Talking about women having a right to be with their babies is SUCH a reframe from the tired narratives about whether women should or shouldn’t “stay home”🔥
Such a beautiful read too—love how you weaved so much of your life into this one Em!
Bravo. It is so hard. And that dichotomy between family and work influences so many of our choices. You capture it so well, the pouring out of yourself in too many places, leaving nothing for yourself, and not enough for your children. Imagine if policies to encourage a higher fertility rate didn't focus so much on childcare provision and tax breaks and instead focused on supporting mothering (and supporting grandparenting).
This is exactly it! I see the news and all of the “family friendly” policies that are most advocated for and I see a whole bunch of separation. Of course affordable childcare is a need, but it shouldn’t be the sole focus or seen as the answer, because it just isn’t. It isn’t satisfying to many mothers and it isn’t good for many children.
This echoes a comment I read on Facebook earlier. A mother in a local housing group asked if anyone knew of a studio or master bedroom for rent for herself, her husband, and their baby in a certain price range. She explained that her husband was the breadwinner and she was home with the baby. People laughed at her price range and said she needed to go get a job. One person pointed out that rental assistance programs were waitlisted 8-10 years, but she could probably get childcare/daycare assistance even if she got a minimum wage job. It’s just so backwards to me that people think it’s better for a new mom to be pushing carts for minimum wage in the local supermarket parking lot while her baby is crying in a daycare with 20 other babies, than for the new mom to be home taking care of baby one-on-one while dad does what he can to support the family. Somehow supermarket mom is more deserving of public assistance and societal affirmation than SAHM who is probably going to raise a healthier, more well-adjusted baby into a more functional member of society. Not to say anything bad about moms who have to work, those who work in supermarkets, or have to send their babies to daycare. I’m just saying that between the two, the one who works outside the home gets more societal benefits than the SAHM, yet the SAHM is probably doing more to benefit society in the long run.
These attitudes are what makes me want to write about this topic! And what a thorough lashing to our instincts we have had in the last few decades to get us to the collective place where we think this is appropriate! What you said about the child being raised by their mother growing up to be more well adjusted really matters as well—I think because so many women in the last few generations did send their kids to daycare they are likely somewhat defensive about the topic and shoo away anything that suggests that maybe just maybe babies who get to be with their mothers have a more solid footing in the world, but it doesn’t negate the truth!
It doesn’t! And it doesn’t seem to matter what is best for the babies or what they want, whether they will have a higher risk for attachment issues or mental health problems. All for what? So the family can afford to live in some crappy apartment?
It makes me upset that it’s especially poor people or middle class who are subjected to these judgements. Rich people don’t put their kids in daycare. They either stay home with their babies or they get nannies or an au pair.
Beautifully written, Emily! I was a teacher for 9 years before I met my husband/got married/got pregnant/quit teaching to freelance as a writer. One of the reasons I quit teaching was that I knew on a visceral level that I couldn’t be a good teacher (at least, not the kind of dedicated teacher I was as a single woman) *and* a the kind of mom I wanted to be at the same time. Teaching is a lot like nursing in that it is care work in some senses, and if you do it well, it is truly exhausting. I knew I would feel that fragmentation you wrote about and thankfully my family is able to get by on my husband’s income (although I did some freelance work here and there till I had baby #3 and zero childcare). Now, I’m back to teaching, but just my oldest son, and I’m thankful that my love for education fits so well with my love for being a homemaking mom. I really hope that we see a cultural shift that allows more women, especially low income moms, to have more time with their children in their homes.
Thank you for sharing all of this, Christina! Every time I write about nursing I think of teachers as well. I don’t know the exact stats or numbers but at least in my mind (and from a quick Google search, this is confirmed) they are the most female-dominated industries that yes, require a lot of us in that they are ultimately about caretaking and education (half of my current job really is teaching! Other nurses and students and also my patients). Because of the inherently needful nature of these roles, doing them well while also tending to the inherently needful role of “mother” honestly feels impossible. I think your choice was a wise one for this reason! And how wonderful that your own education and experience in it can so easily be applied to your role as a mom!
