Quote:
Originally Posted by Columbine
My mother never described it as boring. She always explained it as "climbing the walls screaming." I reckon it's not boredom per se that drives a lot of women back to work, it's the isolation. A awful lot of mothers with small babies end up stuck inside the house all day, and don't see anyone until their partner comes home in the evening (assuming they have one), and even then they might be too tired to bother talking much. How many people do you know who often just come home from work, eat and then veg in front of the box? And that can go on for MONTHS.
Even if you're not career driven, to go from a full active working and social life (which are likely to be interlinked; colleagues as friends etc) to an endless exhausted and mundane round of feeds, sleeps, changes and daytime TV, that's a fairly big come down. This isn't to say that it has any impact on how much they love their kids, or enjoy being with them, but it maybe effects how they see themselves and their role and their future. Or they can feel guilty for no longer being able to 'pull their weight' like they were before, even if there's not a financial need for them to do so. Especially in the west, where being an educated woman also means you're told endlessly that being a stay-at-home mum is tantamount to failure, and even if you don't believe that, there's this stigma that being a mother = lesser status, which is depressing.
Plus they've either got two options- you socialize with other mothers and their kids, which is great, but can end up wholly about the kids and for their sake alone and so nothing substantial, or you go out sans bebe with your friends who don't have children, but then discover your whole life has narrowed considerably and you suddenly have nothing 'interesting' to talk about. I'm sure we've all been there; had the friend who's had a kid and gone from having lots to say about everything to being unable to offer nothing unless it's an anecdote about little Jimmy's latest developments. (divorcees can be just as bad.)
And frankly, keeping working is good for you. You stay sharper. Of all my friends mums, the ones who have kept some kind of career are happier, brighter and more confident, and have remained more equal to their husbands than the ones who have been housewives for 30 years. Let me tell you, some of those examples of housewifery and stay-at home mothering are downright terrifying to someone my age.
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Boring...mundane...isolation...
It seems some people have some very negative views about child-rearing.
Are these the actually mothers using these terms to describe their lives with their children?
I kind of doubt it. The mothers I talk to wouldn't change a thing. Sure it's exhausting, but that doesn't mean it isn't rewarding. Not a mom I know would have traded working or a career for raising their child...being there to see those firsts.