The Great Mom Debate: Working Moms vs. Stay-Home Moms

One of the most important issues facing women today, I think, is the stay-home mom vs. career woman issue. Historically, even when women in America gained the opportunity to work, many gave up their jobs and/or careers when they got married or pregnant. Even many highly educated women did this.

I'd like to first state my frame of reference on this issue. I am a young, childless woman, and therefore I have not faced this issue firsthand, and can only speak to what I speculate, ponder, and have read about. However, I fully plan to have and/or adopt children of my own someday. Additionally, I'm in pursuit of a serious career. So I struggle with this issue a great deal, especially having grown up with a stay-at-home mom. Until very recently, I felt that children should have a parent around at all times. I fell prey to social and media pressure, and thought I might be a terrible mother if I sometimes work late, or bring work home with me. But is that really the case? Should mothers actually sacrifice everything for their children?

I now firmly believe that they should not. I think that this issue shows poignantly one of the most powerful double-standards imposed on modern women. Sure, men are expected to be good fathers. But the criticism laid on fathers who work long hours is nothing compared to the guilt that is often pushed on women who have careers that take them away from their children.

However, people have a right to pursue their goals. For many people, their goals involve having a successful career. Why should a woman, just because she has given birth to a child, have to give up that career to care for a child? I am in no way saying that a mother who has a career should neglect her child. As centuries of fathers have shown, a working parent is not necessarily a neglectful parent.

One of the most interesting things about this issue is the nature of the debate. The word "catty" has (of course) been used to describe it, because often stay-home moms strongly believe that good mothers stay home, and working moms hotly counter that by saying that they have a right to pursue their career. They also point out that they help (or solely) provide for their family; how is that being a bad mother? It's becoming increasingly more difficult in the United States for a family to survive on one income. It's understandable. No one really wants to be told they are bad at anything, let along caring for a human (or humans) that they have brought into the world. Parenting is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, responsibility that many people will take on.

Another issue is that the media and entertainment bombard us with the image of the parent who is at work, rather than at their child's important event (they even do this to men; think Hook). Commercials for digital cameras, computers, cell phones, etc. take advantage of this guilt to sell us gadgets that will allow us to be at work and see our kids' baseball games, dance recitals, whatever.

I'm not saying parents shouldn't feel bad about missing their children's events. I'm sure it's unavoidable. But the expectation put on moms to excel at both being a mother and being a working woman, or to simply give up everything for their children, is unrealistic, and unnecessary. I used to think, "What if I miss my baby's first step? Or first word? Or first home run?" This thought haunted me for years (Really. That's not an exaggeration). Then, after many conversations with working parents, and with adult children of working parents, I realized something. Who does it really matter to most? Is my kid really going to care if I miss the first step? Probably not. I care, because I want to see it. While that is still important, I realized that my child is probably not going to be psychologically damaged by it. Sure, they'll probably get upset when I miss things that are important to them, and I'm not saying that I'm not going to try my very hardest to not miss things, but it's probably not going to send them to a therapist.

Here is what I think is really important: being a strong role model. I believe very strongly that people should be allowed to make their own decisions, and not conform to expectations or roles imposed upon them. Whether I have boy(s) or girl(s), I want them to see that a woman can be successful in a career, and happy in her own decisions. In that way, my daughter may never doubt that it is possible, and my son will know to respect women, and to understand that they can produce valuable work.

I'd like to end with saying that I don't think stay-home mothers are bad parents, or bad people. I respect them--I could never have the patience to do it. I just don't think that women should be pressured into that role, or judged because they choose to go to work.