Yes! I wish people understood this. It wasn’t fair to my students how I felt about work. My team member and I were pregnant together and we looked at each other around d 6 months pregnant and said “it’s so upsetting how much we don’t care about teaching right now” we both knew it wasn’t possible for us to do both. Also my entire paycheck would have gone to daycare so it didn’t even make financial sense if I wanted it too.
The paycheck thing is so wild to me! This is the story for so many women and I just think it is so unbelievably unsustainable. Working our tails off, driving all over the place, waking up to alarms, not getting our errands and home tasks done, etc….all so we can pay other women to care for our children while we are at work earning the money to pay them. It makes no worldly sense at all!
Absolutely. I think moms whose kids are older or grown can probably make it work better, but when you’re in the baby years it’s gotta be so so hard to be a dedicated teacher (and yeah, paying for childcare on a teacher’s salary wouldn't make sense anyway).
Thanks for the thoughtful piece, Emily! I’m new to reading your work but enjoying your perspective. I would challenge you to rethink motherhood is your highest calling. I believe our highest and primary vocation is relationship with God, followed by our secondary vocation, which is our state in life and includes marriage and motherhood for women like you and me. Our third vocation is our work in the community - whether paid or not, and this of course looks different for everyone. This perspective comes from the Catholic-Christian vision of the person, a framework for understanding the whole person, that I learned while studying at Divine Mercy University. It helped me realize that our vocations are all integrated, not necessarily in competition with each other. I understand you may not subscribe to this approach but I wanted to share a different perspective. I appreciate you sharing your story!
Thank you Noelle, I really appreciate you sharing this! I do enjoy the idea of separate vocations being integrated, I think the way that they seem to demand equal amounts of us and equal time from us today makes that integration difficult though. I think that concept can much more easily be applied to the sort of work I allude to here-that “living” sort of work, that is of the home and through the home. I am learning where I belong in terms of my relationship with God and it is a more recent call I have heeded in my life so my feelings on that relationship as vocation are limited at this point but I appreciate the reminder and the perspective. Thank you for reading!
Your ability to articulate such complex, nuanced issues, staggers me. Whether I agree or disagree, I am able to digest the topics you write about enough to feel like I have a right to an opinion on them. I’m an RN/IBCLC who has decided I would make being with my babies my top priority and work hard to adjust all the other parts of our lives to do so in a way that benefits my family and doesn’t create hardship, what a dance. Lots of raised eyebrows about “wasted potential,” so I’m grateful to read such a well thought out article detailing the importance despite the opinions of the masses.
Thank you Andrea, that is so encouraging to hear, especially the bit about whether you agree or disagree. That’s so important to me.
As a fellow nurse I especially know the feeling you are describing here and also appreciate the solidarity! I don’t think either of us, nor our peers who make similar decisions, will ever grow old and regret these choices ♥️
I loved this, and I think it may be my favorite piece of yours so far! I just wanted to drop a big thanks, because you put something beautifully into words here that I have been personally working through as a new mother who was told a lot of stuff about what motherhood would or should be that I’m finding isn’t true for myself. (namely that it’s unhealthy or abnormal to want my life to be as integrated as possible with my baby’s while he’s still this young).
Oh thank you Christina! So grateful to provide a different perspective for you ♥️ you could likely assume what I have to say about those ideas other people have expressed to you, so I will just say this—there is nothing unhealthy or abnormal about the experience you are having mothering your baby. Wanting to be with our babies and them wanting to be with us is in fact the most normal thing there is!
This piece really got me re thinking my “plan” to work at the local Waldorf school when my kids are old enough to attend. So we could be together. I have been a “home maker” for a decade, and as I approach the new season of raising my babies, no longer birthing them, I’m looking forward to all the wonderful activities and experiences around the home I want to expose them to. Chickens, gardening, cooking, crafting, working with our hands and learning along the way. I don’t have the highest capacity… your experience of work and school life is something I can imagine and dread… I understand homeschooling now. It’s also really put into perspective some things in my life that I have to be truly grateful for. Thank you
I’m so glad you have much to be grateful for! The life you are providing for your children sounds absolutely beautiful. In this way, women who stay home are providers just as men are, just in a different manifestation!
