some clarification
In her comment below, Sparki provides a bit of a reality check:
WOHMs still have to do the laundry, cleaning, visit to library and trip to Target, but they have to squeeze it in after work and on weekends and still give their kids lots of one-on-one time. So from their perspective, a SAHM is lucky to have even a half dozen, 5-minute snatches of time to tend to these things during the day.
I should clarify that when I wrote my post I had a couple of things on my mind. Mainly Pansy’s post, which I linked to, but also my naive pre-natal assumption that as a SAHM I was going to effortlessly care for my child, play enriching games all day, keep the house spotless, sew a beautiful wardrobe for both myself and Babykins, and get all my wedding photos into an album. But I didn’t mention that part and, alas, Telepathy Blogger has not been released yet. I had no clue of how exhausted I would be after the baby came, and how, while the baby was napping, my first thought was not going to be “time to clean!” but “time to nap!” Right now my “time crunch” is getting things done with a curious, nap-hating toddler around.
Part of the thing that gnaws at me is that when I was growing up, my mom was Mrs. America SAHM. The house was spotless, she sewed clothes for us and for herself, she kept a huge garden (and canned the produce, including her own jelly.) I find myself thinking, how come I’m not doing all that? Part of it is that I may not be remembering things accurately (she may not have been doing all this at her peak until my youngest brother was in preschool); part of it is that that there were some things my mother never, ever did — like read a book. I do remember that, as a kid, I sometimes wished that my mom would spend some time with us instead of with the housework.
I am very aware of the frenetic life of moms who work outside the home. When I was working, I saw my coworkers dealing with it all the time. One mom dealt with it by just getting a housekeeper and using paper plates for all her meals. Another mom had Kid Cuisine as her personal chef. I saw those frenetic rushes out the door to beat the day-care’s deadline, the havoc caused by a child’s sickness or an early school closing, the hassle of pumping milk. (Some nurses resented other nurses who breast-fed “too long” because breastfeeding mothers couldn’t care for patients receiving certain medications.) And even though my husband and I didn’t have any kids, I found myself wishing that I had a little time during the day to tend to house stuff so that we could use our evenings and weekends for other things.
I wish that our society in general had more genuine respect for the importance of housework — it’s no fun to do it, but it’s even less fun when it doesn’t get done — and for other “lowly” jobs like caring for small children (and sick people, for that matter.) If our society were healthier, it would be easier for more families to make it on one paycheck (or one-and-a-half paychecks) so that moms and dads could keep their households running without killing themselves.