The Courageous Choice to Mother from Home
on how choosing to stay home can be a socially expensive choice.
Motherhood commentary continues to dominate our cultural conversations. This is the moment, and while I’m cautious to tread into such tumultuous waters, I do feel confidently convicted on dispelling some of the narratives and myths that exist around women who have chosen to leave the workplace. Presently, I am a full-time homemaker and mother to four young children, six and under. I always wanted to be home for my children, and hoped to avoid daycare. I’ve also been able to continue my passions of writing and photography in different capacities as our family has grown. I truly have found so much inspiration fervor in the work of motherhood. My children daily inspire me, homemaking feels at times romantic and grounding. I am tired, always, but it’s the good kind of tired. No, it’s not always fun, is anything? Yes, there can be a sort of beauty and life that springs from care work.
For some, the social cost of opting out of the workplace in favor of full time motherhood, even for a pause or season, comes with enormous social pressure and at a cost.
I’ve witnessed friends and friends of friends contort and torture themselves over what I believe to be a fear of judgment from others—the reality that they may be ridiculed for pausing their work lives, or for even simply desiring to be with their children for a bit more.
“You’re not ambitious.”
The idea of ambition seems stuck on a singular image of a person chasing a very specific kind of career. Usually this is something business or STEM related. I rarely hear people describe educators or gardeners or accountants as ambitious. But can they be? Surely. Motherhood has required of me a great amount of ambition. I need the ambition and goal of raising kind, good adults to get me out of bed in the morning when I might rather sleep in. Ambition is what inspired me to wallpaper a nursery pregnant. I am very much an ambitious mother when I learn and inquire more of specialists who have walked along our baby’s physical motor delay. Motherhood is immensely ambitious, just as much as anything else could be.
“You’re wasting your education.”
What a gift an education is. While I am terribly annoyed by my student loans, I’ve yet to feel regret over my liberal arts degree. My love of classical literature and art has given me the courage to read Beatrix Potter to my toddlers and drag out the watercolor paints for a front porch art project. I suspect an educated woman can pass along what she has learned to the children in her care. Why must an education only find value if it yields a paycheck? Are there other sources of fulfillment besides monetary ones?
“You’re a trad wife now.”
I’ve come to believe that “trad wife” is a slur now. Those expressing it as a way to characterize another write and speak with such distain for what the term could possibly mean (despite lacking in clear definition—but that’s beside the point). Who would want to be grouped in with such awful, subservient people?
I believe these are the comments that prevent some women who desire to be home more from making the leap. Early on in my relationship with Seth we had a conversation about the kind of future we both wanted for our lives. At the time I was a photographer and nanny. I vulnerably opened up about my desire to stay home with any future children. Seth was and still is a very ambitious person, focused on the work he does, and I wasn’t certain what his opinions on homemakers were. I was surprised to hear that he was indeed very much in support of my future dream. He’d found my entrepreneurial spirit and family orientation refreshing and a relief from what he called the careerism plaguing our time. Still, despite his support and my own stubbornness this choice has meant cultural push back.
I do long for a softer place for homemakers to land, where their choice will neither be politicized nor demeaned.
I cannot tell you the terrible push back and criticism that I received when I left my fancy ad job to work part time at a small start up agency because we wanted to begin a family and I wanted to work less and be home more. I cried for days at work because they were trying to stonewall me into staying and giving up MY dream for theirs. Love that you are speaking up about this. 🥰
So very real. It absolutely is a courageous choice for many of us. Love to see you writing on this.
There's a saying popping up in my head, maybe a compliation of a different quotes, that education is never wasted on a woman. An African proverb? (Off to Google, ha.) Either way, it's so true. And so many educated women who don't want to continue working full-time after they become mothers, even just wanting to go part-time or take a few years off, have this feeling (that they're "wasting their education"). My cousin just said it to me a few months ago.
Oof. We need a major cultural rethinking around motherhood and work. Thanks for your voice!