The Mummy Wars Flaring Up Again in the United Kingdom
A stay at home mom. Real SAHM's envy her stretchy limbs. They would make multi-tasking much easier.
Remember a few months ago when Hilary Rosen stoked the Mommy Wars by insulting Ann Romney and stay at home moms as too uninformed to have an opinion on anything outside the home? Well, the UK’s Mummy Wars flared up this week when Cherie Blair, Queen’s Council and wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair made some disparaging comments about stay-at-home-mums.
One of the things that worries me now is you see young women who say: “I look at the sacrifices that women have made and I think why do I need to bother, why can’t I just marry a rich husband and retire?” and you think how can they even imagine that is the way to fulfil yourself, how dangerous it is.
Ah, yes, that is what we stay-at-home moms have done, married a rich man and retired. What exactly do some working women think that we SAHM’s do all day? And how do SAHMs handle the inevitable “what do you do?” and “isn’t it boring?” questions that we field from working women, with or without children?
Beyond the Mommy/Mummy Wars, however, I see doubt and regret. Older feminists talk about how we need to be independent for our own good, how we need to fulfill ourselves, but what really seems to irk Blair and other feminists of her generation is that younger women don’t herald “the sacrifices that women [of Cherie's generation] have made.” They want assurance through our endorsement, and they aren’t getting it.
The most important job in the world is being a mother. Period. Without that then humanity ceases to exist. Every other job (except being a liberal idiot – which is just a waste of oxygen) supports the most important job.
My mother was stay at home until I and my brother were old enough then she went back to work. Maybe conservatives should ask the following:
- for female liberals who have no children – why do you hate children?
- for female liberals who have children but let someone else raise them – why do you hate your children?
And for those conservative moms who went back to work because the liberals made their husbands’ jobs redundant? Did you think of that, David W?
Not all of us want to be where we are, but we value our marriages and our families over everything else. And we LOVE OUR CHILDREN MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF. So we go back to work. Have some compassion and some intelligence.
You hit on the difference Katie T. Painting with a very broad brush, left leaning moms who work and/or who farm out childcare generally do so because they need their work to fulfill themselves; that may not be their only reason but it is usually one of their top reasons. Cherie Blair is a prime example. Right leaning women who work tend to do so because the family needs it. That is, they are more family and marriage focused than self focused. Furthermore, right leaning women who have household help tend to have tandem arrangements; they don’t turn childcare over to nannies but use nannies as extra hands. Again family focused, not self focused. I think it makes a huge difference.
Actually, I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a long while–the different types of nanny and housekeeper arrangements among affluent households. Living in London amongst the merely affluent to super wealthy from many cultures, I’ve seen a broad spectrum of childcare attitudes. Broad strokes again, but Americans and Australians typically use tandem arrangements, while others hire a nanny to basically be the housewife and run all domestic and child affairs. If I find a hook to write about it, then I’ll post something around here.
You’ve bought into the feminist lie that childlessness is always a choice.
I have a cousin who stopped trying after a half-dozen miscarriages and stillbirths, no living children. She does not hate children–far from it, she’s been devastated.
This is why most women won’t even listen to conservatives–too many jerks like you, judging them harshly for not living the way you think they should. Even if it’s through no fault of your own.
Where exactly did I state that feminists hate children? Where did I discuss childlessness?
For the record, I certainly don’t don’t think childlessness is always a choice. In fact, it is often a state that women find themselves facing because of feminist thought. We put off childbearing until we establish our careers like the feminists suggested and often find we are infertile. Of course some women have fertility problems that are not due to age, but the delay childbearing fertility problems are a huge trend.
I must pay attention to the indent. You were replying to DavidW, not me. Got it now.
Heather, I feel for her. Also have had six losses (fortunately 2 living children, the lights of our lives.) Would hate to have someone look at me like I’m some kind of slacker for not fielding a baseball team.
I know the type David W is referring to, and I think you ladies upset with him should go back and read the first sentence the way he phrased it. The second is, as HeatherRadish stated (you got a lot of anger, girl: every post, against every conservative. In the end, it’s yourself you damage and not us) too broad a brush.
My husband is in the STEM field; while living on one income isn’t easy, we’ve ridden out recessions and the mancession so far, so I know we’re in a different situation than people who didn’t enter those professions. Still, I think a lot of people don’t realize how much of what they spend is in the “self-licking ice cream cone” category. Wardrobe, mani/pedi, car upkeep/gas, lawn, childcare, taxes, home repair, maid service, dog walking, groceries; a lot of expenses can go away or are greatly reduced when one parent stays home or drops to part-time work. Our vacations usually involve camping to reduce expenses, or we visit relatives who have enough room for the whole brigade. We’ve had to spend a lot of time living in a much smaller house than we’d like (especially during the NoVa stint) but that just kept us from collecting too much stuff.
The third kid is the hardest, I think, because you have to switch from catering to the individual child for each situation, to crowd control. But each additional child costs less per person because you’re buying bulk for meals, you have hand-me-downs for everyone 8 years old and under, you put them all in the same activities (tae kwon do etc has classes for age ranges, so they’re in the same place at the same time).
Leslie, I think I’d love to chat over coffee; we have most of the first Avatar series on DVD to keep the kids busy…
Feminism is an illusion works out great as long as you don’t leave the safety of the societies created and physically protected by the greatest men who ever lived.
