My husband recently returned from a job where he was working with a crew of men and women. At one point, while driving to location and engaging in the casual chit-chat one has in a crew van, one of the female crew members asked him, “So what does your wife do?”
“She’s at home with the two boys right now.”
“Oh...”, she replied.
This detail was an aside within a larger story and with its inclusion I saw my husband try and shift back to his greater point. But it was too late.
I could imagine exactly how these young career-focused women saw me. I was defensive and a little sad. I was once just like them and I missed it. I never thought I would stop working, the possibility hadn’t crossed my mind. In my most extreme years (presumably college, presumably right around the time of my first gender studies class) I thought having a husband and child was anti-feminist… this position was influenced by several Gloria Steinem and Helen Gurley Brown quotes on the subject. As a young person these concepts seemed much easier for me to understand in the quantal. The nuances took some time.
Their judgment stung. Granted this was all perceived - conjecture based on my own insecurities. Perhaps they were actually thinking, "Lucky her!”, or, "I hope I have that option when the time comes!". Even if I had it wrong, it brought up a certain set of feelings I hadn’t wrapped my head around. One day this will cease to be a problem. I will be back to work and will reminisce upon this period and think, "What was all the fuss about?". But in the meantime, here I sit in this ill-fitting suit of stay-at-home motherhood.
It felt particularly difficult to ingest as I have been struggling, since the election, with how to feel empowered and relevant when I am no longer out there in the world asserting myself while working side by side with other women and men. At a time when I have never felt more angry and under threat as a woman, I am at home, spending most of my days chatting with toddlers and living, it may seem from the outside, a very traditional gender role existence.
I go to the protests and call the senators and sign the petitions but it feels a little less visible. I mean, I’m a 40-year-old mom. As my friend Katie frequently reminds me, we can sneak booze into movie theaters no problem! It’s like we don’t exist! As Rebecca Traister writes in Good and Mad, there is the “nonthreatening posture… in response to the diminution and underestimation of motherhood”.
I know that feminism is about choice and equality. Thank you to the first and second wave who made our lives possible. I love my life and feel lucky to have it. I do not take lightly the responsibility of raising two boys to become thoughtful feminists. But did I ever think I would be staying home with children? No, I did not. I don’t need to explain to you that it is the only way our family can work right now and it is best for our boys and me, financially and emotionally (…ok I guess I do).
I have stuff going on... It’s just not as definable as that which is followed by "My job is....” This, in part, is why I started writing. I have thoughts! I have things I want to talk about, just little time for these ideas and points to come up organically in conversation. I was tired of interjecting super casually (during said conversation) with, “Hey, did you read the New Yorker profile on Joanna Hogg and do you ever think about a cornbread ice-cream and WTF is TicTok?”
In Caitlin Moran’s book How to Be a Woman she describes two things that happen immediately upon becoming a mother - “No. 1: A superlative understanding of how long an hour is…. No. 2: A sudden, hurtling increase in ambition.” She wants her children to think of her with pride for what she has done, not just her charming and entertaining catalogue of TV personalities '“mums”. Whether we like it or not, having stayed home to raise kids does not usually inspire this brand of admiration. Unless maybe if you raised seven of them and they all became pediatricians for doctors without borders or something. But "She is a CEO!" or "She wrote a book!" or "She is a scientist!", those sound really good.
I spend a lot of time correcting the default gender norms as perceived by the 4 year old mind (no I don’t always need to be Leia when playing Star Wars, I actually prefer Yoda, his character speaks to my range as a performer). My children seeing me, in the most basic terms, as a stay-at-home mom while dad works feels uncomfortable. I want them to see me as a strong leader and provider, which is what I feel like most days, even without the validation.
But it turns out, we can quantify our contribution! And that helps! Amy Westervelt, journalist and author of Forget Having It All: How America Messed Up Motherhood, and How to Fix It created the Invisible Work Calculator. This tool calculates your yearly financial contribution based on a few simple questions (how much time do you spend playing with your kids per day, how much time do you spend cooking & cleaning, doing the household budget, etc). It turns out my financial contribution is...
I hate that this makes me feel so good.
Amy Westervelt has much to say on this topic. She discussed the Invisible Work Calculator with Leah Crowder of New America:
“Honestly, it’s ridiculous that, in order to attribute value to something, you have to be able to apply a dollar figure to it, especially in a country in which politicians are constantly talking about “family values.” But that’s where we’re at. And if those same politicians are going to wring their hands about birth rates, they should get a better understanding of what it actually looks like and what it costs to have children in this country—and they should set about improving those conditions.”
I did some very depressing Google searching when trying to wrap my head around this idea and it uncovered several articles about feminism and the stay-at-home mom which were base, retrograde, and reductive. What needs to change to shift our cultural position on stay-at-home parenting? Policy. We need a system set up to support parents with post-partum leave (in Sweden both parents are entitled to 480 days of parental leave with 360 of those days earning up to 80% of their income, I know, aren’t you SO BORED of talking about how amazing Sweden is?), parental sick leave, equal pay, affordable child-care, universal pre-k. These are the things that lay the groundwork for healthy family life and a thriving community (healthy kids mean productive adults). And we need to vote accordingly. Here’s a great article from The Hill:
“The workplace is perfectly designed for the workforce of 1960, a workforce of breadwinners married to homemakers,” said Joan Williams, of UC Hastings and the author of What Works For Women At Work.
Simply put, this is just what’s happening right now, in my life, and a few years down the line when I am back to work it will be a blip, a stage, not an epoch. It’s like, oh whatever, this is my life and doesn’t need to fit into any stereotype. I’m not a stay-at-home mom, I’m not a professional mom, I’m just me living my life in the best way possible under the circumstances in this moment. As Eileen Myles says, “I’m the gender of Eileen.” Amen.