All Things Hold Together

Today, I was talking about home management to my husband and he remarked that running a home is harder than going to work.

Don’t I know it.

I have been on both sides of the mommy wars and there is unequivocally no doubt that what I do now is much more work than putting the kids in daycare and working a full-time job was. And I was a single mom when I did that!

I take it as a given that people know how much work home keeping and homeschooling are, but remarkably to me, Bob said that there is still the perception out there that the housewife sits at home eating bon-bons and watching soaps all day! As if!

Then he told me about something one of his co-workers said about his wife today.

(Read full post)

Apparently, this guy’s wife makes more than he does. She’s not a housewife (obviously). Anyway, she was home sick and called him at work. She was lying on the floor sick and the kids were going nuts all around her. She asked if he could come home and help out.

As he was leaving, he remarked to Bob that since she makes more than he does, it makes sense for him to go home, so she could get better, but if she was a housewife, he would just stay at work.

Can you imagine?

Fortunately for me, Bob understands that my worth is not based on how much money I bring home. He doesn’t hesitate to take the day off if I need him to. In fact, I usually have to convince him to go to work when I am sick because he wants to stay home so I can rest. (Really, it is not that he just doesn’t like to go to work. He rarely stays home for himself.)

The housewife - especially the one home with children full-time - has a demanding job. How is it that this myth of the woman who sits around all day is still alive? Where did it even come from? Is it a product of the women’s liberation movement that portrayed homemaking as unfulfilling and unrewarding, even demeaning?

I wonder. Because in my world, being a housewife is not only rewarding and fulfilling, but is certainly not for the faint of heart. I can think of nothing else that I have ever done that was a greater test of what I am made of and what I am capable of.

Besides, we all know that if someone paid us for what we do, we would make more than all of our husbands. Not that our worth is based on how much money we make.

Today is Little E’s fourth birthday! I can’t believe that my baby is four.

That’s a picture from this morning, in the Spiderman costume he lives in.

Last night, I was getting kind of emotional about my last baby growing up. I felt the same way when Big E was this age. But then I became pregnant with Little E late that year, so it wasn’t as bad.

This time I know that I will not be having any more children, so I think it is harder.

That got me wondering about families that have lots of babies. Does a mother ever get her baby fill to the point that when the last one gets older she does not want another one, or is it always this hard? I wonder.

One thing I am really tired of hearing is that choosing to stay at home is a luxury most women do not have.

Don’t get me wrong, if someone wants to work, or if a couple decides that maintaining a certain lifestyle - one that requires two incomes - is more important to them than having one parent stay at home, that is their prerogative. I am not about to get into a debate about which one is better. It’s not my job to decide that for everyone else.

I will put my foot down, though, when people insist on spreading the lie that only the well-to-do have the opportunity to stay at home. It’s just not true.

In my case, we are fortunate that my husband has been with the same company for over eight years, so now his income is slightly above the median income for our state (though it is below the median income for a household), but we are by no means well off. Then there’s the fact that he has maxed out the salary range for his position, but that’s another topic altogether.

Five years ago, when I pulled my kids out of daycare to stay at home with them, I remember one mother saying, “I wish I could afford to stay at home,” as she leaned on her brand new car.

Perhaps if she didn’t live in a $400,000 home, take yearly vacations (real vacations, not the kind we take when we go camp in a Vermont state park), and buy new cars, she could afford to stay at home.

I am not begrudging her the opportunity to have all those nice things - I would love to have some of those nice things - I just don’t like to listen to people imply that I am somehow lucky that I get to stay home, like I have some kind of special privilege or trust fund, or something.

Am I lucky that I get to drive a 15-year-old car that Bob’s mother gave me when she bought a new car? Actually, I am lucky that I got a free car that was well maintained.

Am I lucky when I get to eat pasta (sans meat) for the fourth day in a row because we had an unexpected expense come up? Okay, again, actually I am lucky because I get to eat it with homemade bread.

