Gloria, Don't You Think You're Fallin'?

Guest post by Jennifer Magnuson of Get In The Car!

Like a lot of you reading this, I’m a mom at home with my kids. I happen to have four, so things at my house are usually hopping like Senor Frog’s in Cancun during Spring Break. Minus the tequila and table dancing. Okay, just minus the table dancing.

It wasn’t always this way for me. Not too long ago, I worked “outside of the home” in a career that focused on helping others. I was a social worker, and I really enjoyed it. Now, I do the same thing, only my family is my biggest client, and the pay isn’t so good, but the perks are obviously better.

But I’m still me. I’m still the girl who roller skated to Pat Benatar’s Hit Me with Your Best Shot. I’m still the young woman who finished college, married her boyfriend, and in the blink of an eye owned a home in the ‘burbs and was amazed that milk actually came out of her breasts to feed the little stranger that had grown inside of her. Because I was pretty sure mine wouldn’t do that. I was only play-acting at being a grownup.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be a stay at home mom. Aside from the annoying moniker, it amuses, angers, and befuddles me when I consider the relatively stagnant status of women who choose to care for their children in lieu of a career.

I recently reread a passage from Gloria Steinam’s Revolution from Within where she writes of her childhood in the fifties and sixties, noting

In my memory of those times and that place, men were valued by what they did, women by how they looked and then by what their husbands did, and all of life was arranged (or so we thought) from the outside in.

Imagine my surprise to read this, fifteen years after it was published, and forty years after her childhood and thinking, “But it is still like this in much of our country.”

This, in America, home of the enlightened woman with the same rights, privileges and status accorded to men, right? Riiight.

Not too long ago I was with my family at a function sponsored by my husband’s company. He’s the “Big Boss” and has a few hundred people working for him, the majority of whom are women. I was standing around with my kids when some woman came up to me and introduced herself as having worked for my husband for some time. She added that he was the best boss she’d ever had and she really enjoyed working for him. I nodded, smiled, and thanked her. I get this a lot, and I am always resisting the urge to laugh inappropriately. As she was about to leave, she turned to me and said, “What’s it like?”

“Um. What’s what like?”

“You know, living with your husband.”

And the way she said it, well, it was nauseating. I don’t remember what I said, but it was forced, chirpy and probably something like, “Oh, he keeps us on our toes.”

Yeah.

When I’m volunteering in the community, whether by sitting on a board or grading spelling tests at one of my kids’ schools, I am always asked the same thing. Are you sure you’ve got time to do this? You have four kids! They mean it as a compliment, I’m sure, but I am always asked this. Always. Especially if the project I’m pursuing has nothing to do with my family and is just something I enjoy (like writing). I asked my husband if he was ever asked how he “does it” with four kids and a wife. In a word, no. He’s not asked because of the foregone conclusion that he has a woman at home tending to the little details that make up the rest of his life.

And the looks thing? It doesn’t bear writing about, we are all so aware of how our appearance is our calling card. It’s the most succinct way to announce our socioeconomic status, our age, and our self-discipline. It also erroneously labels our intelligence, education, personality and trustworthiness. And while everyone is victim to this unfair mode of categorization, we all know that women are more harshly graded. As for stay at home moms, well, we all know what the stereotypes are.

What I’m getting at is this. How is it that it’s 2007 and the words of Gloria Steinam’s childhood still ring true for many of us? How can we change this? How can we create another revolution? Because I believe that we can. I believe that if we harnessed the collective creative energies of all the wonderful moms who blog (both working and “non-working”) we could change the world. And that includes equal respect for moms, regardless of their career choices, and while we’re at it, childcare and healthcare for all! By the way, when I volunteered to write this guest blog, I wasn’t asked if I could manage it with four kids. I think Erika knew exactly how I’d get it done. And that, friends, is the first step toward our revolution.

Guest post by Jennifer Magnuson of Get In The Car!


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5 responses to “Gloria, Don't You Think You're Fallin'?”

  1. Sonia Avatar

    I’m just like you….hardworking husband, and me, I work hard at home with four kids, too.

    I’m lucky, my “working” friends are supportive and don’t go the easy route of belittling the SAHM. Quite the opposite, many of them admit they don’t think they could do it. And I support their choice to work and don’t belittle them that that automatically means they don’t love their kids as much. These female stereotypes get a little maddening.

    I think feminism paved the way to having the option to be a career woman, but also remembering that women who stay home are important, too, and no less feminist than one who works.

  2. Apples on a Stick Avatar

    DYM wrote a post awhile back that coordinates well with your insightful post. She proposed that as women who do “stay at home” we learn to qualify and quantify what we do in a way that society values it. Many of us do more than stay at home.

    -OR-, which I think is big, is learning to value ourselves as women and what ever it is we do. If men are defined by what they do, then I am happy (ok in reality I struggle with this) to stand and be defined by the work that I do as a mother, wife, small business owner, daughter, etc. The thing is though…society doesn’t value the role of mother near as much as it values the paid employment you may have. So some of us don’t want to be defined (or devalued) by our status as mothers.

    ok, enough babbling. I really liked your post and am interested in reading the comments of others.

  3. BirdieRoark Avatar

    Interesting post. The Feminist Movement of the 70s and 80s wasn’t about choice – it was about equality in the workforce. It wasn’t about choosing whether to work or stay at home – it was about being independent of men. Of course, I am minimizing the sphere of the movement, but it certainly wasn’t about bringing value to the SAHM.

    That said, I think that it is important to realize that today more and more affluent, educated women are making the choice to SAH. And those women – the same ones that fought for equal rights when they were working – are demanding the same as stay at home mothers. It will be interesting to see how feminism changes as more and more of its “target demographic” opt-out of their career to stay home.

  4. Kelly Avatar

    See…this is why I’m loving guest bloggers! Such a great topic.

    But I do have to disagree with the last commenter. The feminist movement always has been and probably always will be about gaining full social and economic equality. Equality in the work force is only one aspect of that equality. But whether you work outside of the home or do not, being respected for what we uniquely offer as women is really the core of the feminist movement. And whether you have a paying job or not, demanding this respect is what it is all about.

    Again, great topic.

  5. Donna Avatar

    Thanks for this post! I always get…”how do you do it.” I SAH, WAH and home school. Before kids I ran my own business. I was very busy. This is no different in the respect that I have to do time managment, schedule etc..but it’s so odd because before I had this simple title as a business owner now I don’t even know how to respond to “what do you do?” I guess an appropiate response would be “do you have a couple of hours, I’ll tell you”

    I do think the ultimate goal for equality is respecting each others choices as moms and encourage each other in the direction we choose to go. I have friends who work outside of the home as well as those who do not home school. I have strong opinions for myself and my family as to why I do what I do but your kids and your family are exactly that…your kids and your family. If asked I talk in depth about my role if not I just do what I do and enjoy doing it!

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