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Another Perspective

Home Made

By on 6.28.12 @ 6:07AM

In praise of stay-at-home moms.

Pity the poor stay-at-home mom. In one ear there is Mainstream Society pressuring her to work outside the home so her family can enjoy all the middle-class luxuries (the McMansion, the speed boat, the Harley Davidson, the latest electronic gadgets). In the other, she hears the shrieks of the Feminists warning her not to waste a valuable liberal arts education on household drudgery and child-rearing. Her encouragement to stay at home comes from that nagging voice in the back of her mind accusing her of being a bad parent.

What’s a girl to do?

My four siblings and I were blessed to have been raised by a stay-at-home mom — a mother who may have skimped and struggled to raise five children on a shoestring budget, but never had to concern herself with the twin evils of status and radical feminism.

How incredibly fortunate we were to have our mother at home to make sure we were wearing our yellow rain slickers and rubber boots when storms threatened, to nurse us when we were feeling feverish, and to rustle us up a hot breakfast every morning before school. We may have gone without brand new bicycles, a color television set and a season pass to the city swimming pool (as did everyone else we knew), and we may have had to sit in the cheap seats when we attended a baseball game at Busch Stadium, but that was a small price to pay to enjoy our liberty every afternoon after school, instead of being locked up in some latchkey program in the school basement. In the summer time we were blessedly free to romp the parks and back alleys, not bused off to some daycare facility or bible study camp. No color TV or luxury sedan could compensate for the freedom we enjoyed by having mom around. And because she was always near, mom didn’t feel the need to coordinate our every minute nor smother us with planned “activities.” She allowed us to be kids and to do our own thing, whether that involved building tree houses in some distant wood or shooting spatzies with the BB gun we “borrowed” from the school janitor’s garage.

Of course, we grew up long before the first salvo was fired in the Mommy Wars, before being a stay-at-home mom was necessarily a political statement. It was easier then for mothers to remain at home. Like most Americans of their generation, neither of my parents received a college education, so it was not like there were hordes of self-righteous women telling my mother that she was wasting her earning power on a bunch of brats.

Nor was status something we were overly concerned with. Ours was a town where — in native son Jeff Tweedy’s words — “Everybody is equally poor.” My parents grew up during the Depression and World War II. Coming of age, their concern was survival, not status. It was left to the far shallower Baby Boomer Generation to make a fetish out of status and its symbols.

TODAY, WE OFTEN hear that being a stay-at-home mom is no longer an option. That it takes two parents working full-time to pay the bills. And certainly if you must live in a 3,000-square-foot house in a tony suburb, send your kids to private school, drive a Lexus and a Mercedes Benz and buy each kid an iPhone, one salary is insufficient. That’s where a modest, frugal, 1960s lifestyle comes in. “Living modestly, frugally, who needs that?” I hear you say. “Why struggle and skimp when you can have it all?” As if working mothers weren’t struggling and skimping to balance their work and home lives.

The idea of the Mommy Wars still strikes my former stay-at-home mom as absurd. Arguments over whether motherhood is a job because it doesn’t pay a salary? Only a woman with no children of her own has time for such nonsense. Motherhood might not meet the Department of Labor’s definition of employment, but raising five children and keeping a home is certainly harder work than being an attorney or a magazine writer.

Elizabeth Wurtzel, the childless, manic-depressive attorney-writer who recently revived the Mommy Wars with an hysterical piece in the Atlantic charging that stay-at-home moms are contemptible and cultish, and helping to kill feminism, is on the fringe of the fringe. As such, she and her piece do not deserve to be taken seriously. Certainly Wurtzel does not speak for 99 percent of the women I know. But then I don’t live in Manhattan.

About the Author

Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (26) |

Appleby| 6.28.12 @ 6:50AM

I had a stay at home Mom until my last sister started school, when Mama went to work in a factory because otherwise we would starve. It was that simple. Before that time we did go hungry, although thanks to our wealthy uncle who had one extremely spoiled daughter who got a totally new wardrobe every spring and every fall, we were always dressed in the very hight of Nieman Marcus fashion (Uncle had the former wardrobe boxed up and shipped to us twice a year). Mama didn't graduate from high school -- neither did Dad -- and they were determined that at least some of us would go to university (2 of us did), and that kind of thing costs money. I think it's disengenuous to suggest that the free-range lifestyle we kids lived when Mama was at home was BECAUSE she was at home. In our neighbourhood it was because we lived in a neighbourhood controlled by the Mob, and therefore it was the safest neighbourhood for miles around. But ordinary people were simply not as dangerous in the 1950s as they are now. We were seriously lacking in Tolerance back then.

