The Rise of the SAHM

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).