An article on CNN.com titled "Working Moms Look Back With Mixed Emotions" has drawn quite a few angry comments over the past two days. The article presents the opinions both of women who work and who stay at home. It doesn't mention stay-at-home dads, but I don't think that is the point. Most of the women commenting on the article stated that they chose to work, and their kids are better for it. I think this is disingenuous. While it may be most emotionally satisfying to pretend that you are getting the best of both worlds, most people acknowledge that there are tradeoffs whether you work or stay home, for both men and women. If it were abundantly clear that it is better for children to be "socialized" through day care, and for highly educated women to work, then this debate would no longer exist. The tradeoffs are not the same for all women, or for all children. Many of the responses also cited stay-at-moms as "judging" working women, and stated that they don't judge the moms who stay home- another subterfuge. A lot of this debate is related to how one views marriage and the relationship between husbands and wives. If your concern is "power," or that it is "unfair" for the working spouse to support his or her family, you should certainly work.
Many women have to work to support their families and do not have the choice to stay home. For those who do have the choice, at least be honest about the choice that you are making. Concerned about intellectual stimulation? Try online courses, reading, learning new languages- there is no shortage of intellectual resources out there. Education is a good in and of itself. Not being employed in the public sphere for a period of time does not render education useless- why have liberal arts education at all, if that is the case?
One of the most controversial statements in the article, that "women are happiest in clearly defined and traditional marital roles" from a study -- "What's Love Got To Do With It? Equality, Equity, Commitment and Women's Marital Quality," released last year by University of Virginia sociologists W. Bradford Wilcox and Steven L. Nock, gets to the heart of the issue. We are confused about roles in marriage and what they mean. As women, we are generally afraid of dependency, which prevents us from enjoys the good that can come from interdependency. Fear of losing power, fear of marginalization, fear of being our grandmothers has led us to the conclusion that we must be independent to be happy, and this requires a paycheck.
I think we are called to a higher purpose- one that is at odds with individual power. Part of my vocation is to be my husband's wife, and part of his vocation is to be my husband. We did not get married because it "made sense" or was convenient. The marriage convenant is based on love and giving up power on both sides. You essentially give up the right to be self-centered when you get married, which is one reason marriage is so important to the church.
The issue of clearly defined roles is one that I will come back to, because I think it is central to the confusion that women of my generation feel about marriage and having children.
Read the original article and the following comments at
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/07/14/working.moms.look.back/index.html.
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