So it’s been a while since I posted last. Work has been hectic (fun, but hectic) and home life has been, well, hectic, and let’s just leave it at that. Finding a balance so I can look for stuff to be opinionated about has been more challenging than usual.

And so it was with great interest that I read this link supplied by a few friends on Facebook. It’s fairly predictable stuff, mostly designed to help the mom-who-works-out-of-the-home (hereafter designated “WOHM”) cope with the many demands on her time.

And it’s a good article. There was even one tip I, who have been a WOHM for like ever, had never thought of: putting your kid to bed in their school clothes if they don’t like waking up and dressing in the morning. This is brilliant. Unsanitary, but brilliant. And I would have used it, had I thought of it, because if I were aiming for ‘sanitary’ with my sons I would have had to kill myself ten years ago as a lost cause.

The article has its drawbacks:

– no mention of dads, which is either a reflection of truth for many women whose husbands have either literally skied or just manage to disappear when housework needs to be done, but their absence in this article is still interpreted as a slap in the face to the growing numbers of conscientious fathers out there;

– addresses the needs of the office worker, not the nurse or the retail worker or many other kinds of WOHMs out there, but, heck, it can’t cover everything;

– doesn’t tell you what to do with that spare ream of copy paper. I couldn’t believe how many people didn’t understand the obvious value of having paper stashed for the inevitable moment when someone needs to print something (homework, work, whatever) at the last moment and there’s no paper.

Nice article.

But if you want to be depressed, read the comments. I was too disheartened to count, but there were the typical jibes aimed at the [bleeping] feminists, and then, once again, the lectures from (mostly) women about working outside the home. How it’s unwomanly. How it’s evil. How it’s horrible to your children to send them to daycare.

I have written too many times about why it’s not unwomanly and how it’s not evil to work outside the home, and how my own WOH pudding has been proven with my own kids to repeat it here. Along with my children, I love my work and I love my job. I love my kids more, but I really do love what I do for a living. Perpetually defending my decision to pursue all of it is depressing, pointless, and boring.

But I’m so fed up that I must say something, and I will say it now:

IF you know a woman with children is working outside the home and you feel that a mom working outside the home is a lousy idea, it is safe to assume that she already has considered everything you’re about to pontificate on.

There is ZERO chance that the WOHM has NOT considered the tradeoffs of the situation. There is ZERO chance, should you open your big busybody mouth and lecture her about the evils of her situation, that the WOHM will gasp, cover her mouth and say, “Why, I had never considered that! Thank you for pointing out how I am irrevocably harming my children! I will tender my resignation forthwith. NO! I will quit without notice right this very minute because every minute away from my children is an abomination and I will sell everything I own and live under the freeway overpass but by GOD I will spend every moment under that overpass with my children as nature intended.”

There is ZERO chance that you understand her complete financial situation and so there is also ZERO chance that you are qualified to comment, even if it were your business to do so, about the wisdom of her decision.

So do us all a favor and be quiet, okay? When I was a SAHM (stay-at-home mom, for the unitiated) there was no membership drive program that gave me points towards a trip to Barbados for every mom I recruited to quit her job and join our ranks, so I know there’s nothing in it for the SAHM if there’s one more in the neighborhood.

In fact, I know from my own experience that the primary reason for this lecture is merely to justify the lecturer’s own decision to herself; that she sees every woman with a baby in a business suit (the woman, not the baby) as some sort of rebuke, when there is no rebuke. The WOHMs don’t care what you do, they just want you to quit ragging on them and judging them when it’s none of your business what they do.

In fact, if you do think it’s a rebuke, let me set the record straight: as a woman who has worked with other moms for years, I can assure you that we do not sit in the lunchroom at the office and say nasty, judgey things about SAHMs. The worst thing I have ever heard in the lunchroom is envy for women who don’t have to worry about keeping the job so the mortgage is paid, or who get to keep their own schedule, or who have a shot at taking a nap that afternoon. We never said, “I think all those SAHMs should be out working! Damned leeches!” because we all knew it was none of our business what SAHMs did.

I know I said in an earlier post that I wasn’t going to listen to a rant that lacked a call to action, so I will make sure MY rant includes one:

If you think you want to lecture me about my decision to work outside the home, put a sock on it.

© E.S. Evans 2010