Mothers & the Workplace: Parenting is a full-time job

While our overall theme is women in the workforce, this post will be focused on the underrated and possibly most difficult job a woman can have: mothering.

My mom has a really hard job, and she didn't earn a degree for it. She does have a degree in special education and taught for four years before my sister came along and she decided she wanted to stay at home to raise her kid(s). For the first 19 years of my sister's life, and the first 16 years of mine, parenting was my mom's full-time job, and let me just say, we did not make her job easy.

On paper, my family is "normal." My dad has always worked full-time to bring home the bacon while my mom has run the household and her daughters since we were born. I have, on occasion, taunted my mother about Dad having the job, so our money is really his money, she's just a mom (I'm not proud of this). In reality, I think full-time parenting is one of the hardest jobs a person can hold (major props to my mom, because I know I was am a pretty difficult child. If my mom made a resume touting her housewife/parenting skills and experience, it would include these things:

• Organization: keeping calendars, appointments, checkbooks, and children in line.

• Timeliness: getting children and self where and when needed. Stays on top of check-ups, times of sports games, college due dates, etc.

• Housekeeping: keeps house in shape (save for younger daughter's impossibly messy room), and laundry queen

• Cooking: baking is to die for; savvy in the kitchen, providing delicious home-cooked meals for many years

• Personality: positive, outgoing, loving, giving, extremely hardworking, fun, selfless

Honestly, full-time parenting isn't just one job, it's many. And it's hugely important. Raising kids is a huge responsibility because not only are parents responsible for the child's wellbeing, they also have a huge role in who their children become - what kind of people they grow to be. Outside influences and the children's interior nature also shape them, but parents are no doubt a part of this.

Now, all of this probably sounds simply like an ode to my mother, or an encouragement to all mothers to stay at home, or a criticism of mothers who have paying jobs or of women who don't have kids. This is not those things. My mom wanted to stay at home with us, and we were fortunate enough that she was able to do that while we could keep a roof over our heads and food on our table. I understand some families can't afford this. I also understand some women don't want this. If I have kids, I plan on continuing whatever career I may have. Also, now that we're older, my mom has started working part-time and loves her job. I recognize that it doesn't have to be either or - being a mom or having a career. 

My intent here is simply to shine a spotlight on the unrecognized job of many women: mothering. 

It takes a special person to be a full-time mother. Michelle Goldberg discusses her in article "To breed or not to breed" the realities of motherhood. Goldberg writes:

The vague pleasures I sometimes associate with having children are either distant or abstract. Other women say they feel a yearning for motherhood like a physical ache. I don't know what they're talking about. The daily depredations of child rearing, though, seem so viscerally real that my stomach tightens when I ponder them. A child, after all, can't be treated as a fantasy projection of my imagined self. He or she would be another person with needs and desires that I would be tethered to for decades. And everything about meeting those needs fills me with horror. Not just the diapers and the shrieking, the penury and career stagnation, but the parts that maternally minded friends of mine actually look forward to: the wearying grammar school theatrical performances. Hours spent on the playground when I'd rather be reading novels. Parent-teacher conferences. Birthday parties. Ugly primary-colored plastic toys littering my home. 

Maybe it's because I'm only 18, but right now, I agree with her. The illusion of parenting is so appealing: having a cute, round, pink baby whose natural baby smell is intoxicating and whose gurgles would put an instant smile on my face. I've lived this illusion when my cousins & aunts have had kids. Every time I see a brand new babe, I want one. Then my logical and, honestly, selfish side kicks in and my brain tells me finish college first, find someone to have the kid with, then maybe you can have one. But just as enamored as I've been with my baby cousins when they're born, I'm equally as annoyed with them when they get older. At family parties or when I babysit a number of my kid cousins, I get so easily frustrated with their constant need for my attention, their ability to purposefully push my buttons, and the exhaustion that comes along with taking care of them.