Occam's Tool| 6.28.12 @ 11:13AM

MY wife had TWO CONCURRENT FULL RIDE academic scholarships at the Capstone, and graduated Summa Cum Laude in accounting. She was pursued by the Big whatever they are now.

I got lucky, snagged her, and she is at home raising our kids BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO, and I make enough so we can easily afford it. Of course, I snagged my MD at age 25.

TinaB| 6.28.12 @ 5:41PM

My hat's off to you both, OT. Wise decision. But then you are a wise man, and I imagine Mrs. OT is a wise woman, as well as being a smart woman.

EastTexasRancher| 6.28.12 @ 7:30AM

Back in the early 1970's while an Army wife and working on my Master's degree, I watched the bra burners. Being a rancher's daughter I was raised knowing that a women could choose to be capable But I also learned that you cannot do it all at once. Something always is sacrificed if you choose that way.
After getting my advanced degree I worked another 2 years, until I lost a baby in pregnancy. It was then it became crystal clear that if God allowed me another baby I needed to raise that child and to not let someone else do my job.
So, that is exactly what I did. And for many years, I felt the sting of those kool-aid drinkers who belittled stay at home moms. I finally learned to let all that chatter roll off my back.
My hands have shaped 3 capable adults and 2 foster daughters as well. And we had dozens of kids come through our home as well, and I touched their lives as well.
I look back with satisfaction at all I have done besides that (because I did later what I put off to choose my family first). And my children, well, as my son said, "Mama, everyone coming in our home was touched by your love and our friends were envious of your being there with us all the time and available for when we needed to talk, to share the weight of decisions, and just to love us.
No job could have ever given me that satisfaction. No indeed.

TLP| 6.28.12 @ 8:51AM

The Brady Bunch Mom?

Really?

That's who's picture you use for your story about the wholesomeness of the Stay at home Mom?

The make believe Stay at Home Mom, who was getting plowed by her make believe Son, in her real Dressing Room?

I don't know.

What about Barbara Billingsley?

But then there's all that stuff about her "Beaver" and whatever a "Walley" is. (I'm thinking that it's some kind of Positioning thing against a wall, or something.)

I'm just sayin.

Clara| 6.28.12 @ 8:58AM

Wow, you are not kidding about Wertzel being manic depressive. I have never witnessed a women so bitter. She thinks I spend my days at Chanel and the spa. Ha, try Target and Walmart with three kids in tow. I am not complaining, I love being with my children, even if it means a crazy hectic trip to the store. I extend an invitation to this women to come over to my house and check out my wardrobe from Walmart, Target, and JCP. Again, I am not complaining. I appreciate having clothes and I know that I am rich compared to most people in the world. It is just that I find her mischaracterization of my SAHM life offensive and my husband works hard to keep it all together financially. Days at the spa? Ha! I've never even had so much as a Walmart mani-pedi done, not even when I was pregnant and could barely touch my toes (my husband did offer to pay for one but I refused and he did buy me a gift certificate to a spa). As far as a nanny, my husband and I have not even had a date night in eons. We could use one, but again I am not complaining. We may not be in America's one percent, but we are in the world's one percent. I am truly blessed and thankful that I have the opportunity to be a mommy.

Clara| 6.28.12 @ 9:32AM

I forgot to mention that I returned the gift certificate. My husband works too hard to be wasting money on pampering me. Oh yeah, and about hard work, without even counting all of the work I do as a SAHM, I am sure I have worked at least as hard as that bitter old women. I started babysitting at 12, got my first on the books job at 15, and I have done everything from janitorial work to caring for the elderly to a professional job. She is utterly clueless about the realities of normal people. Does she know how much it costs to put three kids in daycare? Where I live, even salaries of jobs that require bachelor's degrees do not pay well enough to cover the costs. She has

Clara| 6.28.12 @ 10:02AM

...no clue. Don't the feminists understand, if their dreams of equality of wages comes true, that ALL women with children would HAVE to be SAHMs because it would no longer make sense to outsource the care of your children. If you are paying a caregiver the same wages that you make, then subtract the other costs of working, it is a net loss both financially and emotionally (assuming that other women feel as I do about motherhood; having a deeply held desire to care for and nurture my family).

