Working Women vs. Stay at Home Moms

With the recent hateful blog post put up by Amy Glass, titled: I Look Down on Young Woman who Get Married and Raise Children – I realized that this will always be an ongoing fight between working women and stay at home women. This has been going on since the Feminist Movement began in the 60s, when I was a young married woman.

 

I mean really – women who stay at home, don’t work? Don’t work! Ok, I was always a stay at home mom. I worked outside the house for a while before I had children. I was lucky to have a spouse who supported me to be a stay at home mother and it worked.

 

I didn’t have to get up early, put on work clothes, make up, and drive to work. I know that being a working woman has a lot of stress but they do get a pay check; something I never saw in all the years I stayed at home, raising nine children. But I did get a lot of hand-made presents, which were priceless, and which I still have.

 

On the other hand, I did get up early too. I threw on sweats and a sweatshirt, stained with baby formula. My clothes were like wearing hand wipes, because my kids used me to wipe their hands on.

 

I didn’t get off from work at five and didn't have to drive home. I stayed at my job, long after five; I stayed helping my children with their homework or projects, driving them to their extra activities or practices or games, getting a decent meal on the table, and cleaning up. I helped with baths and making sure that the towels had been washed and dried for their nightly ritual. Long after the kids had gone to bed; I was still cleaning, still washing the usual 6-7 loads of laundry and making sure they had clean clothes for the next day.

 

Oddly, I never got a pay check for working overtime; never had nights off, weekends off, summers off, or went away for a week. It wasn’t until years later that we were able to take a weeks’ vacation at the beach. In the beginning, I was the one who packed everything, got the towels, and sheets ready for the trip, until the kids were old enough to do this themselves.

 

But the biggest slap in the face is never getting respect from working women. Why does it always have to be working women vs. stay at home moms? Why can’t women support one another and their decision to work or stay at home? This has been an ongoing dispute since the feminist movement, and it will go on and on forever.

My advice to working women…mind your own business and don’t be so judgmental and the same goes for the stay at home women.  Don’t presume to know what is best for each other because you don’t know. As for the writer of that hateful blog…maybe just getting your 15 minutes worth of fame was what you aimed for…congratulations, it worked!