Wobbling in High-Heeled Shoes

Okay, the Hawaii travelogue will come! But not yet. I haven't exactly written it yet. 

But! I have a soapbox post for you---one I did not want to write. I tried to let it go, not engage, refocus, blah blah blah. But the subject keeps coming up and worming its way into my consciousness---so, maybe this post needed to be written. . .  and actually posted, eh?

Subject: that smug Walsh piece in the Huffington Post that went viral.

What happened that caused all the SAHM (stay-at-home mom) vs. working mama drama? Well, a MAN deigned to weigh in, reviving the mommy wars of the 80s. Just what womankind needed.

You need to read the article to catch the full nuance of his condescension toward SAHMs and insult (though he denies it) toward working moms, but here’s the essence: SAHMs have risen to the highest calling. The rest of us (working moms and women without children)? Not so much.

Several of my Facebook friends posted the Walsh piece, which was perfectly understandable, though I found the article smug and condescending. And the comment posts were worse. Living in the working-mom lap of luxury that I do, I read the article, felt quite shitty, and then quickly had to move on (apparently to a long coffee break and martini lunch), despite the instinct to rebut the working-mom point of view. “You don’t have time for this, Ashley,” I told myself. “Let it run its course on Facebook, and DON’T ENGAGE.” Seriously, I really didn’t have the time to deal with it.

But it nagged at me, largely because Walsh was writing so confidently about something that he had NEVER, as a man, had to experience: go through pregnancy, childbirth, and (if lucky) maternity leave and then decide whether to work outside the home. 

In Hawaii, my sister-in-law---an amazing working mom---and I had drinks together after putting our monsters to bed. The conversation worked its way to the trials and conflicts of working mommyhood, and the Walsh piece came to mind again, which I described to her. I got deeply bothered by it all over again. Back in the hotel room, it was only about 9:30. Chris and Charlotte were already asleep, and I had access to a laptop, a lanai and lounge chair, and the methodical sound of waves sloshing the beach. There, I wrote the text that appears next.

According to Walsh, those of us who work outside the home are consumerist money grabbers who can’t hack our own children, or single mothers who have no choice. There is no happy medium—or gray area—in Walsh’s pastel pink world.

I think most of the FB sharers of the Walsh article were simply glad that someone with a decent platform acknowledged the sacredness and WORK of childrearing. Not that I need to type it out, but all the constant tedious tasks that surround childrearing and homemaking ARE often wrongly devalued and SHOULD be lauded as sacred and profoundly important. But some of the article and FB comments from women equated their time in the workforce sans kids with what working as a mother must be like. I’m sorry. I have to speak up. Just because you had a job once, you do NOT know what working outside the home AS A WORKING MOM is like, unless you have actually done it.

Working mothers work full throttle during the workday, because they HAVE TO LEAVE ON TIME to pick up their children from whatever child care situation they have (lovingly, believe it or not) arranged for their child(ren). So, those fantastic coffee breaks, where you sit and shoot the shit with a co-worker? I can’t remember my last one. They’re a thing of the past for us, too. Those sassy heels and professional clothes that you no longer wear? All of mine have been spit up on or shoved to the back of the closet if I couldn’t easily nurse or pump in them. Well, except for the shoes. I still wear the shoes.

In short: Don’t equate working mommyhood with your pre-kid working life and say you know what it’s like to be in my high-heeled shoes.

That’s like me saying I know what it’s like to be a stay-at-home mom because I babysat in high school. It’s not even apples and oranges. It’s like apples . . . and cats.

A SAHM wrote a rebuttal to the Walsh piece that I very much liked, where she zeroed in on much of what Walsh effed up in his (my-wife-is)-holier-than-thou piece, basically arguing that putting motherhood on the highest of high pedestals is risky, risky business. I agreed with the rebuttal, but after reading it, I still felt really, really disconcerted. Or, well, just plain crappy.

But WHY?

Maybe it was this evidence-less line from Walsh: "The more time a mother can spend raising her kids, the better. The better for them, the better for their souls, the better for the community, the better for humanity. Period." I mean, really? And he says he has no problem with working moms? And he’s not trying to generate drama? I call B.S.

Or maybe it was the fact that damn near every working mom’s Achilles heel is her children, and the suggestion that we’re short-changing our babies, even when that accusation comes from those who know nothing of our lives or mothering, feels—always, always, always—like a punch to our gut. An intentional punch, intended to tear one mom down in order to raise the other one up.

Maybe it was Walsh’s sheer lack of understanding. His complete NOT KNOWING the tearful conversations I had with Chris where I begged him to let me just be a mommy and quit my job. Or the (also tearful) call to my brother, an accountant, where I tried to gauge the long-term cost if I quit but freelanced before Lorelei hit kindergarten.

In the end, I/we decided I'd keep working. (A lot of other stuff happened during this time, too---I finally QUIT breastfeeding, Lorelei slept better, we held illnesses at bay for awhile, some stuff at work started changing--in short, many stressors came down a notch). So, why do I feel like I need to justify my decision to keep working to others---people I don't even know? After all, I could give bullet points. I could explain career traction, retirement goals, the rising cost of college, the comfort of providing health care for my children. I could justify with pie charts and flow charts and bar graphs. I could show statistics of “daycare kids” (a term I loathe, by the way) and immune systems and social skills. I could point out, to those who think I’m a terrible mother, that the taxes I pay on my income fund their social security and Medicare and schools and whatnot. I could loudly clear my throat and point out that I’m a mother—and role model—to two GIRLS. But according to Walsh, Chris and I are just dual-income jerks, more interested in money than the greater good of parenting—oh, ahem, I mean MOTHERING. Nix Chris from that equation. Fathers get to be as disengaged as they’d like in Walsh's world. Convenient.  

Well, here’s where he’s right about us: I DO think there is value in financial security. It’s the trade-off we’ve chosen, and boy, our girls get to be deeply loved AND go to college. And if that’s consumerist, then hand me my scarlet “C.”Charlotte will decorate it with some stickers and glitter.

But. That doesn’t mean that focusing solely on hearth and home and children is not something I often long for. That there are days I’m spread so thin, I actually marvel what I do manage to accomplish, and cry because of what I couldn’t get to. I do the best I can. I fall short, often, but it’s not because I work; it’s because I’m human, flawed, impatient, and somewhat neurotic.

No, Walsh doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And I guess I just have to be happy with that knowledge—he just doesn’t know. If women have found reassurance or justification from his article, then great. Good. I’m glad, truly. The work of motherhood is hard and worthy and should be treated as such. Believe me, I would not have lobbied hard for being a SAHM this past year if I didn't think it was a deeply worthy endeavor.

But for all the rest of you? Those who Walsh insulted (working moms) or ignored (dads and women without children)? The dude just doesn’t know your daily grind, your internal conflict, your tiredness, your worry, or your circumstances. And should someone write an article in praise of YOU, I’ll repost it here. I promise.