I’m so glad you have much to be grateful for! The life you are providing for your children sounds absolutely beautiful. In this way, women who stay home are providers just as men are, just in a different manifestation!
This was beautifully written and deeply meaningful to read! I’m still struggling to figure out how to feel less fragmented, but I know that as our family expands, we are finding our way. I’ve found that my work as a psychotherapist is, in some ways, ideal—it allows me to work by the hour and take on as much or as little as I need. However, the way you highlighted the fragmentation of care work resonated deeply. My work also mirrors mothering in many ways, requiring the full investment of my self and the emotional holding of others.
Oh I can imagine that your work really does mirror so much of mothering! It is wonderful that you have that flexibility but that doesn’t negate the mental and emotional demands of both of your roles, of course.
This is a beautiful piece covering so many sides experientially. It struck me in the first few paragraphs that there is a note of reason in the dismissal of pregnant women from the workplace, if I see it from the perspective of “women need to be at home with their babies, not working.”
I see what you mean there, and I think the true issue comes down to the innate vulnerability of the female/pregnant woman. Whether she must work or not, there is a reason for the special protections our physiology demands as a sex class.
“I have often considered how truly strange it is that when we go to our workplaces, our children and spouses often have no worldly idea of what that place is like or what we do when we are there. We simply disappear for several hours, transform into a necessarily different version of ourselves and then return.”
Yes. It’s so hard to feel changed by what you do/witness/experience at work, but, not having shared that day with your family, not expect them to understand the change.
When I was working as a nurse, I had a tension headache or migraine the night or day after every shift - without fail. I couldn’t figure out where to put the *stuff*, so my body just shoved it all into my neck muscles and blood vessels, I guess. Staying home with my children has helped me connect to myself and my family better.
This was a great read, thank you. I’m glad you made it through all those ridiculous shifts and, truly, abuse at your floor nursing job. God grant you wisdom and peace as you seek the next step after baby #4 comes.
Thank you Leah. I so relate to what you are describing about holding the stress within your body. I very much have experienced similar variations of the same, mine usually lives in my jaw/neck. I think it is the combination of the job and also the commute! 4 more shifts and counting 🤞
This is so brilliant Emily. Your honesty and discernment is so impressive. So much of this resonated with me even though I'm only with my first child so far and have been lucky enough to continue to stay at home with her (not without financial struggle for our family). The notion of an integrative circular nexus of women's work that is nested in the home, both raising the children and bringing in some income, is the sometimes elusive ideal that we are also striving towards. I love your humility in acknowledging it hasn't been perfectly achievable for you and that you've had to work to fill in the gaps. This is likely what will be necessary for us but I will never stop trying to make the home my primary locus of productivity.
I love what you said in your last sentence there, that you will “never stop trying to make the home my primary locus of productivity”, because this really reflects my own feelings and experiences. It has certainly not been perfect and it certainly will likely continue it not be perfect but I will always hold this as my ideal, and ideas truly matter as they inspire action and focus.
Another beautiful bit of writing Emily; I love your work, probably because it mirrors my own life experiences.
Do you remember that time period when the phrase of the day was "quality time"? What an appalling concept that was! Quality time was aimed at "working" mothers (meaning the women who were employed outside their homes, so had to leave their children with someone else) and posited that it wasn't the amount of time you spent with your children (including babies and very small children), but the "quality" of that time. So, if during your overscheduled day of paid work and general household management, you could only find 15-30 minutes a day to give your wee one, as long as you planned to spend every second of your time slot engaged only in quality time, you shouldn't feel guilty or upset at the level of separation that modern society demanded of you. That your child would spend the other 23 and a half hours in their day happily not missing you at all because well, quality time would be enough to compensate for that loss. Yeah, right.
The total fallacy of this is easily seen by simply switching the object of your quality time focus from your child to your boss. If quality time actually worked as its proponents said it did, then you should be able to tell your manager, "Hey, I'm only going to be in for four hours today, but every minute will be quality time!"
Oh thank you Kateriina! It’s always so nice to read comments like this, I really appreciate it. I’m so glad you are able to stay with your child/children!
Talking about women having a right to be with their babies is SUCH a reframe from the tired narratives about whether women should or shouldn’t “stay home”🔥
Such a beautiful read too—love how you weaved so much of your life into this one Em!
