Wife & Mother

Recently my son asked me why I don't work. My first thought was to think, "Hey I work! I never stop!". Then I had to step back and realize that most mothers he knows outside of me work outside the home. 

So I thought it was the perfect time to teach him [again] about how we all have roles within the family. How we all work together toward the good of the whole. Each part is important and worthy of praise and respect. Each job has his joys and his drawbacks.

We have two books on careers and what kids want to be when they grow up - neither give stay at home parent as an option. I wonder why. Many of us choose this for our lives our families for a number of reasons. My choice of "career" isn't less valid than if I chose to work outside the home.

This also seems to be a common belief among others. That I must be so bored to not work outside the home. I am waiting for the day I am bored. If I do get that day [my youngest will be in school half day] I wonder if this means I can take a nap since so many think I take a nap all the time!

I am in awe of the mothers of children with complex medical conditions\special needs who also keep outside jobs. How do they have the time? When do they wash the diapers or bake bread or fold laundry? I will gladly admit I couldn't do everything I do AND work a full time job. I am not super woman.

I have wondered if maybe in our quest to have equality - so women can work if the need to or choose or not have kids if they don't want to that we also in a way sold ourselves short. Now it seems a mother is expected to work full time, come home, cook meals from scratch every night, be on the PTA, take kids to lessons. Yet we never seem to put that type of pressure on Dad. Oh don't bug Daddy he's had a hard day at work but mom comes home to another job? Why is that? Is the job as home seen as less? Are we so used to taking on the whole world that people expect it of us? Do I have to do everything the world expects of me and perfectly in order to be a good mother or wife or woman?

On the flip side of that have we been taught by the world to expect less from men. It's a common joke oh Dad can't do this or that - he's Dad. My husband changes diapers - cloth ones no less. He's even getting better at remembering all the meds and times of Dad and learning how to play with our daughter is a way that's better for her. Now granted men used to do less with the kids but they also worked LONG hard days doing hard physical labor often working more than one trade. My Grandfather worked as a fisherman and worked his own small family farm...I'm sure he was very tired after a long day.

IDK but I like the idea of being reasonably confident that if I died my husband wouldn't be completely useless with his own children.      

So I hope by the time they are raised I will have instilled in my children the respect for motherhood and being a stay at home parent. I also hope I will give my future daughter in law a man who can run the washing machine, change a diaper or fix a meal as well as the normal "man chores".