Okay, I have to stop here because I am very blessed to have what I do have and I am not going to get into complaining about what I don’t have.

My point is that most of the people who would say that I am lucky to be able to stay home, would not think I was so lucky if they had to give up the things that need to be given up in order to live on one modest income these days.

The reason this myth - that one must be financially well off to stay at home - irritates me so much is that it prevents women who want to stay at home from making that choice. If people believe that staying at home is reserved for the rich, most women will think it is our of their reach.

Ideally, if a couple feels like they would like to have one parent at home, when they have kids, it is important to plan for it. Don’t get caught in the two-income trap. Learn how to live on one income while you still have two and save the other one.

It isn’t necessary to start out that way, but I’m sure it makes it easier. Not that I know. We did it the hard way.

There are lots of resources out there on how to live on one income.

There are online resources, communities, blogs - like Life. On a Budget. (about a “homeschooling family that lives on less than $22K a year in an area that costs above 100% (116%) of the National CoL Index”) - and books, such as, Living Well on One Income: In a Two-Income World.

There is no reason for any family to think that they cannot afford to have one parent stay at home, if that is what they think would be the best thing for their family.

Don’t let anyone tell you different.

Dana from Principled Discovery had a very insightful post up the other day called Finding Purpose.

She concludes,

I think the feminist movement has denied a good deal of what it is to be a woman by denying the innate desire to be home, raising children. But I also think the church has done the same by denying her desire to work. In reality, the desire to labor productively and to rear children are two halves to the same person. I think this plays out differently for each person, but I truly believe the key for battling some of the depression and anxiety that frequently accompanies the decision to stay home with children is found in recognizing God’s plan.

This got me thinking about my own experience with being a stay-at-home mom. For me, it has been an ongoing search to find that perfect balance between raising my children and being productive.

Sometimes, I swing too far in the direction of taking care of my kids. I forget that I need to feed that part of my being that is teeming with creative energy and yearning to make a contribution - aside from raising three (hopefully) decent and productive members of society, as important as that is.

Other times, I go off in the opposite direction and forget that the reason I am here, and not sitting at a desk in some office building somewhere, is that I have three kids to raise, care for and educate.

I think that is what happened when I was focusing too much on She’s Right, and why I needed to set that aside.

One thing I now realize, though, is that there never will be that perfect balance between caring for the children and other purposeful work because that line changes like the passing of the seasons.

Right now, for example, there are some things that need tending to with the boys. They need almost constant attention, while we help them process through some difficulties.

But this too shall pass and there will be a time, hopefully soon, God willing, that I am able to focus more on my other pursuits.

Even so, I do tend to fill my days with useful labor, such as making food from scratch, making soap, and working in our vegetable garden, rather than mindless entertainment that can lead to the lack of purpose and depression that Dana was alluding to in her post, and I think that has made a difference in the way I feel about just being a stay-at-home mom.

(Bad language alert: first paragraph and blockquote)

I was reading this post called, “10 Things That Piss Me Off About Blogging,” and one of them was:

2. Stay at home moms who are constantly bitching about being a stay at home mom. I’ve been a working mom, a stay at home mom, and a work at home mom. IT IS NOT THAT FUCKING HARD.

Yeah, that bugs me, too. Not the occasional gripe - we all have those days - but the constant complainers that leave you wondering why they ever had kids, and why they don’t just go back to work.

I’ll tell you what bugs me equally as much, though. Working mothers who constantly complain that the world does not revolve around making it easier for them to work and have kids.

Before the working moms beat me up, I never had this gripe more than I did when I was a working mom. It drove me crazy. I was like, “Why on earth did you have kids in the first place if you want to be at work all day and have someone else raise them?”

I was always one of those crazy women who would take a lower paying job with less hours, so I could have my kids in daycare the least amount of time, but that’s just me. I could never relate to the moms who would complain when they had to take a day off for a school vacation. Heaven forbid they spend a day with their children.

