At each other's throats

[ailbhe]

I really hate the mothers-against-mothers stuff. I have particular aspects of it I particularly hate, chief among them the idea that mothers who have other jobs / do not have other jobs are not proper mothers / not proper workers. I use the phrases "part-time mother" and "doesn't work" when I'm talking about this

Comments

[thereyougothen]

there's not much worse than accidentally hurting or being seen to insult someone you actually like.

why is it all so damn hard?

[hartleyhare]

I hate it too. It was one of the things I was least prepared for when we adopted Small Hare. IME the thing that makes it so difficult to express opinions is that so many aspects of parenting touch on insecurities and private hurts - meaning that things that aren’t meant as an attack at all might risk sounding like one, especially if you’re feeling fragile

[ailbhe]

I do believe very strongly that people who want to stay home and look after their kids 24/7 should be able to, and that people who want to work and have some of the childcare done by professionals with facilities or equipment or training (or just more patience!) should be able to do that. And "able" covers economics as well as social acceptability.

I get the general impression that mothers in paid employment are seen as more "normal" in the UK and Ireland than in the US and Canada, in that they come up against less overt flak for not staying at home, and that stay at home mothers come up against more flak for not working (depriving their children of money and its products, or of formal preschool and its facilities, etc, not to mention sponging off their partners like leeches).

[hfnuala]

Personally I disagree that 'doesn't work' and 'part time mother' are equivalently nasty. The second attacks the particularly woman's motherhood in a way the first doesn't.

Now for the caveats - I work for pay outside of the home so that will bias me and certainly means I've never been attacked for being economically inactive. Also, I personally believe that women who don't work outside the home do put in more hours of the work that makes up parenthood than I do (how could I deny it?)

However, I still think you are underestimating how nasty suggesting this makes one a part time mother is. Because being part time in our culture has tones of not being committed, of just doing the minimum, of not being as driven as someone who does something full time. And I don't believe this to be true of me and doubt it is true of pretty much any mother I know.

[ailbhe]

I think that "doesn't work" is extremely damaging mainly because so many people think it's not that bad a thing to say. I'm also not convinced that stay-at-home parents are economically inactive; that's not the same thing as "unpaid" at all.

Implying that what a mother does is *nothing* is, to me, at least as offensive as saying that she isn't always a mother. But far, far more people will agree that I do nothing of value, particularly nothing of economic value, than that you are sometimes not a mother.

Of course, in the four years since Linnea was born, I have met three other SAHMs who did not intend to return to paid employment as soon as possible (one by choice, one because of a disabled child, and one because she couldn't afford childcare for twins on her salary). I've also met one mother who went from employed to SAHM (by choice). Perhaps if I was in a social circle which included more SAHMs I'd encounter fewer instances of people who genuinely believe that the work of all-day-every-day childcare is not really work.

[merryhouse]

My three mothering sisters all chose to stay away from their paid jobs (all considerably better than mine, too) so I've felt a fairly solid base of support there even if I don't see them very often.

I think we need to shift the emphasis to the money: "unwaged mother" (how I usually describe myself, since I realised "full-time mother" might offend) and - hm, "wage-earning mother" might allow snarky people to suggest that she's getting paid for the mothering. Anyone got any ideas?

[merryhouse]

"outworking" sounds a bit cumbersome.

[radegund]

Hmm. Part of it, I think, is that any choice a woman makes, whether or not she's a mother, is somehow up for discussion and judgement.

[lcwasser]

YES!!! (And yes, I meant to shout.)

My husband works full time. In fact, he runs his own business and works constantly. Why is no one judging him? Is he a "working father" or a "part time dad"? No one thinks to talk about what he does.

Mothers who work as mothers and also work for pay do so for a lot of reasons and none of those reasons is anyone else's business. Mothers who mother and decide not to also work for pay do so for a lot of reasons and none of those reasons are anyone else's business.

Every mother is a working mother. Some mothers also work for pay.

I worked as a mother for 27 years. Now I work as a mother and also as an English tutor. I don't apologize or rationalize my life choices. Men don't. Why should I?

Liza