TinaB| 6.28.12 @ 5:53PM

It seems that you, Clara, are investing your time, your talents and your treasure in your family. What a wonderful investment that is. At the end of my career as a teacher I realized how much I and my family had missed out on. So God has seen fit to bless me with my son and his two children, now young teens. So I retired. Five years before I needed to. I have been given a second chance to be a SAHM. Thanks, Lord. I think it's the best investment of my time, talent and treasure. I'm with you and OT.

Occam's Tool| 6.28.12 @ 11:14AM

Clara, you remind me of MY fantastic wife. He's a lucky guy, as am I. G-d Bless, Madam.

PolishKnight| 6.28.12 @ 9:39AM

At a point in the early 1950's or so, the leftist elites had several loosely connected discussions in upper level academia, Georgetown, etc. and came to the realization that their Soviet spies in the government and friends in Hollywood just wouldn't cut it. They needed to perform a Stalinist style purge and create a new electorate but they didn't have that much power. So they decided to recruit from as many groups as they could to destroy the capitalist USA from within and the "rainbow" coalition was born.

Feminists were the biggest segment of that group and the most valuable because they enjoyed protection under the same chivalrous patronage they claimed to be a victim of.

The SAH housewife is a threat to the marxist order in addition to a threat to feminism not just because it undermines women's career ambitions but also because they tend to be married to non-marxist white males. Keep in mind that non-marxist working white males were at one time the primary demographic of the socialist party. Eventually, as in China, they'll get around to women too.

Mr. Cote| 6.28.12 @ 10:14AM

Dear Mr. Orlet (and Anyone Else Interested),

Have you read Anthony Esolen's wonderful book "Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child"? Published by ISI in 2010, it's a brilliant work about the very concerns that you raise in your essay.

Occam's Tool| 6.28.12 @ 1:40PM

OK, here goes: I live in a nice section of my small town, in a 5 bedroom, 3 bath, 3300 sq foot home. I drive a GMC pickup (about 40,000 miles on it) and an Impala (about 40,000 miles on it). Unless one is a car aficionado, only a fool spends money on a depreciating asset in a climate that is among the most brutal in the US. My wife, the genius (see above), home schools our two kids. Our kids cheerfully ride bikes all over our ultrasafe neighborhood in our endless days of summer (sun sets about 915- 10 PM in MN in July and Aug), and have their own wooden "fort" in the backyard of my roughly 2.5 acre property to run over. I owe about 218 K on my mortgage, which will be paid off in about 9 years. The interest rate is locked at 4.625%, and I am NOT underwater. I owe my Tax value, not my appraised value.

Be a professional with needed skills in a rural area, especially an MD specialist---you will do well. Big cities suck.

Occam's Tool| 6.28.12 @ 1:48PM

And, as Clara notes, my wardrobe is from Walmart. Occasionally from LL Bean---my parka is, for example. But I just replaced all my worn out socks and underwear by going to the local K-mart and dropping $60.00. That should last me a couple of years. I don't think big city folks understand the cost differential caused by cheaper rents.

Honestly, my dad recently came out to visit, looked at my house and such ("It looks lived in," my mother stated----I have much more space and solitude than she has, my flat screen TV is larger, and her kitchen doesn't have the gorgeous wood floor that mine has---and she lives in a condo that has lost 50% of its value. (Park Ridge, IL)) and asked me, "Razor-Boy, would you ever think of coming back to Chicago?"

I told him (and then told my hospital administrator the next day what I told my dad---he needs occasional ego boosts): "Dad, I would rather have my legs sawn off slowly than live in Chicago. Visit, sure. Live there? Never!"

cicero| 6.28.12 @ 2:17PM

Fond memories of being raised with a bunch of siblings by a stay at home mom. Days gone bye. This is a different world, and not necessarily better or worse, just different. Now, you have young families with a single child. The young mothers are not in their teens or early twenties, but in their thirties and early forties. They often have carreers that they find very satisfying, such as doctors, physician assistants, attornies, or even non-professional jobs. Who is to say what is best for them?

While all of the literature seems to point to the direction that it is better for the children to be raised by a stay at home mother, it seems that it depends on the mother. There is no easy or pat answer to this.

PolishKnight| 6.28.12 @ 2:44PM

And sometimes, Cicero, they don't have careers they find satisfying just like men and in addition, they may find that there's a shortage of 1950's breadwinning men available, or willing, to let them come and go from work to stay at home if it suits her. In other words, women don't necessarily get everything they want.

Which is the world that men have been living in for the past million years or so.