Thank you Amber! I think I made it a little too long with all of the personal anecdotes but we both know I’m a wordy lady! 😂
And yes—I think the concept of natural law/rights really applies when it comes to mother-baby closeness and cohesiveness.
Bravo. It is so hard. And that dichotomy between family and work influences so many of our choices. You capture it so well, the pouring out of yourself in too many places, leaving nothing for yourself, and not enough for your children. Imagine if policies to encourage a higher fertility rate didn't focus so much on childcare provision and tax breaks and instead focused on supporting mothering (and supporting grandparenting).
This is exactly it! I see the news and all of the “family friendly” policies that are most advocated for and I see a whole bunch of separation. Of course affordable childcare is a need, but it shouldn’t be the sole focus or seen as the answer, because it just isn’t. It isn’t satisfying to many mothers and it isn’t good for many children.
This echoes a comment I read on Facebook earlier. A mother in a local housing group asked if anyone knew of a studio or master bedroom for rent for herself, her husband, and their baby in a certain price range. She explained that her husband was the breadwinner and she was home with the baby. People laughed at her price range and said she needed to go get a job. One person pointed out that rental assistance programs were waitlisted 8-10 years, but she could probably get childcare/daycare assistance even if she got a minimum wage job. It’s just so backwards to me that people think it’s better for a new mom to be pushing carts for minimum wage in the local supermarket parking lot while her baby is crying in a daycare with 20 other babies, than for the new mom to be home taking care of baby one-on-one while dad does what he can to support the family. Somehow supermarket mom is more deserving of public assistance and societal affirmation than SAHM who is probably going to raise a healthier, more well-adjusted baby into a more functional member of society. Not to say anything bad about moms who have to work, those who work in supermarkets, or have to send their babies to daycare. I’m just saying that between the two, the one who works outside the home gets more societal benefits than the SAHM, yet the SAHM is probably doing more to benefit society in the long run.
These attitudes are what makes me want to write about this topic! And what a thorough lashing to our instincts we have had in the last few decades to get us to the collective place where we think this is appropriate! What you said about the child being raised by their mother growing up to be more well adjusted really matters as well—I think because so many women in the last few generations did send their kids to daycare they are likely somewhat defensive about the topic and shoo away anything that suggests that maybe just maybe babies who get to be with their mothers have a more solid footing in the world, but it doesn’t negate the truth!
It doesn’t! And it doesn’t seem to matter what is best for the babies or what they want, whether they will have a higher risk for attachment issues or mental health problems. All for what? So the family can afford to live in some crappy apartment?
It makes me upset that it’s especially poor people or middle class who are subjected to these judgements. Rich people don’t put their kids in daycare. They either stay home with their babies or they get nannies or an au pair.
Beautifully written, Emily! I was a teacher for 9 years before I met my husband/got married/got pregnant/quit teaching to freelance as a writer. One of the reasons I quit teaching was that I knew on a visceral level that I couldn’t be a good teacher (at least, not the kind of dedicated teacher I was as a single woman) *and* a the kind of mom I wanted to be at the same time. Teaching is a lot like nursing in that it is care work in some senses, and if you do it well, it is truly exhausting. I knew I would feel that fragmentation you wrote about and thankfully my family is able to get by on my husband’s income (although I did some freelance work here and there till I had baby #3 and zero childcare). Now, I’m back to teaching, but just my oldest son, and I’m thankful that my love for education fits so well with my love for being a homemaking mom. I really hope that we see a cultural shift that allows more women, especially low income moms, to have more time with their children in their homes.
Thank you for sharing all of this, Christina! Every time I write about nursing I think of teachers as well. I don’t know the exact stats or numbers but at least in my mind (and from a quick Google search, this is confirmed) they are the most female-dominated industries that yes, require a lot of us in that they are ultimately about caretaking and education (half of my current job really is teaching! Other nurses and students and also my patients). Because of the inherently needful nature of these roles, doing them well while also tending to the inherently needful role of “mother” honestly feels impossible. I think your choice was a wise one for this reason! And how wonderful that your own education and experience in it can so easily be applied to your role as a mom!
