Family Forum / Parenting / Mothers / February 2008

    I think you have to be very, very careful not to take
insult where none may have been intended.  While it would do a
lot of people a world of good to think through the implications
of their words before they opened their mouths, the fact is that
few people think things through in that level of detail.  It's
an absolute minefield when discussing this issue.  Stay at home
mom?  A bunch will leap up to tell you that they're hardly home
at all.  Working mother?  You'll have a bunch at your throat
to tell you that parenting is plenty of work, thank you very
much.  Work out of the home mother?  Aside from being a mouthful,
it's just the flip side of SAHM and insinuates the same "stay
at home" thing, and besides, someone will jump on you about all
the volunteer work they do.  There's hardly a term that you can
use that someone won't take offense at.  Heck, your statement
above about how you're driving yourself crazy to ensure your
kids don't have to endure the dreaded daycare will offend some,
through the implication that daycare is so awful that it's worth
driving yourself crazy to avoid.

    We're not going to get anywhere if we all as women
don't try really hard to cut each other some slack ;-)  There
absolutely are women who are holier-than-thou on either side,
but unless you've got some much more concrete evidence than
a terminology slip, I'd really take a step back and figure
it wasn't meant as an insult.  Heck, she could have just been
bemoaning the fact that it's hard for her to find people
to do things with during the day because so many of her
peers are in the office or otherwise unavailable to socialize
during the day when she's available.  I often feel that way.
Since I do most of my for-pay work from home, and my late afternoons
and evenings and weekends are often crammed with family stuff,
mornings are the ideal time for me to sneak in a little
socializing...but as our kids have gotten older, many of
my friends have picked up part time jobs and are much less available
during the day.  Bummer.  When my kids were littler, most of
these women were around most days and it was nice to have the
support system.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Yeah I had a long discussion on someone about this some time back.

You're no more not a "full time parent" than a husband is not a "full time
husband" because he spends some time away from his spouse.

Parenting is a *role*, not an hourly job.

Banty

Yes, we can all do with a reminder from time to time that people are
possibly
just talking from their POV and actually saying something about their
situation
rather than anything about us, or people in general.

As Ericka says, maybe she is just saying there are not many mothers
around for her to meet with. Further, agreeing with Ericka, as each year
goes by and the children get older, more and more mothers will return to
the work force in various ways or back to uni.

With children 10 and 12, the only mothers (mainly) still at home are
those with younger children and those that are not native English
speakers and generally can't work because of their English and don't
have the entreprenuerial whatfor to open a business for their community.
 This is not a criticism of any of them, just the way life decisions
are made for their families future.

I've separated this out so the two issues don't become confused.

I've a friend, nearing retirement age, that does nannying. She is in a
difficult situation. Because of her age, she is finding that parents
that work everyday don't want to hire her for 5 days a week morning to
evening. So she has to do nannying part-time. She has pieced together
about 3 families to make something approximating an income, with casual
nannying and evening babysitting and ironing making up the rest.

It is quite appalling how badly these 'employers' treat her. One is a
heart surgeon in the public health system, ok she doesn't get paid well
considering. But she still expected the friend, L, to be paid for hours
worked, and be on call when she was. ??? It took quite a bit to sort
that out. Call is still difficult because how does L take another
appointment when she's on call (unpaid).

None seem to take into account that she can't do a day / morning /
afternoon if they phone up, and get quite short with her. ????

(great generalization) People nowadays are so self-centred.

Marc