Guilt

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Guilt
3763
Tue, 07-31-2007 - 10:20am

Why does the media portray working moms, always, as having guilt?


http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/family/07/30/hm.mommy.guilt/index.html


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 9:31am

Biking and walking still involve crossing the busy street. A parent is required to be present- students are not allowed to cross it without an adult. We walk together.

They tried for a year to hire a crossing guard and decided to stop looking and just bus all students. So even if you live across the street from the school, you are bussed unless your parent/guardian walks you across the street. Years ago, our neighborhood was a walking neighborhood - I wish it still was. It is just a half mile to school.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 9:42am

People feel guilty even after making a right decision pretty routinely. When the decision is between an undesirable thing and a terrible thing, choosing the undesirable thing is the right choice but will still generate guilt. To give an extreme example, police often say that they feel guilty about shooting someone even when it was the absolute right choice and was done in self defense or the defense of others. Shooting somebody is an undesirable thing and generates guilt even when it was the right chouce.

How does that apply here? Because society (and media is the vocal part of society) has the idea that non-maternal care is undesirable but that poverty is worse. As long as this idea persists, women will feel guilty being WOHMs simply because they've bought the idea that non-maternal care is undesirable and so will feel guilty choosing it even when it's the right choice- as people tend to do when making a right choice of undesirable rather than terrible (in this case, financial crisis). The only way out of that is to shake the idea that non-maternal care is undesirable.

And this board has a long history of doing just that: arguing that non-maternal care is NOT undesirable (and therefore shouldn't be a guilt-inducing even though right choice) with society's most obvious example. School. School is non-maternal care. And this non-maternal care is seen by society as desirable and vastly preferable to maternal care (homeschooling) which ought to puncture the idea that non-maternal care is undesirable but yet it doesn't. This is an uphill battle.

If you still can't to see how right desions can lead to guilt, even though they are right, here are some more examples:

The decision to remove life support from a person who has suffered brain death

The decision to put a child through a painful medical procedure with plenty of awful side effects which will nonetheless save their lives

The decision to put an ailing person in a nursing home rather than continue to care for them at home

You see what I mean. All the above (plus the police shooting somebody when they have to) are examples of right decisions likely to cause guilt. The decision to put a child in daycare shouldn't be fraught with "lesser of two evils" feelings that are similar to putting somebody in a nursing home. But it currently is although that feeling is fading. But society is fighting tooth and nail about the fading of that feeling and so there are frequent media stories that try to argue that women SHOULD feel about daycares for children the same as they do about nuring homes for Grandma with alzheimers. Nobody wants that but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I am confident though that time itself will fade that comparison as more and more children become adults with no memories of a SAHM and therefore nothing on which to base guilt except some news articles that feel increasingly divorced from their actual life experience.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 9:47am

Sounds wonderful. We are within walking distance to all three schools, but because of lack of sidewalks and crossing guards- they are all bussed.

ES: 1/2 mile could walk alone but no crossing guard on busy street.
MS: 1 1/2 miles - sidewalks missing on crucial bit. Dangerous in winter when walking in dark.
HS: 1+ miles Missing sidewalks over large part on narrow road used as a cuthrough now.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 10:11am
My poor kids ride the bus! It's the school bus, not public bus. They don't even have to be on it an hour! It's about 15 minutes.

VickiSiggy.jpg picture by mamalahk

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 10:14am
Oh so you drive your kids because you perceive that everyone else does?

VickiSiggy.jpg picture by mamalahk

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2006
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 11:05am

No I dont think it is necessary to list it. It is my personal experience.

Oh yeah..thanks for calling me a liar.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2006
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 11:06am
I am sorry but I just dont believe that you dont have time to get up and go have lunch. Sorry.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2006
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 11:07am
So if you live in a house that you do nothing to but the market goes up and you sell it for more than you make does that make you a WAHM? I mean you are getting paid right?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 11:09am

What I am saying is that if you don't quantify and explain, it's hard to debate your personal experience further.


If you said, "I had about 20 minutes of do as I please time on a weekday as a SAHM because ________________, but as a WOHM I outsource most of everything and ALWAYS take my full one hour lunch, so I get more do as I please time as a WOHM," now we're talking.


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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-26-2007
In reply to: peteynjoeysmom
Mon, 08-06-2007 - 11:10am

Right and come the time to sell your house, why, you won't be pricing it to include all the additional equity that your improvements have made, nosirreebob! Not you! That wasn't work and you certainly would never dream of profiting by it. Not one bit! Not you.

I believe you.

~~~~~~~~~

Kitty

"BTW, I hate Lifetime. Their movies will suck you in and all of a sudden you've watched 3 in a row, used every tissue in t

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