Yes! I wish people understood this. It wasn’t fair to my students how I felt about work. My team member and I were pregnant together and we looked at each other around d 6 months pregnant and said “it’s so upsetting how much we don’t care about teaching right now” we both knew it wasn’t possible for us to do both. Also my entire paycheck would have gone to daycare so it didn’t even make financial sense if I wanted it too.
The paycheck thing is so wild to me! This is the story for so many women and I just think it is so unbelievably unsustainable. Working our tails off, driving all over the place, waking up to alarms, not getting our errands and home tasks done, etc….all so we can pay other women to care for our children while we are at work earning the money to pay them. It makes no worldly sense at all!
Absolutely. I think moms whose kids are older or grown can probably make it work better, but when you’re in the baby years it’s gotta be so so hard to be a dedicated teacher (and yeah, paying for childcare on a teacher’s salary wouldn't make sense anyway).
Thanks for the thoughtful piece, Emily! I’m new to reading your work but enjoying your perspective. I would challenge you to rethink motherhood is your highest calling. I believe our highest and primary vocation is relationship with God, followed by our secondary vocation, which is our state in life and includes marriage and motherhood for women like you and me. Our third vocation is our work in the community - whether paid or not, and this of course looks different for everyone. This perspective comes from the Catholic-Christian vision of the person, a framework for understanding the whole person, that I learned while studying at Divine Mercy University. It helped me realize that our vocations are all integrated, not necessarily in competition with each other. I understand you may not subscribe to this approach but I wanted to share a different perspective. I appreciate you sharing your story!
Thank you Noelle, I really appreciate you sharing this! I do enjoy the idea of separate vocations being integrated, I think the way that they seem to demand equal amounts of us and equal time from us today makes that integration difficult though. I think that concept can much more easily be applied to the sort of work I allude to here-that “living” sort of work, that is of the home and through the home. I am learning where I belong in terms of my relationship with God and it is a more recent call I have heeded in my life so my feelings on that relationship as vocation are limited at this point but I appreciate the reminder and the perspective. Thank you for reading!
Your ability to articulate such complex, nuanced issues, staggers me. Whether I agree or disagree, I am able to digest the topics you write about enough to feel like I have a right to an opinion on them. I’m an RN/IBCLC who has decided I would make being with my babies my top priority and work hard to adjust all the other parts of our lives to do so in a way that benefits my family and doesn’t create hardship, what a dance. Lots of raised eyebrows about “wasted potential,” so I’m grateful to read such a well thought out article detailing the importance despite the opinions of the masses.
Thank you Andrea, that is so encouraging to hear, especially the bit about whether you agree or disagree. That’s so important to me.
As a fellow nurse I especially know the feeling you are describing here and also appreciate the solidarity! I don’t think either of us, nor our peers who make similar decisions, will ever grow old and regret these choices ♥️
I loved this, and I think it may be my favorite piece of yours so far! I just wanted to drop a big thanks, because you put something beautifully into words here that I have been personally working through as a new mother who was told a lot of stuff about what motherhood would or should be that I’m finding isn’t true for myself. (namely that it’s unhealthy or abnormal to want my life to be as integrated as possible with my baby’s while he’s still this young).
Oh thank you Christina! So grateful to provide a different perspective for you ♥️ you could likely assume what I have to say about those ideas other people have expressed to you, so I will just say this—there is nothing unhealthy or abnormal about the experience you are having mothering your baby. Wanting to be with our babies and them wanting to be with us is in fact the most normal thing there is!
This piece really got me re thinking my “plan” to work at the local Waldorf school when my kids are old enough to attend. So we could be together. I have been a “home maker” for a decade, and as I approach the new season of raising my babies, no longer birthing them, I’m looking forward to all the wonderful activities and experiences around the home I want to expose them to. Chickens, gardening, cooking, crafting, working with our hands and learning along the way. I don’t have the highest capacity… your experience of work and school life is something I can imagine and dread… I understand homeschooling now. It’s also really put into perspective some things in my life that I have to be truly grateful for. Thank you
I’m so glad you have much to be grateful for! The life you are providing for your children sounds absolutely beautiful. In this way, women who stay home are providers just as men are, just in a different manifestation!
