Saturday, May 5, 2012
The working stay at home mom
Life in the day of me. ;) my alarm (his name is Bryson) goes off at 6:10 pretty much every morning. I spend the next 45 minutes or so nursing between the two babies. Then I change diapers and get them in their high chairs for breakfast. I check in with the older kids to make sure they are on track to leave on time, one in particular. I make sure they have homework and lunches and instruments. I double check nothing needs signed. I wash the babies and put them down to play. I kiss the older kids goodbye and they leave for school with my super boyfriend and babies dad. :) then I get dressed, brush my teeth while double checking my diaper bag for snacks and lunches and of course diapers. I put on some flip flops, and buckle my babes into their seats before rushing with them to the car. Chances err by tis time we are running late. When we get to the office, I schlepp the babies and the stuff we need inside. Our day is filled with paperwork, phones, angry people, bookkeeping, nursing oh so much nursing, toys, sometimes doctors appointments and various other things that aren't coming to mind right now. Most of the time I have at least one baby on my lap and one or both is regularly trying to get into something they I wish they wouldn't. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes it's while I am on the phone or trying to help someone at the counter. Sometimes they make a mess. Sometimes they argue over toys. Sometimes I think if my arms could just be empty for a minute I would feel so much better. Sometimes three o clock cannot come soon enough. At three we go get the older kids. We go home and do homework, play outside, cook dinner(hopefully we don't need to shop for this) give baths, and fall into bed. Some days we add math is cool, school concerts, after school sports, the park, visiting grandma(hopefully not all the same day.) could I put the kids and babies in daycare? Probably. Do I want to? No. I would miss too many things and they would learn too many things I don't want them to. regularly people ask how I manage to have so many children and volunteer and breast feed and work. My answer is, don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff. Sometimes I run late. Sometimes I forget things. Sometimes we have McDonald's. Sometimes the dishes aren't done. Sometimes I miss PTA. It's all ok in the grand scheme of things. Nobody will remember the day I accidentally scheduled a carpet shapooer at the office for the same time I was supposed to coach math is cool except for me and one day I wont feel quite so guilty anymore....
Life as we know it
I came to a realization and the more I thought about it the more it made sense. I know my realization won't be very popular but hopefully it causes the right people to think about how things are. It seems to me that the rise in mental health problems can be linked to one thing in particular that for whatever reason nobody looks at or maybe nobody wants to. People are searching for causes in vaccines, plastics, and shampoos. Maybe they are right. Maybe the issues are much closer to home.
Somewhere along the way this idea was formed that women had to prove they were equal to men and deserved to do the same things as men. I am not disputing this. Women and men are equal and women are just as capable as men. The problem is, the farther this was pushed something important was forgotten. Before all this started, women weren't forced to take care of their children and their houses. They did it because they wanted to care for their families and it felt intuitively right to them. Now women are allowing their intuition to be replaced by what's easier or what other people tell them is right.
When women started working regularly outside the home it caused many complications. I am not disputing a women's right to work if she desires or needs to. Maybe the man should take care of the children and household responsibilities? Maybe for some houses this works best. Maybe some houses have only one parent or needs two incomes. I do not even think there is anything wrong with choosing to have two working parents because it's what you like. I am only looking at what this causes.
Let's start with what happens to the mother: mothers used to have very full and long days. They consisted of things like cooking, cleaning, paying bills, shopping, running errands, entertaining company, raising children. These things kept them busy and tired and their plates full. These by the way are important things. Then added to that was; things like PTA, soccer, ballet, mathletes, baking for the bake sale, organizing fundraisers, volunteering in class, going on field trips, helping with homework outside what they learned in school(even of they were well educated), and making costumes for the school play. I am sure I have missed some things here. Then a forty plus work week was eventually added in. Moms are suddenly doing three peoples jobs instead of one. They are overwhelmed and exhausted. Their children are spending more time with other people than with them. They are depressed and stressed out and many of them have little or no help.
Now there's the dads. They used to spend their days working. Hard. They came home tired and they rested. Now because the moms have too many things on their plates, the things dads didn't used to do a lot of have been added to their day. They are also carpooling to soccer and ballet. They are picking kids up from school. They are grocery shopping and they are trying to squeeze in field trips and also help with the housework. The dads are also overwhelmed and frustrated. As a couple there isn't as much time to grow your relationship. Not as much time to love each other. They forget why they loved each other to begin with. They become frustrated with each other because each is so overwhelmed and each needs more help from the other and each feels they are giving as much as they can give.
