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Facebook comments: 35 comments to Wasting My Life in Conversation |
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Wasting My Life in ConversationFacebook comments: 35 comments to Wasting My Life in Conversation |
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Copyright © 2012 Mama is… - All Rights Reserved Bad Behavior has blocked 312 access attempts in the last 7 days. |
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As always, a new perspective to be gained by reading your comics! Thank you for your insight, and I am glad you’re back!
(choke, gag, sputter) (speechless)
Nail, head, hammer….uh YEP!
That about sums it up. Think I’ll share this, if I may.
but those women are TRAINED EXPERTS unlike you and I so they are actually providing a valuable service. As evidenced by the fact that they get paid. You’re nothing without money, honey. /sarcasm
yep, story of my life right now. I’m thinking about making them eat their words by selling my handmade felted plush toys on etsy, so i have an income while being a SAHM. I have no interest in a “career” but this seems to not compute to the mass public’s brains
i have been saying this for years! lol great comic!
Exactly, what women should be “wasting” their time then? What always bugs me isn’t the idea that they want trained experts to do it, but often working class, poor, immigrant, etc. women to do this work. That it’s okay for those women to do this, but not white, educated women. Frustrating!
I’ve been a nanny, and I’ve frequently seen visions of every woman making her living nannying someone else’s child so that she can afford to have a nanny.
And then my brain breaks.
Why can I get paid to take care of other people’s kids but I can’t manage to afford to stay home with my own (hypothetically, because I refuse to have any until I can answer that)?
I have a graduate degree and I don’t consider being primary caregiver to my own freaking children to be “wasting” anything. It would be WASTING my chance to be with my kids when they’re small, by pursuing something that may or may not matter to me in 20 years. Pretty sure my family will still matter.
This is what my mil has been telling me for years only she says I need to get a job and she’ll quit her job to watch my kidlets. Ummmm what??? No thanks.
MY thoughts EXACTLY!
Such a great comic!
Furthermore, it is ideal that those women aren’t wasting time with their own children – because that would be mothering, not working.
Gaahhhh….I concur – so frustrating.
Yes! I’ve also been saying this for years. I can’t tell you how much it irritates me to keep seeing those adds in my email for “Obama wants mothers to return to school!” Great comic!
Thanks for encapsulating this idea in something amusing yet biting!
People just do not think their comments through.
Please don’t tell me people actually say that to you… Noooooooo!
THANK YOU! You took the words right out of my mouth. You and I disagree on some points but on this one we are in complete agreement. And I say this while typing one-handed as the other is busy holding my sick baby whom I’ve been able to pay complete attention to thanks to my “repressed” position.
I guess when I say “trained experts,” I am thinking of a couple upper middle class friends of mine who work outside the home and are very smug about the “quality child care” their children receive.
And I also have a MIL who frequently nags me about getting a job so I can pay her to quit her job and stay home with my kids.
Wow, this one is a hit. Ditto to all the above. Before starting a family of my own, I was a child care coordinator, and the argument that mothers (or fathers) are wasting their education/time/whatever caring for their children was so insulting to me because that’s what *I* was doing for so many others. My mother ran a cleaning service, and I pretty much came from a long line of people making money doing things that people could do themselves if they valued such work. Instead, they went to work just to pay someone else to take care of the basics. Like keeping their children alive and their floors clean. Now I grow food in the city and sell it to neighbors. Food. So basic. So necessary. So not worth the average American’s time. But it’s worth their money. It’s all worth lots of money, I assure you. Infant care is $$$$!
Along this line..
I just read a book review on “The Two Income Trap” and am thinking about checking it out.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlg/vol27/sullivan.php
Anyway, I KNEW that no matter how high the quality of care was, no matter how much love we gave those kids, it would never compare to what mom and dad had to offer. The whole system always felt perverse, even though I know that access to alternative care is valuable. Should a parent get sick or is unavailable.. should a mother find she needs to do something else a few hours a week for her own mental health or personal passions.. should a family’s single income not quite make ends meet… well it takes a village and all that. And I was happy to be part of that village. But the SYSTEM of it all.. the expectation… well, perverse, ya know? To work to pay someone else to care for your child. It was often so clear how mom and child missed each other – how they both hurt from the separation. It wasn’t right. When I ran my own child care out of my home after having my daughter, I NEVER charged for sick days, canceled days, etc. If they had ANY reason to keep the kid with them, I never wanted parents to feel like it was a waste of money or a waste of ANYTHING to NOT keep their child with them. And I never took children full time. I could have, but I wanted kids who spent most of their time with the one they were most attached to. Plus my main job had become raising MY daughter. Which is really a totally different job.