I’m so glad you have much to be grateful for! The life you are providing for your children sounds absolutely beautiful. In this way, women who stay home are providers just as men are, just in a different manifestation!
This was beautifully written and deeply meaningful to read! I’m still struggling to figure out how to feel less fragmented, but I know that as our family expands, we are finding our way. I’ve found that my work as a psychotherapist is, in some ways, ideal—it allows me to work by the hour and take on as much or as little as I need. However, the way you highlighted the fragmentation of care work resonated deeply. My work also mirrors mothering in many ways, requiring the full investment of my self and the emotional holding of others.
Oh I can imagine that your work really does mirror so much of mothering! It is wonderful that you have that flexibility but that doesn’t negate the mental and emotional demands of both of your roles, of course.
This is a beautiful piece covering so many sides experientially. It struck me in the first few paragraphs that there is a note of reason in the dismissal of pregnant women from the workplace, if I see it from the perspective of “women need to be at home with their babies, not working.”
Thank you Samantha!
I see what you mean there, and I think the true issue comes down to the innate vulnerability of the female/pregnant woman. Whether she must work or not, there is a reason for the special protections our physiology demands as a sex class.
“I have often considered how truly strange it is that when we go to our workplaces, our children and spouses often have no worldly idea of what that place is like or what we do when we are there. We simply disappear for several hours, transform into a necessarily different version of ourselves and then return.”
Yes. It’s so hard to feel changed by what you do/witness/experience at work, but, not having shared that day with your family, not expect them to understand the change.
When I was working as a nurse, I had a tension headache or migraine the night or day after every shift - without fail. I couldn’t figure out where to put the *stuff*, so my body just shoved it all into my neck muscles and blood vessels, I guess. Staying home with my children has helped me connect to myself and my family better.
This was a great read, thank you. I’m glad you made it through all those ridiculous shifts and, truly, abuse at your floor nursing job. God grant you wisdom and peace as you seek the next step after baby #4 comes.
Thank you Leah. I so relate to what you are describing about holding the stress within your body. I very much have experienced similar variations of the same, mine usually lives in my jaw/neck. I think it is the combination of the job and also the commute! 4 more shifts and counting 🤞
This is so brilliant Emily. Your honesty and discernment is so impressive. So much of this resonated with me even though I'm only with my first child so far and have been lucky enough to continue to stay at home with her (not without financial struggle for our family). The notion of an integrative circular nexus of women's work that is nested in the home, both raising the children and bringing in some income, is the sometimes elusive ideal that we are also striving towards. I love your humility in acknowledging it hasn't been perfectly achievable for you and that you've had to work to fill in the gaps. This is likely what will be necessary for us but I will never stop trying to make the home my primary locus of productivity.
I love what you said in your last sentence there, that you will “never stop trying to make the home my primary locus of productivity”, because this really reflects my own feelings and experiences. It has certainly not been perfect and it certainly will likely continue it not be perfect but I will always hold this as my ideal, and ideas truly matter as they inspire action and focus.
Another beautiful bit of writing Emily; I love your work, probably because it mirrors my own life experiences.
Do you remember that time period when the phrase of the day was "quality time"? What an appalling concept that was! Quality time was aimed at "working" mothers (meaning the women who were employed outside their homes, so had to leave their children with someone else) and posited that it wasn't the amount of time you spent with your children (including babies and very small children), but the "quality" of that time. So, if during your overscheduled day of paid work and general household management, you could only find 15-30 minutes a day to give your wee one, as long as you planned to spend every second of your time slot engaged only in quality time, you shouldn't feel guilty or upset at the level of separation that modern society demanded of you. That your child would spend the other 23 and a half hours in their day happily not missing you at all because well, quality time would be enough to compensate for that loss. Yeah, right.
The total fallacy of this is easily seen by simply switching the object of your quality time focus from your child to your boss. If quality time actually worked as its proponents said it did, then you should be able to tell your manager, "Hey, I'm only going to be in for four hours today, but every minute will be quality time!"
Oh thank you Kateriina! It’s always so nice to read comments like this, I really appreciate it. I’m so glad you are able to stay with your child/children!