I have been wanting to blog on Judith Warner’s article in Newsweek, Mommy Madness that Peony mentioned before, for some time now. But I have this baby that will not let me put him down, and kids and life and stuff. Not only that but Greg Popcak beat me to the punch when he said:
But as I read the article above, I realized that “Perfect Madness” is not about being a perfect mom. Its about trying to look like a perfect mom to everybody else. Books like this blame motherhood for a problem that has nothing to do with motherhood. Rather, the problem described by Perfect Madness has everything to do with the idea that “my identity is tied up in getting the approval of my peers for how much I can accomplish.” That’s not motherhood, boys and girls. That’s secular feminism. Or, to be perfectly Catholic about it, its just the plain old sin of pride riding aroud in an SUV.
I know it’s lame to say “I meant to say that”, but I was thinking the same thing. Oh well, Greg words it better than I ever could.
Like Greg, it took me a bit to put my finger on exactly what bothered me about this article. I know I am somewhat of a zealot when it comes to my “I’m my kids’ Mom” philosphy. I guess that’s a symptom of being the daughter of a deacon developmental psychologist whose research focused on Daycare Syndrome and Absent Father Syndromeat one point.
So, when I put my militant SAHMism aside and tried to read the article with an open mind, there were some points I agreed with. For example:
Some of the mothers appeared to have lost nearly all sense of themselves as adult women. They dressed in kids’ clothes—overall shorts and go-anywhere sandals. They ate kids’ foods. They were so depleted by the affection and care they lavished upon their small children that they had no energy left, not just for sex, but for feeling like a sexual being. “That part of my life is completely dead,” a working mother of two told me. “I don’t even miss it. It feels like it belongs to another life. Like I was another person.”
I am sure we can all relate to that. Also being a SAHM is very, very lonely. Many women attempt to thwart lonliness by attending Mom’s playgroups and whatnot or simply going back to work. Ms. Warner thinks the problem is a lack in decent daycare or preschools:
We need incentives like tax subsidies to encourage corporations to adopt family-friendly policies.
We need government-mandated child care standards and quality controls that can remove the fear and dread many working mothers feel when they leave their children with others.
We need flexible, affordable, locally available, high-quality part-time day care so that stay-at-home moms can get a life of their own. This shouldn’t, these days, be such a pipe dream. After all, in his State of the Union message, President Bush reaffirmed his support of (which, one assumes, includes support of funding for) “faith-based and community groups.” I lived in France before moving to Washington, and there, my elder daughter attended two wonderful, affordable, top-quality part-time pre-schools, which were essentially meant to give stay-at-home moms a helping hand. One was run by a neighborhood co-op and the other by a Catholic organization. Government subsidies kept tuition rates low. A sliding scale of fees brought some diversity. Government standards meant that the staffers were all trained in the proper care of young children. My then 18-month-old daughter painted and heard stories and ate cookies for the sum total in fees of about $150 a month. (This solution may be French—but do we have to bash it?)
We need new initiatives to make it possible for mothers to work part-time (something most mothers say they want to do) by creating vouchers or bigger tax credits to make child care more affordable, by making health insurance available and affordable for part-time workers and by generally making life less expensive and stressful for middle-class families so that mothers (and fathers) could work less without risking their children’s financial future. Or even, if they felt the need, could stay home with their children for a while.
In general, we need to alleviate the economic pressures that currently make so many families’ lives so high-pressured, through progressive tax policies that would transfer our nation’s wealth back to the middle class. So that mothers and fathers could stop running like lunatics, and start spending real quality—and quantity—time with their children. And so that motherhood could stop being the awful burden it is for so many women today and instead become something more like a joy.
I don’t agree. Not that even I in my total philosophy that mothers should stay home and take care of their kids have a problem with toddlers being at preschool a couple of mornings a week. But part of the problem is being a SAHM is no longer the norm. For example, my mother lives in the suburbs. When I visit and decide to take a walk around the development, it is like a ghost town. Everyone is at work during the day. When you go to a Mom’s group, you literally have to seek out bizarre like minded, extreme SAHM people as opposed to just seeing mothers and their children around. Families are no longer together to help. Even when some of us live closer to each other, for example, my mother-in-law was never a SAHM, so there is little back up and support there either. The average extended family is not the support system it used to be.
Not only is physical/emotional support for Moms whaning, motherhood is simply not respected.
Neither do we need to pat the backs of working mothers, or “reward” moms who stay at home, or “valorize” motherhood, generally, by acknowledging that it’s “the toughest job in the world.”
Actually we do need that. Not as a mission statement, but as a culture. we need an appreciation that motherhood is hard work and that if you support and appreciate healthy, happy mothers, you are supporting the next generation. Motherhood is seen as something that happens when you were too stupid to get better info on birth control devices. Kids are seen as some kind of disease and the end of a happy life. If that were not so, we would not kill them in the womb. Now I cannot change societies perspectives, but I think the perspectives have a lot to do with the problems many Moms have.
The other aspect I think that is missing from the article is the Christian one. motherhood is a work of service. It is the result of love and it is God’s work. this is not to deny how hard it is, but the flip side is it brings much joy as well. There are very few things in this world if at all that are worth anything that do not have pain attached. Look at Jesus on the Cross. Labor and birth. Night and day. Again, this is not a solution always, but perspective helps. When you have a better sense of purpose about motherhood being a part of the bigger picture, rather than just simply something you decided to try out, these issues may seem like more of a struggle that you need to work through rather than a hopeless pit of bad choices and despair.
