Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site osu-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!osu-eddie!karl From: karl@osu-eddie.UUCP (Karl Kleinpaste) Newsgroups: net.kids Subject: Mother needs no excuse Message-ID: <119@osu-eddie.UUCP> Date: Sun, 25-Nov-84 16:22:40 EST Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.119 Posted: Sun Nov 25 16:22:40 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 26-Nov-84 02:21:33 EST Distribution: net Organization: Society for the Advancement of Raw Weirdness Lines: 104 Periodically, I hear or see something about full-time-mothers versus working-mothers and the relative merits of each. In particular, my wife Lucy occasionally catches some flak because she's "justahousewife." That really ticks me off; I view the work which my wife does with our son Todd (18 months) as being of considerably more importance than my own work, and I think it's fine that she doesn't even want to find paycheck-producing work until Todd is at least into 1st grade, and possibly not for some time after that. Hence this posting. Around mid-May or thereabouts, the following article appeared in _T_h_e _C_o_l_u_m_b_u_s _D_i_s_p_a_t_c_h. It's written by a guy by the name of D.L. Stewart, who writes a (daily?) column titled _P_a_t_e_r_n_i_t_y _W_a_r_d. He normally writes some reasonable stuff, and this one really caught my eye. I cut it out way back then and saved it, something which I do once in several blue moons. I feel (for reasons which wouldn't be terribly important to the Usenet public) that it would be good to post it here today. ======================================================================= _M_O_T_H_E_R _N_E_E_D_S _N_O _E_X_C_U_S_E By D.L. Stewart It was a "tease," one of those little television announcements they use to promote an upcoming feature on the 6 o'clock news. "Tomorrow," the announcer said, "we'll take a look at some women who have elected to stay home and raise their children." It wasn't, as the saying goes, what she said that startled me. It was the way she said it. The tone in her voice implied: "Don't miss this one, folks, these women really are unique." It was the kind of tone you might hear in front of the side-show tent. The tone that gets the rubes inside to see the two-headed calf. The bearded lady. The crocodile boy. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Full-time mothers. You'll gasp. You'll blush. You'll tell your friends. And I looked at my wife, the one who had elected to stay home and raise our children, and I asked: "How long has full-time motherhood been a curiosity?" Of course, I already knew the answer. For some women, motherhood became an elective on the day their husbands skipped town and forgot to leave a forwarding address. Or the month after their husband died and the insurance policies that once looked so reassuring began to disappear beneath a pile of mortgage payments and orthodontist bills and Jordache jeans. Motherhood became a part-time job for some women at the moment they decided that wiping noses and tying shoestrings and driving a station wagon full of infielders to Little League practice was not fulfilling and there was more to life than PTA and Cub Scouts. Or at the moment they looked at their husband's take-home pay and discovered that it covered food and clothing, but left nothing for second cars and college tuition and TVs. No one can dispute their decisions. No one should. No one, after all, asks me why I have elected to be part-time father. And yet, there is something in that television tease that bothers me. Something that makes me wonder why it is necessary to take a camera into a woman's home and ask her to explain her reasons for staying home all day and caring for her children. Is it really all that unusual for a woman to want to be there when a baby takes its first, lurching steps across the living room floor into her arms? Is there something strange about a woman who chooses to spend her time listening to her baby's first words? I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that there must be a special satisfaction in tip-toeing into a 2-year-old's room at nap time and just standing there, watching a small body at sleep. What's so odd about electing to be there when a 6-year-old rushes home from school clutching a paper with a gold star on top, filled with the joy of accomplishment and the need to share it? Has the world changed so much that there's no longer room for a woman who feels it's important for a 10-year-old to know that there will be someone waiting at home who really wants to hear about all the good things that happened today? And all the bad things. Who decided that there's no satisfaction in holding a crying child on her lap and kissing away the tears? At what point did we start looking with curiosity at the woman who finds fulfillment in guiding an adolescent through some of the toughest years of life? A woman who doesn't feel that it's a waste of her talents to create a life and nurture it and help it grow and send it into the world with the best possible preparation it is in her to provide. When did motherhood become newsworthy? ======================================================================= I don't think much needs to be added to this item as it stands, but I'd just like to comment that, yes, in fact there is a great deal of satisfaction in going into a sleeping (not-quite-)2-year-old's room and "just standing there, watching a small body at sleep." -- From the badly beaten keyboards of best address---+ him who speaks in _*_T_y_P_e_* _f-_O-_n-_T-_s... | V Karl Kleinpaste @ Bell Labs, Columbus 614/860-5107 {cbosgd,ihnp4}!_c_b_r_m_a_!_k_k @ Ohio State University 614/422-0915 cbosgd!osu-eddie!karl