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Preface: I wrote this essay in 1996, when my five children were between the ages of 4 and 16. In the 21st century, many women have to work to support themselves and their families. In fact, for many women today, the "stay-at-home mom" lifestyle is a luxury. But this is an article I wrote for a USENet discussion about stay-at-home moms, to honor my sweet wife and all the women like her, who choose to stay at home and be a wife and a mother above all else. This version is a little more polished than the one I posted on USENet, and it's updated a tiny bit. |
She saw my hesitancy, mistook it for offense, and tried to rephrase the question: "I mean, does she work at home?" Again I thought of what my wife does all day, and paused to compose a reply.
How do you refer to someone who gets up at 5 in the morning to fix breakfast for three different shifts, so everybody leaves the house with a warm meal in their bellies, and then showers and does some housecleaning, does some laundry, takes the youngest to preschool twice a week, has a quick lunch, runs errands, then ferries children around until 5 at night — and takes care of a dozen teenage girls one night a week?
When the minivan puts on more miles in a week than my commuter car does, I hesitate to say that she "works at home."
Yes, she does work. But no, the majority of her work at this stage in her life is definitely not at home.
At my second pause, my colleague blushed and apologized for even asking. Then I felt bad for not having had an immediate answer for her, and I tried to explain to her that I wasn't offended by her questions, and didn't even believe in political correctness — and that both questions were fine, but that neither of them described what my wife really does.
My wife doesn't think that any of the job descriptions applied to "stay-at-home moms" are offensive. She says that sometimes the way they're used or delivered is offensive ("I suppose I could have stayed at home and baked cookies" — Hillary Clinton, March 15, 1992. "His wife has actually never worked a day in her life" — Hilary Rosen, April 11, 2012) She puts "homemaker" on her resume´. If you ask her how much she makes, she answers with the old-but-not-yet-tired "The hours are long, the pay stinks, but the benefits are worth it all."
And she would go online and tell you this herself, except that she's too busy working to spend time on the Internet.
Best regards to moms everywhere
Ray Depew
Created by Ray Depew, 19 October, 1996
© 1992, 2002, 2012 by Ray Depew.
May be copied or reproduced for personal use only.
Do not copy on paper or electronically for the purpose of wider distribution
without the author's express permission. Do not sell copies.
Last edited by Ray Depew, 13 Apr, 2012