I guess we are all different. Women, that is. I always wanted to stay home with my kids, but circumstances dictated that I work. (I was a single mom until 5 years ago when Bob and I married.)

My issue is with women who will not own their choices. If you want kids, don’t complain that you have to take care of them and society won’t do it for you so you can fulfill your other ambitions.

This rant was prompted by our newspaper’s mom blog, Moms Blog Best, which they printed an excerpt from in the paper. The post is called “Generational Discord,” dated Thursday, Jun 14. You have to scroll to get to it because the permalink does not work.

I don’t want to get into a line-by-line response to the whole post, but the entire thing was just plain irritating to me.

Basically, the writer throws out an example of a mom who wanted more maternity leave, while maintaining job security, as justification for her anxiety over summer childcare for her school-aged children.

Red herring, anyone?

And when her mom said that she chose to have children, she responds by implying that the human race would die off if she - and other working moms - didn’t have children.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Don’t get me wrong. It is fine with me if women want to work. I just get tired of people who don’t own their life choices and take responsibility for them. That goes for all moms - working, stay-at-home, or other.

If you stay-at-home, don’t constantly complain about it, as Vodkarella so eloquently pointed out.

If you work, don’t constantly complain about it. The rest of the world is not here to make it possible for you to be a superwoman.

(Hat tip for the “10 Things” post: PHAT Mommy)

In celebration of Mother’s Day, I want to tell you about a way to win prizes for sharing about your days as a mother.

It’s this thing called In the Motherhood. Leah Remini stars in a series of webisodes about the trials and tribulations of being a mother. The cool thing is that real mothers submit their real life stories to be used for the scripts.

You can join in and read the stories submitted by mothers and vote on your favorite. If your story is included in the final script, you win a fantastic prize pack.

I am going to have an ad for it in the sidebar, if you want to check it out.

Here’s the scoop:

This is a couple of days old, but I just had to comment on this New York Times Op-Ed piece by Linda Hirshman, titled ever so subtly, “Off to Work She Should Go.” Come on, tell us what you really think women should do with their own lives.

Basically, Hirshman was able to deny that more women wanted to stay at home to raise their children by convincing herself that it was only due to the recession. Now there is a study out showing that even though the recession is over, those women are still stay-at-homes.

In order to save herself from cognitive dissonance, she has invented a new explanation: women are not working because it would put their family into a higher tax bracket. Yeah. That’s it.

Her conclusion is a call to action:

Labor statistics are always couched in such dry language, but it reveals a powerful reality: working mothers, rich and poor, struggle with their competing commitments. Now that we have seen the reality, it is time to address it.

Interestingly, addressing it for her does not mean creating a world that supports a woman in the life that she chooses as best for herself and her family. In her mind, a woman only stays at home because the hurdles blocking her from what she really wants - to work - are too high.

I have to laugh at this. Just recently we were having a bit of a problem with our oldest son respecting my authority. He was challenging me when my husband was not home. Bob and I talked about what we were going to do if I could not regain control over him. He suggested that I to go to work so he can stay home. With the degree and skill set I have, and the drive, I could probably earn as much as he does, if I went back to work, he suggested. Although, we have no way to know if that is true.

The funny thing is, when I did start to get things back under control here at home, he let me know that the invitation is still open. He would not mind trying the homeschool dad role, while I go back to work. Here I have an open opportunity to get back into the working world, but I do not want any part of it.

One thing that struck me when I was reading this is that women who work actually need women who stay home. The quality of schools and child care programs is only as good as the parents who can volunteer to make them the best place possible.

That doesn’t really apply to me, obviously, since I homeschool.

I thought the Mommy Wars were supposed to be over. We women were supposed to respect each other’s choices.

I guess that only applies to those of us on the stay-at-home side.

There’s no respect in this line:

Should we care if women leave the work force? Yes, because participation in public life allows women to use their talents and to powerfully affect society.

Really? I can think of no job that will allow me to more powerfully affect society than I can by raising the next generation with the values that are lacking in our society today.

But that’s just me.