When I was a full-time/at-home-mom I used to read all of those research studies that stated by being an at-home mom, I was setting a destructive and bad role model for my children -- and research predicted that my kids were statistically "bound" to be failures. In the meantime my kids kept winning first place awards (science, art, writing, math) and kept bringing home perfect report cards.Then we hit the teenage years. All bets were off on how they would turn out. I pondered that perhaps those articles were right -- and I was some "loser" cleaverly masquerading as a loving and devoted mom. Perhaps the critical working moms and those cruel statistical studies were right and I had wasted my life on the children.
Then we turned the corner, and they are close to applying to the very top name colleges -- and they have the grades and recommendations to be considered. They seem happy, healthy and well balanced now in their late teens.
I personally think these magazines do a terrible discredit to families. Women need to stop allowing the media to pit us one against another. I think what really works for women are choices and fluidity in the work place: A variety such as:
- some part-time work
- some career-intense work times
- some more relaxed, work from home times
- some professional growth/career development times
- some full-time parenting times
and all of these with respect and dignity. But no magazine or committee will do this for us. Women have to respect other women - or society never will.
We should stop arguing about at home-mom vs. working mom, and instead - put our energy into asking "how can the workplace be more flexible" to: children's needs, women's career contributions, and healthy families.
-jane
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