In Minneapolis today it is hot and drippy and humid as the rainforest. This is not my favorite weather.
At three months pregnant I am hot all the time and severely out of breath constantly, puffing and panting from trying to stand upright and talk at the same time. Truly I do not remember such severe symptoms from either of my past two pregnancies.
I often shake my head at how easy pregnancy and childbirth were at eighteen. If only our biology, our physical selves matched up with societal standards. But they don’t.
Socially it is unacceptable to get pregnant at eighteen, seems even somewhat frowned upon in early twenties. Is this true or am I just paranoid? When I tell working women that I am a stay-at-home-mom in my mid-twenties, I feel the slight chill of judgment (maybe my own self-criticism?) that I am producing children before developing a career; or I hear, “how great that you are able to do that” like I am unusually privileged or something.
The look I tend to get from mothers who work is a mixture of pity and confusion, a measuring look trying to figure out if I’m spoiled or if I just don’t have goals because I want to stay with my kids all day. One working mom’s response put words to the look, “That’s nice that you enjoy your kid so much; honestly I just don’t find my two-year-old that stimulating.”
I know that many women would like to stay home and don’t have the choice; either because they are the breadwinners of the family or because they are single, but when you’re a teacher like me or have a career that makes less than 80 K a year, at some point it simply doesn’t make sense to NOT stay home, daycare is so astronomically expensive these days.
But really that’s not why I do it, I guess I do it because my mom did it and I was always so grateful as a kid to be able to come home from school to the smells of dinner cooking—it is that sense memory that marked the day-to-day of my childhood past: the smell of some slow-cooking meat and the sound of A Chorus Line playing on the record player—to have her around to talk to when I had a hard day, to call her when I was sick at school, or to have help getting a snack when I got home.
There is an intangible value to having a parent keeping the house running while everyone is gone, keeping the figurative home fires burning. What is the actual value of a stay-at-home parent? Is it worth more than an 80K dollar a year career? Is it worth more than expensive family vacations, an expensive home or nice cars? I don’t know.
I know that I wouldn’t trade the conversations I’ve had and the memories I have with my daughter for anything.
At three months pregnant I am hot all the time and severely out of breath constantly, puffing and panting from trying to stand upright and talk at the same time. Truly I do not remember such severe symptoms from either of my past two pregnancies.
I often shake my head at how easy pregnancy and childbirth were at eighteen. If only our biology, our physical selves matched up with societal standards. But they don’t.
Socially it is unacceptable to get pregnant at eighteen, seems even somewhat frowned upon in early twenties. Is this true or am I just paranoid? When I tell working women that I am a stay-at-home-mom in my mid-twenties, I feel the slight chill of judgment (maybe my own self-criticism?) that I am producing children before developing a career; or I hear, “how great that you are able to do that” like I am unusually privileged or something.
The look I tend to get from mothers who work is a mixture of pity and confusion, a measuring look trying to figure out if I’m spoiled or if I just don’t have goals because I want to stay with my kids all day. One working mom’s response put words to the look, “That’s nice that you enjoy your kid so much; honestly I just don’t find my two-year-old that stimulating.”
I know that many women would like to stay home and don’t have the choice; either because they are the breadwinners of the family or because they are single, but when you’re a teacher like me or have a career that makes less than 80 K a year, at some point it simply doesn’t make sense to NOT stay home, daycare is so astronomically expensive these days.
But really that’s not why I do it, I guess I do it because my mom did it and I was always so grateful as a kid to be able to come home from school to the smells of dinner cooking—it is that sense memory that marked the day-to-day of my childhood past: the smell of some slow-cooking meat and the sound of A Chorus Line playing on the record player—to have her around to talk to when I had a hard day, to call her when I was sick at school, or to have help getting a snack when I got home.
There is an intangible value to having a parent keeping the house running while everyone is gone, keeping the figurative home fires burning. What is the actual value of a stay-at-home parent? Is it worth more than an 80K dollar a year career? Is it worth more than expensive family vacations, an expensive home or nice cars? I don’t know.
I know that I wouldn’t trade the conversations I’ve had and the memories I have with my daughter for anything.
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