Just a note of appreciation. You say that being a stay-at-home mom is selfish — although you admit it has unselfish aspects. I think you are almost entirely unselfish, because, as you say, you’ve given up funds, respect, recognition, approval, security, for what? Yes, there are joys to motherhood, but there’s also just a lot of work and a lot of that work is emotional, psychological as well as physical and some of it is boring, hard and exhausting. Dare I say it is necessary work? I believe it is. I believe it is because kids who know that they come first truly have an advantage through this difficult trip we call life, that kids who know that ‘career’ comes first with the ones they depend on, not just for food and safety and an education, but for a sense of self esteem and worth, don’t have. They just don’t. There’s not the same sense that people matter more than anything else, when something else has come first, especially when they needed a mom and she wasn’t there. I grew up without a mother and with only an ocassional dad — I would have died, (almost did) to have a mother like you — who was there and believed that was important because the child needed/ wanted her and for no other reason. But no one asks the kids, eh? And if they do, they don’t take them very seriously. The dominant assumption is that children don’t need mothers, or at least, not very much — maybe for that intense, crammed full hour at the end of the day when everyone just wants to go to bed, called “quality time”. We’ve fed our kids on rations, leftovers of committment and presence and still wonder why human beings are growing up not valuing human life. I think you are doing an exceptionally important job and your kids will bless you for it later. Thank you for writing what you believe, but more importantly, thank you for living it. You are protecting the mental health of the next generation, although that is seen, in general, as a insignificant contribution. These are strange times.
sincerely,
C. Dence

Thankyou for this post. I undervalued my role as a mother myself because I bought into society’s view of mothering being less important than a paid job. I allowed this to affect the standard of mothering I have given to my children because I haven’t been there for them as much as I could be when I was working. I was a good enough mother in society’s eyes but in what I knew I could offer my children as a mother I was failing miserably and feeling guilty because of that. I am changing that. I call too for the remembering of how valuable a mothers role is in building a healthy society.

back to your scheduled programming.

(and, although I’d genuinely like to contribute something to what you’ve said, b/c I find it speaks volumes to me, I can’t come up with anything to add to your words — they’re sufficient. so, all I can really extend is a solid “here, here.”)

Keep going! You’re now on a roll!

You are a mother if you have loved a child. Whether the child is biologically yours, whether it ended before the first trimester was over…if you’ve loved a child as your own and felt protective of it, call yourself a mom.

Neither of these things need a paycheque, nor do they usually come with one, but oh, if only they did.

You bring up questions about writing that I think about myself all the time. A writer is about who you are, even more than what you do. It’s an inner calling that goes beyond profit and opportunities. For that reason there’s a difference between writers and authors.

Although I will say that writers are writers because they write. I know too many “writers” who want not to write, but to have written. It’s an imprtant distinction.

Bravo to the highly educated feminists who stay home and raise their children by the way. The last thing we need is a bunch of ignorant dolts raising the next generation.

That was a wonderfully written, thought provoking post. I don’t have much more to add beyond that.

Thanks for making me think and giving me something to discuss over dinner with my husband.