And I am about to hit it smack on the head.  For me, at least.

I have spent years blogging and columnizing about being a parent, and many of *those* years yakking about the  choices related to same, mostly about the choices related to being a mom and working outside the home. Or not.

It is of eternal interest to me that

a) total strangers frequently feel it’s their business to comment on a mother’s choice to either stay at home with kids or work outside the home, and that

b) the mothers who hear these comments frequently care about what the total strangers say about them.

Regarding the total strangers and  their comments, I’ve always been about the MYOB.  Regarding the mothers’ regard for these comments, the complaint I frequently hear is “my choice isn’t valued by society.”

Today I managed to find the nail and then smack it a good one with what will now be my stock answer:

Why do adults feel the need to have their lives validated by other people? Whether it’s their mother, mother-in-law, person standing behind them at the grocery  store…anyone but their spouse and frequently their kids? (I say ‘frequently’ about kids because I don’t always need the kids’ approval to make life-altering choices.)

When you value society’s judgement, you give society power over you. And why you would do such a thing I have no idea, because society isn’t going to have to live the consequences of your life choices, unless you decide to become a criminal and then you have an entirely different set of problems that I’m not touching because I don’t do sociopaths.

It’s a terse value statement that could fit on the head of a pin (or a nail), and I wish I had said it before Thoreau did:

“There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it…”

© E. Stocking Evans 2011