Does a Full-Time Homemaker Swap Her Mind for a Mop

[EmptyTimCup]

Does a Full-Time Homemaker Swap Her Mind for a Mop?


And just a few weeks ago, the same website declared me a misogynist for my column on what I believe to have been four negative legacies of feminism for women. I actually wrote the column on behalf of women, yet I was labeled a misogynist. Why? Because I suggested that feminist pressure on women to emphasize career over finding a husband, career over marriage and career over child rearing has not been good for most women or for society. That means, according to the Daily Kos writer, that "basically Prager is upset with contemporary women because they seek a life beyond being confined to domestic space and swapping their brains for a mop."

To suggest that children benefit from having a full-time parent -- which will usually be the mother -- is, in the eyes of the dominant intellectual culture, equivalent to advocating suppression of women and "swapping their brains for a mop." The left views full-time homemakers as individuals who, because of patriarchy and other nefarious forces, have abandoned their minds to the lowest intellectual activity the human being can engage in: homemaking. Being a full-time homemaker, mother and wife is the left's vision of hell.

Why that is so is not my subject here. Rather, I seek to refute the idea that full-time homemaking is intellectually vapid and a waste of a college education.

Let me first state that I have no argument with those mothers who need to or even just wish to work outside the home. My argument is with those who believe that staying at home is necessarily mind-numbing.

 

[vraiblonde]

You know, I was a SAHM when my kids were very young, and I'd like to stick up for the Mommies. But I can't because homemaking simply isn't an intellectually stimulating endeavor. You hone your organizational skills for sure, and you get to lord your clean house and hot meals over the working stiffs, but your conversation gets reduced to children, recipes, soap operas, and cleaning solutions.

I don't consider that a bad thing - it just is. With choices come trade-offs, and they all suck in their own way. Keeping a home and raising a family are just as important as being in the workforce, and vice versa. And there's no need to belittle either choice.

The biggest drawback to housewifing is that, when hubby gets the itch and runs off with the secretary, the wife is screwed with no way to support her children. Other than that, one isn't necessarily better than the other.

 

[Sula]

You know, I was a SAHM when my kids were very young, and I'd like to stick up for the Mommies. But I can't because homemaking simply isn't an intellectually stimulating endeavor. You hone your organizational skills for sure, and you get to lord your clean house and hot meals over the working stiffs, but your conversation gets reduced to children, recipes, soap operas, and cleaning solutions.

I don't consider that a bad thing - it just is. With choices come trade-offs, and they all suck in their own way. Keeping a home and raising a family are just as important as being in the workforce, and vice versa. And there's no need to belittle either choice.

The biggest drawback to housewifing is that, when hubby gets the itch and runs off with the secretary, the wife is screwed with no way to support her children. Other than that, one isn't necessarily better than the other.

I was a SAHM Mom for close to 10 years. I never once felt that my conversation was reduced to only things domestic. I had intelligent friends and we engaged in intelligent conversation. I read books. My desire to educate myself about world events never changed.
Some SAHMs are more than happy to have a life of laundry detergent and whats for dinner, but just as many feel the need to use their brains.

 

[EmptyTimCup]

But I can't because homemaking simply isn't an intellectually stimulating endeavor. You hone your organizational skills for sure, and you get to lord your clean house and hot meals over the working stiffs, but your conversation gets reduced to children, recipes, soap operas, and cleaning solutions.

my wife was a health care legal sec for 18 yrs, and prefers the 6 yr old and doing laundry, and being a soccer mom, to holding 4 lawyers hands and wet nursling a couple of Para Legals as well ...........


lawyers whine a lot more ........ she can send the kid to her room

 

[twinoaks207]

I do not understand this compulsion people have to belittle the choices of others. I'm thinking that possibly their motivation is to make themselves feel better in some way.

I wish that our current economy wasn't based so much on the necessity for two incomes. I would have loved to have stayed at home with my kids while they were in school. It would have been wonderful to be one of those bus-stop mommies who stand there every morning supervising the kids and enjoying some conversation with the other moms. I would have loved the opportunity to schedule the tasks of the day (dishes, laundry, cleaning, shopping, decorating, reading, studying, enriching the mind, etc) based upon what I decided was the priority for the day instead of having someone else tell me what I should be doing. I would have loved the opportunity to go volunteer at my kids' schools, or the local homeless shelter, hospital or any number of other opportunities. I would have loved the opportunity to take classes on anything and everything that interested me, to spend time gardening, crafting, exercising, etc.

But, had I stayed at home, I would have missed the opportunity to work with so many different people from different countries and cultures, to get to know the strengths and possibilities of thousands of children. I would have missed the opportunity to expand my knowledge about technology. I would have missed going to conferences to learn more. I would have missed the satisfaction of crafting a lesson, teaching it, and seeing the light of knowledge go on in so many minds. I would have missed that certain satisfaction of doing a job well (something that I love to do) and actually being paid for it. And, I would have missed the satisfaction of knowing that my hard work was able to provide for my family.

We are torn. We cannot have it all and anyone who tells you that we can is blowing smoke. Trying to do both well means that there are sacrifices on both ends. Some days I think it was worth it and some days I wonder...

In my opinion, one who criticizes another's choice in this area has reservations/regrets about their own choices. By criticizing those of another, they are only seeking to alleviate those regrets and feel better, ie., they made "the RIGHT choice". There is no all-encompassing "right" choice. It is whatever works for the person and whatever they can live with without too many regrets. Some days it seems as though, by fighting so hard to have options, we have lost the opportunity to have those options.