Stay at home Moms are bad!!?
Find a Conversation
| Wed, 08-04-2004 - 3:23pm |
How in the world this woman makes these statements and believes them is amazing.
Oh and here are her qualifications:
"Ritter is director of the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at UT and an associate professor of government and women studies."
Want to bet whether she is on the left or the right?
***********************************************************
Ritter: The messages we send when moms stay home
By Gretchen Ritter
'Well, I could have just stayed home and baked cookies." In the firestorm that followed her comment, Hillary Rodham Clinton learned that you should never deny the virtues of stay-at-home motherhood.
Nowadays, the candidates' wives prove their maternal merit by competing in a cookie cook-off every four years. In the decade or so since this line was uttered, women's rights advocates have grown silent on the topic of motherhood. Few dare to criticize the new stay-at-home mom movement recently discussed on this page in the Austin American-Statesman.
It is time to have an honest conversation about what is lost when women stay home. In a nation devoted to motherhood and apple pie, what could possibly be wrong with staying home to care for your children?
Several things, I think.
It denies men the chance to be involved fathers. This is a loss for them and a loss for their children. What does it mean when fathers are denied the opportunity to nurture their kids in ways that are as important as their work? What do the children miss when they don't have fathers changing their diapers, picking them up from school, coaching soccer, making breakfast or dinner and doing homework with them? On both sides, the answer is too much.
Women who stay at home also lose out — they lose a chance to contribute as professionals and community activists. Parenting is an important social contribution. But we need women in medicine, law, education, politics and the arts. It is not selfish to want to give your talents to the broader community — it is an important part of citizenship to do so, and it is something we should expect of everyone.
Full-time mothering is also bad for children. It teaches them that the world is divided by gender. This sends the wrong message to our sons and daughters. I do not want our girls to grow up thinking they must marry and have children to be successful, or that you can only be a good mother if you give up your work.
Nor do I want boys to think that caring for families is women's work and making money is men's work. Our sons and daughters should grow up thinking that raising and providing for a family is a joint enterprise among all the adults in the family.
The new stay-at-home motherhood movement parallels the movement to create the "perfect" child. It's not just that mothers are home with their children; they are engaged with their children constantly so they will "develop" properly. Many middle-class parents demand too much of their children. We enroll them in soccer, religious classes, dance, art, piano, French lessons, etc., placing them on the quest for continuous self-improvement.
Many of these youngsters end up stressed out. Children should think it is all right to just hang out and be kids sometimes. They should learn that parents have interests separate from their lives as parents. And we should all learn that mothers are not fully responsible for who their children become — so are fathers, neighbors, friends, the extended family and children themselves.
Finally, the stay-at-home mother movement is bad for society. It tells employers that women who marry and have children are at risk of withdrawing from their careers, and that men who marry and have children will remain fully focused on their careers, regardless of family demands. Both lessons reinforce sex discrimination.
This movement also privileges certain kinds of families, making it harder for others. The more stay-at-home mothers there are, the more schools and libraries will neglect the needs of working parents, and the more professional mothers, single mothers, working-class mothers and lesbian mothers will feel judged for their failure to be in a traditional family and stay home their children.
By creating an expectation that mothers could and should stay home, we lose sight of the fact that most parents do work — and that they need affordable, high quality child care, after-school enrichment programs and family leave policies that allow mothers and fathers to nurture their children without giving up work.
Raising children is one of the most demanding and rewarding of jobs. It is also a job that should be shared, between parents and within communities, for the sake of us all.
Ritter is director of the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at UT and an associate professor of government and women studies.

Pages
This is a very controversial topic and one in which I am personally immersed. Having experienced both sides of the coin, I have come to the conclusion that neither staying-at-home full-time nor working full-time is the answer, but for every family and every situation the choice must be unique.
I believe strongly that women and men should choose to provide the chance for their children to develop a healthy bond with another adult in a strong inter-personal atmosphere. This is nearly impossible to accomplish in the hour before and after school between preparation, dinner, and rest time between a day of school and work. It is also impossible for an adult to focus solely on the children and housework all-day and still be able to offer an interesting person with experience and aptitude to their children.
Most pre-schools and early education classrooms provide a reasonable teacher-student ratio ranging from 3:1 to 30:1. (Sources US Dept. of Education)
A healthy relationship with peers establishes a healthy self-esteem, but sole experience with peers in a high (20:1) teacher: student ratio can hamper feelings of self-confidence in social situations without a strong parent or guardian trust bond. Stay-at-home parenting ranges from home schooling to part-time stay-at-home parents who work enrolling children in care situation. "Trust Bandits, Children Without a Conscience" illustrates the problems of withholding children from a trusting caregiver. Propped up bottles to provide nourishment without physical contact, are known to cause loss of trust. Also the rhesus monkeys study with propped bottles and without soft, cuddly mother substitutes were found to lack social development, sit and hold themselves and rock to and forth. These studies are not to suggest parents must be there in 24 hours a day, but that quality care must be provided to include response to a baby's or child's needs when they cry and attachments of trust are built from a very young age.
