What a Life!

I caught the last half of Oprah yesterday. The show was about SAHMs vs WOHMs. I went to the site this morning and apparently the topic that started the whole discussion was Elizabeth Vargas choosing to step down from her position as co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard various positions on the whole issue. One of my favorite parenting forums has a sub-forum for SAHMs. Of course, there are things that SAHMs might say to other SAHMs about the ins and outs of SAHMing that you would never discuss with a WOHM.

For instance, a SAHM might say to another SAHM that she decided to stay at home with her children because she simply couldn’t drop off her children at daycare and walk away from them every morning in order to go to work. She may feel that way, and that may be the key factor that influenced her decision to stay at home. But it would be absolutely deplorable to make such a comment to a WOHM whose children are enrolled in daycare while she works.

It’s intended as a SAHM forum, but occasionally the WOHMs see topic titles and come over and add their two cents worth. Many times, they start listing reasons why they had to work and couldn’t stay at home with their children even if they wanted to. This often leads to big fights between the two groups generally referred to as “mommy wars.”

It’s been said before: Those who think something cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

If WOHMs want to whine about how they “had no choice but to work,” those are comments that should be shared with other WOHMs. Making such comments to SAHMs is equally deplorable, in my opinion, to the SAHM comment I mentioned above. Why? For every reason I’ve heard WOHMs give for why they have to work, there is a SAHM who has overcome that same obstacle and managed to find a way or make a way to stay at home with her children.

The common attitude these days is that most women don’t have a choice. I would argue that most women do have a choice.

Let me run through some of the common reasons WOHMs give for why they have to work.

These days, you simply cannot live on a single income. Both incomes are necessary in order to make ends meet.

This is often said with the assumption that you have to be married to a doctor or a lawyer in order to be able to afford to stay at home. It’s as though they think SAHMs live in households where they have extra money lying around they didn’t know what to do with so they decided not to work.

Going from two incomes to one income is an adjustment no matter what household income category you fit into. Ironically, Oprah did a survey that they posted the results for, and there were SAHMs in every household income category – from the $100,000+ all the way down to $0 – 20,000. If you’re in that top income category, you still are going to make financial sacrifices in order to do without a second income. They will just be different sacrifices than the ones you might make in a different income category.

Let’s add up the costs associated with working. Take your second paycheck and subtract out daycare expenses. Subtract the cost of driving to and from work every day. Subtract the cost of the nice clothes you have to buy in order to dress appropriately for work. Subtract the money you spend going out to lunch every day. How much money are you really adding to the family income?

Take the amount of money you are actually bringing home. Are there things you could cut from your budget that would enable you to go without that money? Could you get a part time job that would work opposite the hours that your husband works to fill in that gap?

Well, you don’t know people’s situation. You don’t know how much debt they have.

You’re right – I have no idea how much debt they have. I do know that they willingly signed for every penny of it. They could have chosen a different car with a smaller payment. They could have chosen a different house with a smaller mortgage. They could have done without the items they used their credit cards to purchase. Student loan payments can be re-negotiated to be smaller.

Granted, we all make choices that we regret later on. However, lifestyles can be modified. You could choose to move to a different neighborhood. You could choose to drive different vehicles. You chould choose to cut your spending. You are not without options.

Steve and I discussed the SAHM vs. WOHM issue on our second date. Every purchase we made while we were dating and as a married couple was made in the context of our desire for me to stay at home with our future children. I do know of SAHMs who didn’t decide to stay at home until they had a baby in their arms, but in my experience, that is the exception rather than the rule. Deciding at the last minute simply means that you may need to make some big changes very quickly in order to make being a SAHM a reality.

My husband doesn’t want me to be a SAHM.

How much have you really discussed this? Brush up on your negotiation skills. Figure out what is important to him about your working and consider alternate options for not losing what is important to him while getting what is important to you – staying at home with your children.

We had an unplanned pregnancy.

My blunt response: You understand where babies come from, correct?

My kinder response: Our first child wasn’t planned either. But we still found a way to make it possible for me to be at home.

But beyond the simple rebuttals, I think the hardest thing for me about the Mommy Wars is the feeling I get from so many moms that they don’t have a choice.

Being a SAHM isn’t for everyone. For instance, you talk to people who telecommute. Some of them love being left alone and able to focus on their work. Some love the fact that they don’t have to spend hours on the road commuting every day. Some of them love the fact that they can wear whatever they want to work. Others miss the comraderie you get working in a room full of people. They miss the “watercooler” conversations. They miss getting out of the house. They miss the straightforward beginning and ending of the work day based on walking in and out of the office.

If a mom wants to work, by all means, go ahead and work. But do it because you choose to. Don’t be a victim of your circumstances. You will be a much happier person, and your children will be much better off.

I believe moms do have a choice. They are simply choosing not to overcome the obstacles they would need to overcome in order to make it possible…which is a valid choice. We all face obstacles. Some are bigger than others. But for every obstacle someone faces, there is someone who has found a way or made a way to overcome that same obstacle.

Now I’m really going to go out on a limb:

There’s a column in a recent O Magazine on mothering where the writer calls for “more affordable childcare” and someone writes in and says, “yes, that would be mothers staying at home with their children.” Then in a subsequent column, the writer goes off on a tirade about how you have to be one of the 11 people who can actually afford to stay at home and on and on…

This is my answer to that debate:

If it was politically correct to say that children are generally better off with their mothers, it would be easier for more mothers to stay at home with their children. The “village” would embrace those mothers who really do want to be at home with their children (again, I didn’t say it was for everybody). We as a society would find more jobs that could be done on a part time basis or with alternate work arrangements. There would be less pressure to live a two-income lifestyle, and a one-income lifestyle would be considered more “normal.” With more mother’s choosing to stay at home, more mothers would seriously consider it, and it would be easier for them to make the choices needed in order to make it happen because they would be seeing other people do it as well.

Because, after all, if we’re going to call for “more affordable childcare” for mothers who choose to work, shouldn’t we also call for better options for the moms who would like to stay at home? Fair is fair.

Enough said. Peace.