It has been a while.
However, not EVERYONE is completely absorbed with the new trend and in fact many people may be busy with other things (like NOT losing one's job thanks to the recession!!).
Taglines have been bantied around for the past few months now. Domestic Goddess is my current favourite. And now we have the SAHMs (Stay At Home Mums). Sorry ladies with no kids (and stay at home Dads). You just Don't Cut It. You don't make the grade. Missed the boat. No Longer on the hip list...
The SAHMs...plenty of time to look their best, dote on their children (and husbands), join a hobby club, lunches and plan elaborate dinner dates held in their immaculately kept homes. Plenty of time to endlessly update their facebook status (he-llo how about just saying what it is you are really doing, i.e. that you are completely bored with no direction other than to the cupboard where the cleaning products are held). They claim better relationships with their children as a result of more time and a less stressful lifestyle. Husbands are happy (and so are the wives because if nothing else, there is a LOT more energy and time for snuggling between the sheets). The SAHMs claim that they are happy to be keeping their husbands happy. Sewing machine sales have soared. However, with all this to keep them busy, it seems there is plenty of time to build resentment against the working Mums (who neglect all these important matters of the home and heart).
The working Mums, on the other hand, are the ones you see hurrying everywhere - they are usually carrying several bags, children are all asking questions, everything is delegated at breakneck speed (Sam, stop doing that! Emily, wipe your face! James, do up your shoelaces and for god's sake yuck your shirt in for the third time!) and often misconstrued as being snappy, by the time they organise everyone else and themselves for work only the truly energetic have time for some good ole s-e-x (and not on housework night!). And they of course resent the SAHMs, who are often perceived as lazy and boring, judgmental bi-arches who sit on their katoucas's for the better part of each day and probably for too long in any event (and maybe because they just couldn't cope in the real world hence the 'choice' to stay at home?).
Jeez. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. So who is better off?
Unless forced to stay at home by way of losing your job, in the current climate and conditions it is difficult to see how families will survive if both parents are not working. On the other hand, one can see the argument in which choices can be made in which lifestyles are more sustainable (with less focus on 'things') and everyone is happier on a single income. There is more time to teach children how to cook, sew, grow vegies and the like - passing on skills that many 20 or 30 something year old women today do not have because their mothers and grandmothers were busy burning bras. They worked and fought hard to give young women today what we take for granted particularly in the employment and public arenas (and this is not to say that there is still not a way to go forward).
The fact that women are now sniping at each other in such concerning times is a scary thought indeed. We should be supporting one another and each other's choices. It is difficult to know why a woman chooses as she does on any given topic (just ask the Superhusbands/Superpartners).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
women who stay at home just dont understand how difficult it can be trying to juggle everything. Obviously they have too much time to be able to think badly of other women. Once they get bored with the whole domestic thing they will be back at work in droves trying to exercise their brains again. Lucky for them our forebearers have paved the way
ReplyDeleteI envy the stay at home mother, picking the kids up from school, cooking proper meals every night of the week and maintaining an immaculate house . Stay at home mums do have it easy, but are often bored and spend their days conversing with 3 year olds (who i might add are often better company than some of the people i have the pleasure of working with) and dreaming of the life they had BC. If only we could have a happy medium, but do the part time women feel they have the best of both worlds or are they sitting on a post of their own, hating the mums on both sides of the fence. Lets all remember how hard it is either way and treat the "others" with fairness and equality rather then let the green eyed monster prevail. Bitchiness never gets us anywhere, except on the receiving end of said bitchiness
ReplyDeleteBeing nasty serves no-one. But it must be hard for working mothers (I work but don't have kids) to be treated like that when they already feel guilty about having to work. I have friends who have to deal with it a lot. I suppose they can't help but be nasty back?
ReplyDeleteIt is hard for people to treat others fairly when they don't agree or don't understand (or even try to) why other people do what they do.
Especially women. Unfortunately it is in most women's nature to be overly critical of others. Sometimes rightly sometimes wrongly.
It is also hard to work with women who have other commitments with their children (esp the part-timers) and have to pick up their workloads because they cannot be met. I don't think that is very fair. Let alone to think they are probably leaving early out of guilt from the so called SAHMs!!
Easy option is not to have any kids and enjoy life a lot more I think