The media and advertising plays a large role in the controversy regarding parental presence. Advertising symbols of the past and future shape our ideas of what society expects of us; "You can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan...." implies strong messages that if women want to go out there and compete and make a healthy wage, sure they can. However, the message remains to play the role outside, a woman is expected to return home to her duties in the home. It is yet to be experienced a song, "we will see you after our long day and we all will do the chores together" although "Free-to-Be You and Me" comes close to that with a song "about the woman who you see on TV, the one with the product she's selling, and she's smiling, because she's paid to be smiling but no one likes to do housework alone. So all you good little girls, fathers, and boys if you want every day to be sunny like summer weather, if there's house work to do you do it together."
Politically controlled mandating family life is also an issue. We have people with contracts to work 40 hours per week working many more hours in reality. Besides, lack of decent public transportation with the commute the hours add up, taking time away from families. The French are proposing a mandatory maximum 36-hour workweek. A possible solution for the 50,60-hour workweek we are seeing in many families around the country. Is it possible for one or both parents while their children are 0-18 to work 3/4 or 1/2 time with similar benefits? With inflation increasing and salaries not significantly increasing since the 1970s (NPR, All Things Considered, Jan 1993), mixed messages from government about lowering our salary expectations to prevent out-sourcing employment (looking to abroad for employers has moved from the blue collar into the white collar sector).
Education and the job sector are also to blame in the controversy. The cost of an education is high; the job sector remains paying men and favors men more highly. The majority of mothers do not have a bachelor's degree. Blue collar or secretarial jobs after counting the costs of working, childcare, work wardrobe, transportation for the general public the costs can exceed the earnings. There is little difference or improvement in a families earning if the mother is working.
Ridder speaks as easily and without reference in a seriously controversial and difficult topic with an attitude much similar to former Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake" to satisfy the starving masses complaining of her simply find a job and ones problems are resolved. The feminist movement began with the idea that women should be allowed to vote, to have their equal say and respect for their work and contribution to society. Yes, it grew to encouraging women to become educated and become a Marie Curie of science with funds available to promising students and researchers. The idea is not to separate what is right and wrong, black and white, but that every woman, man and child has a choice to their surroundings, to make him or herself a better person, to contribute to society, to make a difference in the world. Everyone has their own path, not everyone can follow the same one and encouragement to find ones way is essential to a healthy community. Everyone needs a plumber, a baker, a police officer, a teacher, a judge, and a truck driver. And everyone needs a parent. There are many parents who do an excellent job as parents, let them do it, support it through meeting areas, daily activities. There are others working better away from their families. So be it.
Thank you for listening.
Find the way best for you.
Build means to support others and their personal choices.
Justine Comtois, B.S. psychology Michigan State University,
Continuing studies in the sciences, wife, mother of 3, supporting member of the National Organization for Women, citizen
Hi Justine.
This is just one woman's opinion...and one that I doubt that many women on either side would or could completely agree with.
Do keep in mind, not all SAHMs have pre-school aged children...many have children in school all day.
And, just be THANKFUL that you don't have time to watch soap operas...they're AWFUL!
So now that I'm 32 and have a 14 week old baby at home I am PRIVLAGED to stay home for awhile with my son, because thats what it is, a Privlage, not even close to calling it a bad thing. Unless you've never had a bond with your child, for instants holding your child while watching something horriable on the news and for a secound you lose your thought because your usually thanking god it wasn't you or someone you know that this tragedy happened to, to look down and realize your baby is just smiling his biggest smile at you, but for all the people who agree with the "stay at home moms are bad" you wouldn't know that, because they were smiling at there caregiver!!!
What's my point?
My point is that some people can manage to work and raise good kids, but it's not in everyone's make-up or situation to do so. Is it an important job to raise kids? Yes. But some people can raise kids and work. And that's also ok that other people cannot. Everyone's situation is different. It's called free will.
I have two friends in similiar situations right now w/ multiple children. One manages to fit in 20+ hours of work from home over the past 6 years since her first child was born. The other can barely manage to get through the end of the day, and this is since the first kid. Their children are of similiar temperment, their financial situation is similiar...overall, they could be the same person. However, one person's personality is such that she can go on a little less sleep, and is driven to stay in the workforce at some level. The other couldn't do it if she tried. Does that make her a bad person for being a stay at home mom? NO! They both are attending to the same highest priority - their kids. One just manages to do a bit more. It's important to her to do more.
Bottom line for me is - do what is right for you. If your working is going to cause your children to not be the best they can be, then don't do it. But if you can and want to work, your kids can still turn out to be great people with great lives.
I thought about this a lot. I have a ds who's going into 3rd grade, and a dd who is 4. She will hit first grade in three years. I am a WAHM PT, and I thought maybe once dd is off to school full days, I'll get back to work. Then I realized, kids go to school here in Jersey for 180 days. There are holiday breaks, winter breaks, spring breaks and summer breaks. There are Jewish holidays, Christian holidays and secular holidays. Then there are the days the kids get sick or hurt. Then, all of a sudden, they're teenagers -- and at that point, IMO, they need 24/7 parental influence & guidance more than ever.
And in between all that, there's laundry, errands, cleaning, cooking, household management, kids' sports and extracurricular activities, academics/homework, church, volunteer work...
I'd better just stay home :)
Pages