Because I don’t think they have 911 in Tahrir Square.
Dress it up in a fashionable ‘ism’ and being a prying, pushy, interfering, catty know-it-all becomes acceptable, I guess. Meddling in other peoples’ personal affairs and telling them how to live their lives used to earn a pop in the nose. Discussion over. Ahhh for the bad old days…..
So, there I was at Panera with most of my kids and I get “the look” from some woman with perfect nails, tidily dressed, no Lucky Charms smeared on her shirt or snot on the front of her jeans, and I think ‘I am so not in the mood for this before my latte’ but she says, “Are these all yours?”, sadly, without the usual snarky smirk. So I give a great big smile and say “Yes!” and she struck me speechless, which is NOT easy to do, with “I wanted to quit my job and have another baby but my husband wanted a BOAT.”
Sorry, but being “liberated” doesn’t sound all that appealing kthanksbye.
Jeannette, come not be speechless with me anytime. I’ve a hunch we’d get hoarse before we ran out of things to talk about.
Regarding that story, I’ve heard that sentiment often. Occasionally it is the dad wanting more kids, but usually it is the mom. Many families stop at two kids because three kids is exponentially more difficult than two when both parents work.
“why can’t I just marry a rich husband and retire?”
Or at least have the option of retiring, getting a more fulfilling job, changing carreers, or better hours. Face it. there are lots of women who want to work but very few are happy when it is a requirement, irrespective of child raising.
You know, that sentiment used to upset me, but now I realize that it means the woman (and it’s always a WOMAN) who thinks we don’t “work” just doesn’t know her @$$ from a hole in the ground, as my dear departed father used to say.
There are almost always options (though less often now of course with the recession going on), and working has its own costs, including emotional ones. The NOW types get their panties in a bunch when it’s pointed out, but most kids do better when they’re able to spend “a lot but not all” of their time with a parent (decreasing as the child gets older). This _isn’t_ insulting to the mothers, to say that they are superior companions than most any other person you could hire for the job! It is an uncomfortable truth but it doesn’t mean that all mothers who work for money have made a bad decision; it means that parents should and do include that factor when deciding how much Mom should work. One friend of mine calculated how much per week she needed to work in order to send her kids to the local Catholic school-17 hours-because they had bought a house in a low-income neighborhood that was still safe so she didn’t have to work full-time, but the public school wasn’t great. She had to argue with her boss from time to time to keep from going full-time. And my best friend got activated from the Reserves and was deployed to Afghanistan for a year, leaving her seven children behind. Of course, they HAD to hire a nanny!
As far back as I can remember, I have had a deeply held desire to be a mother. In my twenties I mistakenly involved myself with a man who never wanted to have children. I pushed that pesky little desire deep down inside where it had no chance of stinging me. Then one day, in the midst of some transformational life events, I can remember the exact place on the foggy road I was driving down, I let it out. I embraced the desire in my heart and vowed to myself that from that moment forward I was going to live from the center of my own truth. I had tried to make my career my purpose, it never fulfilled. Now I have an amazing (responsible not rich) husband and three beautiful children. They are my miracles. In the event that financial circumstances ever dictate the need for me to return to work, I will do so willingly, however the purpose will be to take care of my family, not to fulfill something within. My cup is already running over. At this point finances dictate that I stay at home anyways (considering the costs of daycare and the wages that are available in my area). It is not always easy being a SAHM. At times I feel extremely isolated (we have only one car) and it is at times diificult never getting a break from the 24/7 of motherhood, but I am so thankful that I get to be the primary caregiver to my children and not some other women. It is truly absurd that some people consider being a nanny legitimate work, but if you are a mother to your own children rather than outsourcing their care you are somehow illegitimate. Bizarre and backwards world that we live in. My response to the authoritarian feminists, you don’t know my story or the deepest desires in my heart. I don’t care that you have spent your life pushing down your maternal desires if you have them, let me be, let me live my own truth.
And please spare me, a politician’s wife criticizing women for marrying rich. I invite her to come over and check out my fancy wardrobe from Walmart, Target, and JCP.
How many politician’s wives married their man to ride on his coat tail to a political career of their own. Not everyone wants one trophy child and a high powered career. As far as female politicians, I prefer the one’s who did it on their own like Sarah Palin.
It seems to me that a lot of people have lost track of the notion that women should have much the same degree of choice as men, when it comes to what they do with their lives. And yes, that does include the decision to take the financial sacrifice in order to be around when the kids are young and most need that attention.
In my field that sacrifice is a long-term one. If I don’t stay current with the industry I’m in, I could easily not be able to return if I were to take five to ten years to raise children.
The point is that it shouldn’t matter which way a woman chooses if she is happy with her choice, and her family isn’t suffering as a result, any more than it should matter for a man. You’re an at home mother? Great. You’re an at home dad? Great. You work? Great.
This snobbish “the people who didn’t choose my path are wrong or bad” gets my back up no matter which way it’s aimed.
Absolutely. I support the right of any person to make their own choices in life – homemaker, business person, artisan, soldier, whatever. It’s up to them, and we don’t get a say.
Even worse, countries like Germany and Italy are saying the women don’t want to be moms at all, stay at home or working. They don’t see the point of going to university and getting a good job just to take time off to have kids. So now they have a drastically dwindling population.