The always-right-on-the-money "Jane" at Asymmetrical Information explains why the mommy wars make a lot of sense:
…if you think you’ve found the One Right Way to raise YOUR child, then it does indeed make sense to fight hard to persuade as many other women as possible to make the same choice. If you are at home, working mothers are your enemy, at least until they chuck the rat race, and vice versa.
Why do I say this? Simple: having the majority of people live the way you do has significant positive externalities.
In other words, we at-home moms benefit when there are a lot of other moms at home, and working moms benefit when there are a lot of other moms working.
She goes on to give examples from both sides, including this one:
…[S]taying at home with children is not nearly as rewarding as it was in the 1960’s. All right, there are more daytime television options than there used to be, and gyms now have day-care centres. But there is something huge missing, and that is all the other women in your neighbourhood. The ones that your mother had coffee with, asked to watch the children for an hour, played afternoon bridge with, formed the pillar of the PTA with, and so on . . . they’re all off trading bonds or editing books or waiting tables. That’s why all the women I know who stay home are desperate for adult conversation by the time their husband walks through the door. Most neighbourhoods used to be communities full of women who zipped around between houses, filling each other’s days. Now they are often lonely prisons.
This rings true to me because, despite being at home, I’ve mostly escaped that prison.
Crucial to my happiness, in all seriousness, is the fact that we’ve formed close friendships with three other families in similar situations (dad works, mom’s at home, kids are homeschooled) and we spend huge amounts of time together during the weekdays.
Typically we trade off days: Mondays everyone’s at Melissa’s, Thursdays at mine, Fridays at Hannah’s, etc. We take some work with us, supervise all the kids’ schoolwork around the kitchen table, help each other make dinner or take care of housework, and also we’re available to each other on a moment’s notice for emergency childcare and the like.
For example, Melissa broke her ankle this week and the rest of us are taking turns spending the day over there just to help her out with her kids.
I can’t imagine how my days might go if all my friends were working and I had no one but myself and my own children in my own house. I think it would be terribly isolating and depressing. I try to remember that when I talk to women who are struggling with the home/work decision — I don’t regret staying home, but my home-staying experience has made me wealthy in relationships, and not everyone feels comfortable reaching out to other women to deliberately form this kind of a relationship.
Nevertheless, I try to encourage people to do it — it makes all the difference in the world.
And I specifically try to encourage women I know and like who live in my city, because — who knows — maybe we can help each other out.
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