The mommy wars

For all of the men who read this, you may not understand the Mommy Wars. Let me explain. Stay-at-home moms and career mothers sometimes debate on whose way is better. Stay-at-home moms say that children need one on one attention, which can only be achieved by giving up your career and being a mom full time. Career moms believe that women can only be all that they can be if they have a career outside the home. Then there are women who cut their hours back from their jobs and work part time or have a paid work-at-home job. And some women stay home when before their kids start school and go back to work when they are older. Which view is right?

Stay-at-home moms have unlimited time with their kids. They really get to know them and can adequately respond to their needs. When their child gets sick, they don’t have to ask for time off from their jobs to take care of their kids. They develop a close relationship with their child. When these women can find a balance between their families and their own personal lives, the child thrives. Sometimes women become isolated in their homes and can become lonely. Also, these types of moms can become so focused on their families that they neglect other areas of their own lives. Some moms have no life outside of their kids, which is not only unhealthy for them, but their children as well. In some extreme cases, these moms don’t allow their children to develop relationships outside of family because they have no life without their children.

So are career women better moms? Child care can be beneficial to children. They learn social skills, develop relationships with other adults besides their parents, and it prepares them for school. Some mothers have to put their children in full time day care, so they can learn English. It’s easy for career moms to not focus all of their time on their families, but do they neglect them? Career moms can sometimes become so obsessed with their careers that they do neglect their kids. Some moms are so frazzeled from work that they have to hire a baby-sitter to watch their kids. When moms always put their careers ahead of their kids, their kids start to believe that their moms don’t really care about them. Eighteen years is all that most women get to parent their kids and once those years are gone, they can’t get them back. If they spend all of that time on their careers, they never develop a relationship with their child. After they grow up, they may decide not to have a relationship with their moms, which is a real loss to these women. Also what will these women do when they retire when their whole lives were centered on their work?

Going to my old churches, I heard both sides of the story. When I lived in a small town, working moms looked down on stay-at-home moms because they felt they were too lazy to work. Their husbands only earned minimum wage and they had to work and put their kids in government day care to survive. Stay-at-home moms there really had to cut back on many things to afford staying at home. Then I moved to a suburb and stay-at-home moms looked down on career women as selfish and neglectful of their families. Their husbands made a lot of money and they could afford to stay at home. Many of those career women did work for self-interest rather than for money.

I used to think that all working moms were neglectful of their kids. In many of those families, the parents’ jobs, friends, and hobbies were a higher priority than their children. Children of stay-at-home moms behaved better than the children of these working moms in the small town where I lived. Their parents didn’t discipline them and many of them grew up and became aimless alcoholics who have no goals in life other than having fun at the bar. When I moved to the suburbs, I saw a darker side to the children of stay-at-home moms. I saw four-year-olds who didn’t know how to socialize with other children. Older children who would throw fits every time their mommy left. Some of these kids acted no better than the children that I worked with in day care.

Who is right? I have come to the conclusion that the best moms are the ones who find a balance between their personal life and their family life. While their families are a high priority, their hobbies and friends are not neglected. These women have personal goals that they want to achieve that are outside of their families, whether they have a career or not. Women also need to consider what is best for their families, regarding working or not. I feel that if their husbands don’t earn enough money to support them and their child and they can’t cut back on expenses, then they should work. On the flip side, if the child is disabled and requires extra care, and their husbands can earn enough for them to stay at home, then they should stay at home. The final conclusion that I came up with is that good and bad parents come from all walks of life. There are many great stay-at-home moms as well as bad ones. There are also many wonderful working moms and terrible working moms. It all depends on whether these women can find balance and consider the needs of their families.