I’ve been a SAHM since my daughter was about 4 and she’s 15 now. We adopted a little boy almost 3 years ago, so I have a toddler boy and a teenaged daughter, and while God has determined that we don’t have any more children biologically (health problems for me and a kidney transplant 4 years ago), I feel that it is my vocation to stay home, even after Noah is old enough for preschool a couple of days a week. I think, regardless of what some people say, our society still DOESN’T value us. I remember when Juliette was little and there wasn’t the choices in cable television, everything on during the day (while I was nursing her or rocking her) was STUPID! Jerry Springer or other mindless talk shows – Ricki Lake and Jenni Jones or whatever or soap operas. It’s no wonder I spent my days watching Barney and Sesame Street. I still, now, hunger for grownup conversation and something to talk to my husband about when he comes home other than poopy diapers and the latest teenage girl drama! I get through it with EWTN and remembering that this is my VOCATION – I’m serving and blessing my family by what I do!
And if I make up stories about Bob the Builder and Wendy or Nemo’s father and DOry, I think I can be excused. I do write romance novels, too!
One confusion: my impression of the book is that she’s pointing out to mothers that they are making themselves crazy because of pride, basically. I’m sure she doesn’t state it that way, but I think it’s supposed to be for women who are trying to be perfect and have their kids involved in everything in the world and she’s saying “Stop it! Relax!” I could be wrong, I haven’t read it…
I’m really really trying not to get defensive or resentful. Or stir up controversy. But there are undertones here that moms who work outside the home are automatically performing at a “lower level” of motherhood than SAHMs. I’m offended by that. My motherhood is every bit as much a vocation as a SAHM’s. God called my husband and me to be parents. He chose us to have a child. He chose us to love that child. And we DO. Yes, I think there are those who equate career success AND being a mommy as pre-reqs (or “free passes”) for sainthood. I don’t feel that way. I do think it’s important that we pay the bills. (And no, we aren’t extravagant. We live very much within our means and do not spend frivolously — or save as much as we’d like.) The Newsweek author’s comments about tax incentives and health care for part-time workers were dead-on, IMHO. No intent to incite. Just observing. 🙂 Peace.
The lie is that we can have it all and don’t have to make hard choices. Our culture puts this lie in front of all of us, men and women both. single, childless, married, parenting. The reality is that we do have to make choices, and most of them aren’t easy ones to make.
I was a FT SAHM for exactly one year of my life. I nearly went off my rocker that year, and that was nearly 3 decades ago. What we have now is 2 generations (at least) of total lack of support for the vocation of parenthood, not just for mothers but also for fathers. When I was at home alone with two babies (newborn and 14 mos) I had no car, no TV, no neighbors with kids, and no support from anyone. My parents were in the middle of their nasty divorce and in no position to be loving grandparents. My mother-in-law didn’t drive and so couldn’t come to help, and I had no way to go anywhere unless I lugged two babies on the bus or walked with them. My husband worked 12 hour days. It was lonely and frightening, and I came to truly understand why some moms go nuts and kill themselves and their kids. I probably had a whopping case of post-partum depression as well. But unless you’ve been stuck in a house with a genius toddler and a hyperactive colicky newborn, you don’t know. Nothing can prepare you for that kind of stress. It is sad, looking back, that the only way that I could see to restore my sanity was to go back to school and work and thereby 1) force my husband (who is really a good guy but didn’t get it back then) to carry a bit of my load and 2) bring in some income and reduce some of his load. We could have survived on one income, I think now – but I might very well have ended up in the loony bin or equivalent.
I don’t think it has gotten any better for moms – in many ways I think it has gotten worse as expectations have increased. I see it in my patients now, that they don’t think they are good moms unless their kids have all the ‘stuff’. They denigrate themselves for being stay at homes because the kids don’t have all new clothes, or they feel like they have to work at dead end jobs just to have some sense of worth.
Affordable health care, respite pre-school care, supportive mom networks would be some assistance, but in the long run it does come down to a culture that doesn’t value nurturance as a way of life. The economic pressures that have led to the loss of ‘extended social networks’ are key influences over which most of us have little or no control.
Y’know what, I’m just going to come out and say it: I do feel _I_ give my children a lower ‘level’ of motherhood when I’m working, and I often resent that I have to go back to work in August. (My dh runs his own business, and he simply doesn’t pull in enough to live on up here in the sub-Arctic.) I resent that society and the economy have worked it so we need that second income in order to survive.
I love my job (i’m a radio reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) And I’m good at it. But a work day in 9 to 6, and I come home exhausted and with little energy for the kids.
And I’m an even better SAHM. I’m truly in my element at home with the kids.
Here in Canada, the government will give you half your pay for a year after having a baby. I’m so grateful for that. Without it, I’d be back to wok already.
If staying at home and raising kids is so wonderful, why don’t more men do it ? After alll they’re his kids too….
Some men do do it, Donna Marie. But the thing is is that many mothers and fathers do it not because it’s fun, but because it’s the best thing to do for their children.
Sorry to be so touchy… My own mother was a SAHM… until my father died. Then we struggled with finances for the rest of my childhood, since she had limited education and a gap in her work history.
My grandmother went back to work two jobs (sausage factory and office cleaning) while raising 7 kids for similar reasons, Donna Marie. It took a long time for it to click why my mother always seemed to take so strongly the “but some mothers have to work” line when I was just talking about the general desirability of mothers staying at home. She was at home with me except in the months before my father died when he could no longer work; oddly, once he did die we had the financial security for her to stay home again.