My husband is attempting to get a career going as a freelance artist but spends most of his time being a Dad to our two kids. I currently am in a better position to have a stable, good-paying job with excellent benefits than my husband is. Therefore I work and he takes care of everything else (and anyone who has ever stayed home knows "everything else" is a lot). I recently spent some time defending this choice to my ex-husband and am constantly feeling like people look down on my husband and I for the way our family runs. It's extremely frustrating.
Apparently, we are not alone. The question I have is -- why should anyone have to defend wanting to be at home with their kids? Especially when the alternative is sticking them in daycare where it is not at all likely they will receive the love and attention they deserve? Full-time child rearing is sneered at in our society, whether it is a man or a woman doing it. Considering that there is no more important job anyone will ever have than being a mom or a dad, I find this attitude disturbing.
2 comments:
Simple, Jessica. And I speak as a father who spent 2 1/2 years at home with my kids (in fact the first 2 1/2 years of my daughter's life!).....
If it reminds people of the "old days", they don't want it. It's irrelevant, passe, restrictive, and, somehow, judgmental to them.
In other words, they've got a guilty conscience and don't even take two seconds to realize it..
Simple, Jessica. If it looks like or reminds one of the "old days", they don't want it. It's declared passe, irrelevant to today, and somehow morphs into something judgmental against more "enlightened beings".
I spent the first 2 1/2 years of my daughter's life home with her (and with my son, too!), and so can speak from experience the myriad of reactions one gets when describing themselves as "CEO of a small non-Fortune 500 Corporation."
:)
Post a Comment