The Feminine Mistake

(Be warned, some serious ranting follows...)

My family and I just went out to dinner and then Ben and Noah needed to get haircuts. So while I was waiting for them at the haircut place I was flipping through magazines and I read an article in Glamour about "the feminine mistake" - which, apparantly, is quitting work to stay home with your kids. I probably don't have to tell how much articles like this bother me. Obviously, I'm annoyed on a personal level because I have done exactly that - quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom - so it's a direct offense to me and how I have chosen to live my life. But even more than that, I feel like these kinds of articles - along with "mommy wars" and working mom vs. stay-at-home mom debates - are so damaging to women in general.

I'm so tired of women being pit against each other all the time. In my opinion, it's hard enough to be a woman and a mother in our society. There is so much pressure to be everything and do everything and raise perfect kids. The last thing we need is to feel disrespected and devalued and to constantly have to justify ourselves. We should support each other and cheer each other on. And I feel like this on the flip side too - it also annoys me when working moms are judged and attacked. They shouldn't feel like they have to justify themselves any more than stay-at-home moms do. But I think both sides feel hostility from the other and so everyone is always on the defensive. Stay-at-home moms are portrayed as lazy and unambitious women with atrophying brains (the article I read today had a picture of a mom wearing slippers - like all we do is lounge around in our pjs all day) while working moms are portrayed as selfish and career-obsessed women who don't care about their kids. It's ridiculous! I'm sure there are lazy stay-at-home moms and I'm sure there are working moms who rarely see their kids. But this isn't the wide majority of either side. Most moms - working in the home or out - are fantastic moms who are doing the best they can, who love their kids and try to do right by them.

I just don't understand why women need to attack each other all the time. Why is it anyone else's business whether someone chooses to keep working after having a baby or not? We all make our own decisions and there are very compelling reasons, as well as advantages and disadvantages, on both sides. But why does anyone else care so much? If you think quitting your job is lame, then don't do it! If you think continuing to work is lame, then don't do it! But why the desire to tear the other side down? Shouldn't we all just be grateful that we live at a time where we have those choices to make in the first place?

Which leads me to another issue ("Oh boy," you must be thinking). I'm all about the feminist movement - for the most part. Our foremothers did a great job of demanding equal opportunities for women. But I think a HUGE oversight has been to devalue the (traditionally) feminine role in the process. Well, that wasn't an oversight so much as a deliberate tactic which I think has backfired big-time. It made the (traditionally) masculine role be the "better" one and totally demeaned the feminine. Rather, I wish that equal respect for the feminine had been demanded along with equal opportunity and freedom of choice. Now anyone choosing a more traditionally female role is somehow considered an enemy of the feminist movement.

So, to sum up. :) I hate mommy wars. Everyone needs to mind their own business.

And yes, I do realize that I need to stop taking these things so personally. I'm working on it.

Rant over.