I have been a little obsessed with watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 on TLC lately. They have two six-year-olds and six 3-year-olds and Kate keeps a much cleaner house than mine. Sometimes I feel that since I am a stay-at-home mom my house should be perfectly organized and scrubbed. Why isn't my house neat and clean? Mainly because I choose to devote my time to my children rather than my house--I take them to the park, the library, the pool and participate in their co-op preschool with them. But also I choose not to devote the free time I do have to my house, instead I write (children's stories), read, spend time with my husband, correspond on e-mail or watch movies and tv shows that I enjoy. In other words, I try to do things that fulfill me as a person, which housework does not (my husband has sadly come to terms with this realization).
So, I started wondering about all the other modern stay-at-home mothers out there and how they spend their time and whether or not they feel fulfilled. Linda Hirshman, a well-known feminist, appeared on "Good Morning America" awhile back and basically said that all of us educated women that choose to leave the workplace to raise our children are a disgrace to the feminist movement and that we are failing womankind. She says that being a stay-at-home mother "does not sound particularly interesting or fulfilling for a complicated person, for a complicated, educated person." How big of an impact has the feminist movement had on how women feel about their roles as stay-at-home mothers? The view that many people seem to hold of mothers in the '50s and before is that they were blissfully happy to raise their families, put hot food on the table and keep immaculate houses, but is that true or did many of them want more? I would guess the latter, otherswise the feminist movement would have never happened in the first place.
It appears that women now have more choices, but still no clear answers. We have the ability, thanks to the feminists that went before use, to seek out careers and positions of power, yet many of us feel compelled to do the important work of raising our children. But then we are left feeling that all of our talents are not being utilized and maybe we have more to contribute to society. Hirshman believes that the next goal of feminists should be to reconstruct the family and the roles women play within it. However, thankfully there are people like Kim Clark, dean of the Harvard business school, who believe that businesses should be trying to get creative and find ways for women to raise their children while still working on a part-time basis until they are ready to return full-time. This should really be the next goal for the feminist movement: give women real choices, don't make them choose between a career and a family, let them do both--the world will be a better place for it.
For further reading on Linda Hirshman and her appearance on "Good Morning America" go to:
No comments:
Post a Comment