Notes From The Wars

Link: Mommy Wars

Because someone at the WaPo is bored this week, a new blog started up with the intention of starting a ginormous fight between women with paying jobs and women who stay at home. Predictably, the thread degenerated almost immediately. Towards the end, I posted something I should have saved for my blog, because the thread had grown too long. Here's my two cents:

These "wars" are what they are because no one is actually listening to each other. And the way everyone frames their points says more about their mindsets than the points themselves. For example:

"I made the biggest sacrifice" - did you ever wonder why YOU had to be the one making the sacrifice and not your husband? If you did, and it was you because you made less money, did you ever wonder why it's almost always the woman making less money?

"I never get a moment to myself as a SAHM" - did you ever wonder why that is? If taking care of your kids is a job, and no one's saying it isn't, why DON'T you have a systemized plan for time off, breaks, trips to the bathroom? Did it just not occur to you that you were entitled to same?

"My husband doesn't have to do chores because he makes the money and I keep the home" - a lovely arrangment, I'm sure, when there are only two people in the house. Kids seem to exponentially increase housekeeping needs - dirt, food, laundry - and yet the chores stay divided between the two adults. Why is that? Why does the breadwinner's time at work remain stable over time, but the number of hours required to complete a laundry cycle increases over time as the clothes get bigger and dirtier?

"Day care sucks up half my paycheck" - why is it YOUR paycheck that you're thinking of that is paying for the daycare? Men have children, too. His paycheck is also paying for daycare. Why aren't you framing the point as a percentage of family income?

"You have no room to complain because XYZ was a personal choice" - why do you assume it was a choice at all? If I stay home with a handicapped child who needs all of my resources, was that a choice? If I have a major case of PPD that miraculously seems to clear up the day I go back to my paying job, was that a choice? If you pull back far enough, getting up in the morning is a CHOICE, but I don't know if you can call it a choice when the alternatives are all horrible.

"I can do what I do because my husband helps" - have you ever flipped that around and said, "He does what he does because I help"? Sounds kind of dismissive, doesn't it? Almost trivializes the contribution?

Call it semantics if you want to, but we're just going to chase our tails until we're all using the same terms, and choosing only those that mean exactly what we're thinking.