Like many of the other posters here on this forum, I am seriously troubled by the rabid people supposedly decrying the great injustices of working mothers or the plight of kids in daycare.
I am a 32 year old woman whose parents both worked, and worked hard to raise themselves out of poverty solely for bettering the lives of their two daughters. I am a child of immigrants who were once on welfare for a short time when they first came to this country almost 30 years ago. My mother gave up medical school to stay at home with the two of us in her home country, something that she has never gotten over. When my dad lost his job when they first moved here, she jumped at the chance to go back to school. She was a full time student AND she worked full time at night. She found time to make sure that we were fed, clean, and studied hard. She also made sure, with my father, that we were being good kids.
Both my sister and I are scientists and have multiple professional degrees, all from Ivy Leagues. Both of us managed to pay for our own education and have worked since we were 16. We LOVE the fact that we were raised by a community of people (family and daycare in pretty bad neighborhoods), rather than just our mother. We learned what life is really like for a majority of people in this country and what it means to interact with those who come from different worlds. We are better individuals and citizens because of it.
My mother's struggles were a source of inspiration for the both of us. It taught us things that we would have never learned otherwise: that life is hard, you have to make choices that are difficult, and that you have to get along with people who are different than you. I’m sorry to burst some of your bubbles but life is not just about trips to Seaworld, walks in a pretty park, and “playdates” (god I hate that word). Life is also about wondering where the next meal is going to come from and how to get along with different kinds of people. Women living all sorts of lives have struggled since the beginning to give us the choices we have, and we need to be respectful of that.
I work in the field of HIV/AIDS and work with people who are living in absolute misery. My sister is a cancer specialist and deals with death and dying on a daily basis. We both have great children and supportive, amazing husbands. We both would not be the kinds of people that we are today if it were not for our mother who led by example. I absolutely believe that I am a better mother because of what I do outside the home. I am able to teach my children about certain things in the world that I could not otherwise if I were raising them at home full time, and they understand fully that the world is more than them as individuals or me as their mother. This is what is best for me, my family and most of all, my children. This may not be what is right for you or your family, and that is totally fine.
I don’t mean to be rude but all of you rabid about the absolute integrity of staying at home to raise your children need to get over yourselves. For those of you saying that women who work even though they don't have to are selfish or plain wrong are totally living in a bubble raising bubble-living kids. In addition, the whole logic of "if you have to work because of finances, this isn't about you..." makes absolutely no sense. It's ridiculous! Women work or don't work for a number of different reasons that may or may not have to do with finances. This in no way means that they are selfish or didn't want to have children. I mean you are telling me that a mother who has to work to support her family is not selfish but the one who is doing it for purely non-financial reasons is? How does this make any sense? And the person telling people that if a woman wants to work full time, they need to get birth control…this kind of attitude is what is sick and downright degrading. You cannot be raising children who will be tolerant and responsible with attitudes like that!
I know very well kids who have been raised in bubbles...my husband is one of them! He is an absolutely amazing person but he’s pretty naïve about certain things, and sometimes I do wish he’d been raised differently. What is more interesting is that he's in the process of lobbying me to be a stay at home dad right now (although I think it has as much to do with his distaste for his job as an attorney as wanting to raise our kids).
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