I have a bad habit of clicking on posts like this that show up in my feed from people I don't particularly hang out with, and it does nothing but get me riled up. This one really got my goat, though, perhaps because for the past few months I've been struggling with the language that people use when they talk about motherhood. The author writes this commentary from the starting point that our culture looks down on those who have children. Let's put aside arguments about proof (she has none), or logic (none here, either), or the religious views she touts (a can of worms for another day), or the quality of the writing (I'm pretty good at reading comprehension, but this article doesn't just flow poorly, it reads like an RC car at the hands of a two year old), and just look at the language.
Motherhood, she claims, "isn't a hobby, it's a calling." She implies that society sees motherhood as a "rock-bottom job". (emphasis added) There's a lot of conflict for me in how people refer to parenting. Women (and men) who choose to stay at home frequently identify their career as that of a homemaker, or stay-at-home parent. I get that. Referring to parenting as a career is a way of getting other people to take your choice to stay home seriously. Feminists in the 80s considered it the height of womanhood to do it all: career, family, & personal lives. Now there seems to be a strange dichotomy among women, though. Women who stay home feel judged for not working, but women who choose to go to work get judged in a different way. I feel very strongly that women (and men) shouldn't be judged for choosing to stay home with their children, and yet referring to it as a job makes it sound as if I'm not doing mine. I love being at home with Atticus, but I'm excited about returning to the classroom this fall. And yet: when I spoke of my decision to other women at my school, several of them said the same thing to me: "If you can stay home with him, why won't you?"
If women who choose to stay home shouldn't have to justify their decision to the masses, why should I have to justify my decision to work? Atticus will be just as well off in child care as at home with me (which research continues to support), I love my job, and I don't see motherhood as my career. Being a mother is who I am, it's part of my life, it's not what I do.
