OH lordy.
It all started this morning on Facebook when a friend of mine mentioned that he did the cover for the March issue of the prairie dog, and i so i wandered over to check it out and also read the cover article - which touches on feminism and Stay-at-Home parenting...
As a result of the first friend's update another friend of mine stated in her status update that she was a member of the Opt-Out generation, referring to that article:
“There’s been this great anxiety around what the media is calling the Opt-Out Generation,” she explains. “We have all these women who’ve benefitted from feminism or benefitted from the women’s movement, and benefitted from changes in American social institutions and cultural institutions. Benefitted from it in terms of being able to go to school, go to university, be successful, get great jobs. There they are in their mid-30s and they’re lawyers and they’re doctors, and then they try to manage that with family. And a lot of women are choosing family."
Now, i just think it's unfair that if a woman chooses to stay at home, she gets labeled 'opting out'. It just sounds so derogatory... like they're letting the rest of us down. So i said as much to her;
and we had a lovely conversation, as she was just beginning to make the move from all the time at home to beginning a part time job - and how it can be tricky to balance the guilt of wanting some 'me time' and not being with the kids 24/7. So i offered up my experiences leaving Chewie at daycare and how i still feel the guilt, and the mixed emotions, and it's been almost a year! it was nice.
unfortunatley, as is wont to happen on public forums such as facebook - someone had to jump in and hijack the conversation - and it became this all out war of sorts... the SAHM vs the Women Who Chose Careers... it left a bad taste in my mouth.
It felt a little like getting my wrist slapped for being such a bad mother for putting my kid in daycare...
she said, and i quote:
i'm a SAHM and I wouldn't trade it for the world. To think of someone else raising my babies, just make me quiver. I think that if you're gonna have a baby (with a few exceptions) you should be fully prepared to stay home and take care of it. mother or father. having a child is a responsibility, and to many people have their babies and then toss them over to a daycare and then down the line wonder where they went wrong!gah!?
it really just steamed my dumpling.
i talked about this a little in my previous post about owning my parenting stylez - WHY do women feel the need to act and or feel superior to other women, especially regarding parenting?? i know that we all have strong feelings about our parenting styles, because we all love our children. But there has to be some allowance that other people's styles are okay too!
My financial situation dictates that in order for us to keep our mortgage paid, our utilities paid, food in our cupboards and, most importantly, our awesome health benefits (mine are better than b-rad's) i need to continue to work. When someone has the sheer audacity to imply that i'm an irresponsible parent because of this fact, is pure and utter bullshit. I do not love Chewie any less than SAHM's love their kids because he is in daycare.
Please don't get me wrong, though. There is nothing i would love more than to be able to spend my days with my little guy, but for right now, i can't. Why this person felt the need to barge in and call me down, i don't know. Maybe she secretly wishes she wasn't a SAHM and is trying to make herself feel better? i'll never know, because she's just some random person who, after i post this, will have no other effect on my life...whatsoever.
What about you guys?? have you run into this problem before?? how did you deal with it. I Can't we all just agree that we're all just doing the best we can? Afterall, i don't remember pushing a "How To" Manual out with the placenta - but then Chewie was early, maybe that happens in the 8/9th month??