Of course, life isn't ideal for women and sometimes a woman doctor can find a man doctor and have a half dozen kids and all works great. But overall, in a numbers game, feminism has hurt far more women (and men and children, who are secondary) than it has helped.

THKrupp| 6.28.12 @ 5:53PM

Well the 1950s were an anomally anyhow. Previously the home wasnt just someplace to sleep and cook. It used to be a profit center for most people. Talking with older folks that I know, their mothers and grandmothers were growing gardens, chickens etc etc. Some was used in the home for their own food supplies but the surplus was sold. Egg money was a way that women in the past were able to save up and buy things they didnt have ready cash for. This was true even for people who lived in towns and small cities. I doubt it was true for many people living in large cities but I dont really know. The 1950s were not what I would call a realistic view of life. It was a perfect storm that could only exist in post war America.

THKrupp| 6.28.12 @ 5:59PM

I just read the article by Elizabeth Wurtzel. She seems like the type of person who cuts off their nose to spite their face. I dont know of any woman that would agree with her. Im glad.

Petronius| 6.28.12 @ 4:50PM

Our stay at home moms always went above and beyond. Our fathers put in tons of O T so they could handle all of us. But these Men were working class, unlike the weenies taking up space in academia where the Feministas rolled them without opposition. Even in our minority years, most men were reduced to keeping the checking account in the black with little or no cultural control over us. So the self starters among us became successful while the rest drifted and took what came easily. Today the country is bereft of Real Men, and American Mothers are branded as traitors by a an Anti-Mom-strosity in concert with a statist establishment which requires healthy tax payers within a docile work force.
The Feminists themselves relish the exercise of "their reproductive freedom." They have daughters to become like them and inherit their assets.
The traditional nuclear family is still viable. But unless and until the Cultural and social imperatives of half a century ago are restored to primacy this country cannot be considered civilized in any true sense of the word.

randemmom| 6.28.12 @ 5:33PM

I always feel bad when I read these kinds of opinions. We have a very modest 1800 square foot home with 20 year old carpet and vinyl floors. We've been able to afford 1 new car in 35 years of marriage. Having 4 children (a set of twins) is not cheap. And I used Goodwill and yard sales. Any savings we had got used up when my husband got laid off in 1991, right after we bought this house. I worked as a child care provider because we needed the money, not for luxuries but to eat, pay bills, make repairs, etc.
Most of the kids I took care of had mothers who worked for the same reason. Their husbands didn't make enough money for a regular house with a yard. So, please, there are working moms who aren't working for the fancy car and backyard pool.

THKrupp| 6.28.12 @ 6:03PM

You shouldnt feel bad. You are dealing with life in the best way you can, with the cards that you were dealt. My mother worked for the same reason and my brothers and I all turned out well.
Life isnt perfect but thats kinda the fun of it..right?

Tom Kyba| 6.28.12 @ 6:37PM

If feminism wants some actual respect, not just ideological backup from the media, and if they want a peaceful respectful society, they would embrace the idea of stay at home motherhood for those who choose it and the ones who follow feminism's ideas can also do the same, respectfully. Sounds simple, agree to disagree and all that. This of course, will never happen because liberals cannot countenance anyone following any sort of moral guidelines that predate the 60's. Liberalism today is nothing more than a knee-jerk philosophy. Any old-fashioned ideas must be rejected at all costs, regardless of outcome. The details and excuse making can come later.

Basset Hound| 6.29.12 @ 12:00AM

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was a member of a militant feminist professional society. I already had a son, and decided that "having it all" meant that my family was getting the short end of the stick. When I told some of my society buddies one woman sneered "well that may be okay for YOU, but I want to use my brain and make important decisions, not 'what will I do today the cooking or the laundry'."

I then made it a challenge to figure out how to use my brain. I found books on Word, Excel and Access and began to teach myself. I then found cookbooks, and began to plan menus around loss leaders at the local grocery. I even developed menu "theme weeks" around cuisines of different countries, and began to work out "clone" recipes of various restaurant dishes. I then discovered that I didn't need a paycheck to be a meter of how well I used my intelligence.

Another one of my lib feminist friends sniffed "EEEEEWWWWWWW. What DO you do all day?". I cocked one eyebrow and said "Wildlife Management".

Clara| 6.29.12 @ 4:38PM

When I announced my first pregnancy at work, one of my coworkers asked if I was "keeping it".

Clara| 6.29.12 @ 4:40PM

Female coworker

Clara| 6.29.12 @ 4:47PM

My male coworkers were much more supportive of my pregnancy. It still didn't work out juggling a baby with a full time career.

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