In today's Smart & Sassy, a woman who is not currently working outside the home wonders how to answer people who ask her what her job is, if she's looking for a job, etc. Hmmm ... the scene becomes all wavy and weird, indicating the approach of
*FLASHBACK*FLASHBACK*FLASHBACK*
Historical aside: First, let me just say that I have seen here and there, in diaries and elsewhere, people talking smack (is that right?) about baby boomers, and how boomers made it impossible for women of today to just stay home, or work, or whatever they want, by instituting the concept of the super-mom, the woman who could "do it all." Not so, my friends. Women have always been more or less required to do it all, and it was Betty Friedan, a product of "the greatest generation," who wrote The Feminine Mystique and opened up that whole can of super-mom worms. Which, by the way, if she hadn't, the whole concept of choice for women today would probably be unknown. So, no anti-boomer crap, please. Without our mothers showing us what we could do, and without us doing it, all of today's twenty-somethings would be paddling up a different creek.
Ok, now:
*FLASHBACK*FLASHBACK*FLASHBACK*
I did go back to work within a relatively short time after each of my kids was born; they were born in March and April, I took off the rest of each of those school years, and then went back in September. The people I knew -- from work, mostly, I guess -- were doing similar things. Occasionally, one would stop working altogether when the first baby came along (and usually came back to teaching several years later), or would take off a year on a maternity leave. One woman I knew whose baby was born a few weeks before I had R had actually been RIFed that year (stands for Reduction in Force; her job was eliminated when we closed a school in town) and didn't get called back for about three years, when someone retired and they offered the job to her. She came back to work, but was a real mess, missed being home with her kid, and so on. Going back the way I did was hard for me too, but I think easier for the kids, in the long run, since it was all they knew from babyhood.
The Hubs' sister had by this time moved to a very nice, somewhat more rural, community about 45 minutes away from here, where they had a nice little house on a lovely street, with nice neighbors. As her kids came along (her K is about the same age as mine, which means they were born in 1983-84), I would ultimately come to know her neighbors, as I would go to my niece and nephew's birthday parties and other events up there. Each time I saw them, a few times a year, I guess, the same women would ask me, "So, are you still working?"
Am I still .... what the hell was that supposed to mean?
Yes, I was. These were not especially affluent women, nor was this anything other than a typical middle-class community, except their houses came with more land than mine. Okay, I got it: they didn't work outside the home. Because they didn't have to? Want to? Whatever ... what difference did it make to me?
My SIL never took part in this annoying game -- she's very laid back and non-judgmental -- but these other women, they just always had to make it condescendingly clear that they were following a superior path by staying home with their children. When I told them that I was still working, they would actually ask why. My answer, typically, was "Baby wants to eat, momma's gotta work."
I have no idea what this meant to them; I didn't say it to make any kind of sense. The real answer would have been that I had made a series of choices in my life and this was one of them. Case closed. It's the same answer for everyone, regardless of the particular choice: stay home, work outside the home, have children, don't have children, whatever. Why is this anyone else's business, other than curiosity, and why be condescending about it ever? In my case, I had made a point of becoming trained to do a particular job, it took five years, and it was my choice to continue to do it as long as that was possible.
END OF FLASHBACK
Anyway, so I was reading in the S&S, and it made me think about how times sure have changed, and how the expectation (that everyone will work outside the home) is the opposite of what it was just 20 years ago, and not 50 years ago, as we might think. Earlier today I was talking to someone whose daughter-in-law is about to go back to work after having a baby and has mixed feelings about it, so I guess it was on my mind anyway, although the S&S question doesn't say anything about babies as such. Working outside the home is generally tied in somehow to the economy, both the national and household economy, no? If you don't have any financial need, you can do volunteer work, if you want, I guess, or get a job if you feel like having one. If you don't have the need, then having a job is pretty much up to you, I'd say. I mean, how many people are going to force themselves to go out and go through a daily grind if there's no need at all? Isn't that what they sell lottery tickets for?
Ahhhh ... everybody needs a good rant now and then.
P.S.
And by the way ... my R, as you may know, is a hard-working graduate student in creative writing, a fine and upstanding moral being. The daugher of that woman who had to go back to work after three years, who was the same age as R? She was in my Scout troop with R, as it turns out. She's an honors graduate of Notre Dame, and is now teaching in an inner-city school in the Bronx. She's one of the finest human beings I know. Just goes to show: Raising kids -- it's a crapshoot
--------------------------------------------------
I'm watching Today Show
--------------------------------------------------
last ::
next
Sweet Sorrow - 06.12.2007
So ... - 12.19.2006
Christmastime Is Near - 12.18.2006
Fifteen Years - 12.17.2006
A Message From Our Sponsor - 12.16.2006
|
