just be. By living on one income we are protesting this complicated mess that tears families apart and provides no benefits to society [unless you count conspicuous consumption].
What ever happened to the Good Life? A job is not a life. It’s important, but you had an independent identity before that job. Just like I did before I became a mother. And that identity is still here. I am still here. You don’t have to disappear into these other worlds; you don’t have to loose yourself, unless you want to.
But it helps if you don’t have other people trying to push you into that gravity well, trying to make you invisible. It’s a lot nicer if you don’t have to fight the zombie hordes every day just to see the sun and remember your own name.
I do the dishes. I vacuum the floors, I fold clothes. And yet, this does not cause my brain cells to leak out my ears—though some days it may feel like it. The monotony can be a bit much. But it’s no worse than the monotony at other jobs I have held in the public sector. And when I decided to stay at home, I didn’t suddenly forget my higher education. I didn’t suddenly stop educating myself. While staying at home can be a transformative experience, I assure you that it won’t turn you into Phyllis Schafely or Michelle Bachman, if you weren’t so inclined from the beginning. I feel like I should post a photo entitled “See! No Brindle Fly Hairs!”
And just because I stay at home, doesn’t mean you have to. It doesn’t mean I judge your style of mothering or any of that. This is my choice given my circumstances. I respect yours, so why not respect mine. Why not trust that I have a worthy goal in mind, that I have my reasons.
I would also add this: When you reject SAHMs out of hand like that, you are wasting a resource. The NeoCons have figured this out and they make good use of their SAHMs, but the Left side of the aisle?-- not so much.
People will do and say things in front of me that they would never do or say in front of someone they perceive as a professional woman. I am invisible to them with my children hanging on my hem. I have the perfect disguise; it’s so good that even you don’t see it.
I too observe things. I too follow the news and I write letters. I can even at times attend protests and most importantly this Cookie Baker, Votes.
Now here is what I would like to see:
NO MORE MOMMY WARS! We should be supportive of each other. Choice is a lot more than about reproductive options. Being the author of your own destiny is a big fat honking choice. We should honor that for all women. And we should extend that support to all Primary Care Givers regardless of gender, and that especially includes the sandwich generation!
No More War on SAHMS by [other] Feminists. Staying at home doesn’t equate to the automatic loss of the feminist card. This is my choice, your choice may be different. I am working on my own projects and my own life. Making me feel as if I have to have an outside paying job on top of my domestic job is just as reprehensible and harmful as when others make me feel bad, as if work outside the home equals neglect of my children. You don’t have to *get where I am coming from, just honor my choice and my freedoms—the same as I honor and defend yours!
I want to see the Feminist Community Embrace the causes that women are fighting in the Birth Industry. I want access to contraceptives, abortions, OBGYNs, Cancer screenings, fertility treatments, Independent Midwives, Breast Feeding Coaches, Doulas, VBACs, Home Birth, Hospital Birth, and Free Standing Birth Centers. I want all the options on the table for all women, so they can make the best and most suitable choices for whatever they need in their reproductive lives! Motherhood is important! Parenthood is important! We could be so much more supportive of women who are pregnant or who have children. Why aren’t we?
I want to see the Progressives and Liberals in general, get smart! Stop letting the NeoCons frame the debate and co-opt entire lifestyles and choices as if they and only they have a right to SAHMs, homeschoolers, the military, to be religious or spiritual, define morality, or find value in people who don’t have a college education. Why let them [the NeoCons] have all the fun? Why do we keep allowing them to drive us apart with contrived wedge issues based on classism or life style choices. Why throw potential people [resources] away based on those qualities or habits? What sense does that make?
Lets change all of this to: Every Parent is a Working Parent. We have a tremendous opportunity to show the opposition what genuine women friendly, child friendly, and family friendly policy looks like.
We have a tremendous opportunity to beat them at their own game.