I know I'm not really a kid anymore, but I'm for sure not ready for any of my own. Thinking into the very distant future, I think having kids would be fulfilling and bring a lot of love into my life. But I am still selfish enough to loathe what kids come with: messes, arguments, trivial tasks and errands that I don't want to be bothered with, etc. I mean, I don't even like taking care of myself by making food or doing laundry. Goldberg mentions that her "maternally minded friends" look forward to the trivial stuff. As a careless college student, I hate to think about yelling at my imaginary future children about cleaning their rooms or doing their homework, but perhaps over time, the longing I feel when I see newborns will develop into a liking for kids of all ages.

My point is that while motherhood is appealing to some, it is dreaded by others. And even if you love every dirty, gritty, tedious part of parenting, it can still be taxing. Being a full-time parent is a heavy job that is very admirable for a parent to take on.

In this article from Huffington Post, "Yes, We Do Need a New Word for 'Stay-At-Home Moms,'" the author Lisa Belkin asks, should we even call these women Stay At Home Mothers? Why is there such a distinction between women whose work is raising their children and women who work in an office, school, etc.? Belkin writes that what we call mothers and women, working or not, "simultaneously reflects and alters the way we perceive them."

Belkin says, "I would suggest that a replacement term has to meet two criteria. First, that it apply to men as well as women. Second, that it include those who are parents and those who are not. Our social ideal should be a work/life paradigm where everyone shapes a career that includes times where we work full-throttle and times when we ratchet back, and our words should be consistent with that."

Though social perception is perhaps more important than language, I do think the labels we place on mothers and women affect how they are viewed. There is a whole social debate about terms like "slut" and "whore" but what about "stay at home mothers" and "working mothers"? Why are there such stigmas surrounding mothers whose work is raising kids? Is this not a valid option for women?

The women's movement seems to have moved as far away from the image of the 1950s stay-at-home mother as possible. We now want to be seen as strong, capable, independent. We want jobs and don't want to be judged if we put work before family? If we want equality with men in the workforce, why does it suddenly seem as if we don't view women who choose family over work as equal? Yes, stay-at-home mothering is a stereotype related to the 1950s housewife, but was it not a legitimate option then? Is it not a legitimate option now?

The 2003 movie "Mona Lisa Smile," starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, and Julia Stiles, is set in 1953 New York at the prestigious all-girls Wellesley College. Roberts portrays Katherine Watson, a new teacher hoping to break her conservative students out of their traditional life plans to get a high-quality college education only to later create a family and become a housewife. In one scene, when Watson (Roberts) is trying to encourage one of her brightest students, Joan Brandwyn (Stiles), to postpone the married life in order to go to law school, the following conversation occurs:

Katherine Watson: But you don't have to choose! 

Joan Brandwyn: No, I have to. I want a home, I want a family! That's not something I'll sacrifice. 

Katherine Watson: No one's asking you to sacrifice that, Joan. I just want you to understand that you can do both. 

Joan Brandwyn: Do you think I'll wake up one morning and regret not being a lawyer? 

Katherine Watson: Yes, I'm afraid that you will. 

Joan Brandwyn: Not as much as I'd regret not having a family, not being there to raise them. I know exactly what I'm doing and it doesn't make me any less smart...You stand in class and tell us to look beyond the image, but you don't. To you a housewife is someone who sold her soul for a center hall colonial. She has no depth, no intellect, no interests. You're the one who said I could do anything I wanted. This is what I want. 

Does choosing to forego or take a break from a career make a mother any less of a woman? No. Does continuing to work after having children make a woman any less of a mother? No. And should women/mothers look at women/mothers as less than or inferior to because of their choices? Absolutely not.

So cheers to the moms who do it all: the parenting, the cooking, the cleaning, the bills, the laundry, the sports games, the piano recitals, the worrying, the planning, the yelling, the soothing, and the loving.

- Erin Davoran


Sources:
"To breed or not to breed": http://www.salon.com/2003/05/06/breeding/ (Blackboard)
"Yes, We Do Need a New Word for 'Stay-At-Home' Moms": http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/27/we-need-a-new-word-for-sahm_n_2966251.html?utm_hp_ref=working-mothers
"Mona Lisa Smile" quotes: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304415/quotes?item=qt0508407