There is less time for sleep and for cooking. There is less healthy food being eaten as a result and less family meals. Children are not learning things they learned before like how to cook, and how to raise kids because they aren't seeing it. They are not able to properly attach. They spend so much less time with their parents. They can try to attach to their day care teacher but every year or so they are moved to a new class. Many kids go home in time to have dinner and shower and bed. Older kids may squeeze in homework. They are forced to adjust to a new set of rules, expectations, and disciplines every time they switch classes. More kids are experiencing divorces and dating and discord between their parents. They are not learning to work through relationship struggles. They are not learning to make choices that hold their family together and benefit it. They are learning to make choices to benefit themselves.
It can be questioned why it makes more sense for women to stay home and not men. All I can say is it makes more sense to me. Women and children are biologically connected. Mommies make milk for their babies and magic kisses for their children's boo boos. Maybe to you it makes more sense for dads to stay home. I don't dispute that. My thought is that someone needs to. Obviously I haven't done any long term studies or comparisons but it seems to me that people were more relaxed, comfortable, intuitive and generally happy before two parents worked outside the home. Your thought may be that both parents need to work; my question is: didn't they always?
Somewhere along the way this idea was formed that women had to prove they were equal to men and deserved to do the same things as men. I am not disputing this. Women and men are equal and women are just as capable as men. The problem is, the farther this was pushed something important was forgotten. Before all this started, women weren't forced to take care of their children and their houses. They did it because they wanted to care for their families and it felt intuitively right to them. Now women are allowing their intuition to be replaced by what's easier or what other people tell them is right.
When women started working regularly outside the home it caused many complications. I am not disputing a women's right to work if she desires or needs to. Maybe the man should take care of the children and household responsibilities? Maybe for some houses this works best. Maybe some houses have only one parent or needs two incomes. I do not even think there is anything wrong with choosing to have two working parents because it's what you like. I am only looking at what this causes.
Let's start with what happens to the mother: mothers used to have very full and long days. They consisted of things like cooking, cleaning, paying bills, shopping, running errands, entertaining company, raising children. These things kept them busy and tired and their plates full. These by the way are important things. Then added to that was; things like PTA, soccer, ballet, mathletes, baking for the bake sale, organizing fundraisers, volunteering in class, going on field trips, helping with homework outside what they learned in school(even of they were well educated), and making costumes for the school play. I am sure I have missed some things here. Then a forty plus work week was eventually added in. Moms are suddenly doing three peoples jobs instead of one. They are overwhelmed and exhausted. Their children are spending more time with other people than with them. They are depressed and stressed out and many of them have little or no help.
Now there's the dads. They used to spend their days working. Hard. They came home tired and they rested. Now because the moms have too many things on their plates, the things dads didn't used to do a lot of have been added to their day. They are also carpooling to soccer and ballet. They are picking kids up from school. They are grocery shopping and they are trying to squeeze in field trips and also help with the housework. The dads are also overwhelmed and frustrated. As a couple there isn't as much time to grow your relationship. Not as much time to love each other. They forget why they loved each other to begin with. They become frustrated with each other because each is so overwhelmed and each needs more help from the other and each feels they are giving as much as they can give.
There is less time for sleep and for cooking. There is less healthy food being eaten as a result and less family meals. Children are not learning things they learned before like how to cook, and how to raise kids because they aren't seeing it. They are not able to properly attach. They spend so much less time with their parents. They can try to attach to their day care teacher but every year or so they are moved to a new class. Many kids go home in time to have dinner and shower and bed. Older kids may squeeze in homework. They are forced to adjust to a new set of rules, expectations, and disciplines every time they switch classes. More kids are experiencing divorces and dating and discord between their parents. They are not learning to work through relationship struggles. They are not learning to make choices that hold their family together and benefit it. They are learning to make choices to benefit themselves.
It can be questioned why it makes more sense for women to stay home and not men. All I can say is it makes more sense to me. Women and children are biologically connected. Mommies make milk for their babies and magic kisses for their children's boo boos. Maybe to you it makes more sense for dads to stay home. I don't dispute that. My thought is that someone needs to. Obviously I haven't done any long term studies or comparisons but it seems to me that people were more relaxed, comfortable, intuitive and generally happy before two parents worked outside the home. Your thought may be that both parents need to work; my question is: didn't they always?
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