When I didn’t do anything else, some moms would ask me, “How do you make it work on one income?” Well, lets see: I don’t pay for child care, I don’t pay gas for to and from child care and work, I don’t pay for work clothes, I don’t pay for convenience foods and I pack my husband’s lunches, I don’t pay for dress shoes, I have time to fix the little things, and even make things that cost quite a bit in the store but are very simple, I don’t pay for many diapers or ziplocs or other things I can wash and reuse, I certainly don’t pay anyone to clean my home.. The truth is, I’ve tried it on two incomes (after my child was five) and really, it’s a wash. And for us, life is a little harder for the whole family. A second income is not necessarily income at all. Sometimes it’s just one more expense. It’s possible that the “prominent thinkers on women’s issues” are just bad at math.
julie – excellent post. i really dont have much more to add.
“This is what my mil has been telling me for years only she says I need to get a job and she’ll quit her job to watch my kidlets.”
LOL (kidding!)
OMG. My MIL says this too. WTH. No thanks. I’ll screw up my own kids thanks. You had the chance to do that already!
Uberhausfrau & Julie not “quite” complete, lol! My hubby was ALSO able to spend MORE time DOING what he loved & getting PAID for it which GREATLY helped us get out of the “hole” being a young single income family left us in! Something that WASN’T possible the 3 months I worked with the babies! Plus the “loss” allowed him tuition assistance which helped boost his abilities even MORE! He’s able to TOTALLY focus on the job (a little too well sometimes) which employers like! In his line of work, either the couple had children LATE or the Wife stayed home & played mommy, which all the guys appreciate & all the women can understand REGARDLESS of which path we chose! People outside our circle “can’t” understand.
I work outside the home and you might think I disagree with the comic and all the comments, but I agree with just about everything. Fortunately in our situation my husband is with the kids while I work and that’s great, but it’s not the same. He has never understood my longing to be with them.
I also work outside the home, but part-time, freelance, set my own schedule, etc. I can understand the feelings of women who “need” to have a career for their self-identity. I *am* a musician. If I were “only” a mom, it would be very, very good, but it wouldn’t be everything I am. I was a musician long before I was a mom and will be a musician my whole life — it’s not something I *DO* (like a random desk job) — it’s something I AM.
The chance to practice my art and my craft outside of mothering, keeps me grounded, whole, makes me a better mom.
So I can understand that feeling. But I also know that not all moms have that feeling. Some ARE a mom, and that’s what they are, period. That’s their calling. So I guess it IS the same feeling heh.
And some others seem to feel that their calling overrides and subjugates the maternal calling. I do NOT understand that. I am a musician, AND I am a mom, I’m not a musician who just happens to have a couple kids, if you understand what I mean.
Then there are those who do not feel that calling to something other than momhood, but take a job anyway, because they feel pressured or just think they’re supposed to. I think that’s the main gist of this comic, about that societal perception. So sad.
I thought that women’s “LIB” was about FREEDOM to choose whatever life we want, not the one society pigeon-holes us into!
It seems we’ve gone from “you must stay home and be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” to “you must work in corporate business full-time or else you’re a traitor to feminism”… just moved from one pigeon-hole to another one.
Dear Julinda,
I love hearing from you on these issues, I’ve known for a long time that you are a working mom and a regular commenter on my blog. It’s really great that you can see the bigger picture and that you don’t take the comics as a personal attack but see them as against the overall system. I wish more mothers were able to see as clearly as you do. I feel really sad when I get a letter from a mother who formula feeds and is ‘devastated’ and ‘attacked’ by my comics. Usually it’s a comic that has a bottle as a stand-in for a formula corporation. I try to talk about the bigger picture, but the lines can get blurred and it’s all just so personal. Anyway, when you chime in and all is well, I just feel happy, thank you.
Love,
Heather
What drove me nuts is that as a disabled woman, the child care providers I could get and who would be paid for by the government would be paid more than my disability cheque if they took care of my kids instead of me. So, instead of paying me a living income to stay home and properly take care of them, the government was more than willing to give me pennies and then give the dollars to “contracted care.”
My children were victims of assault by other adults in that care. One of the places, the brother of the daycare giver is under charges of sexual assault that is being send to adult court. My children were there at the time and to top it off, she minimized what happened and demanded I continue to leave my kids at her home because she needed the income! She supposedly was completely accredited as well, yet left children she was looking after, and being paid for (not just mine), alone in a room with her brother to go have a nap.
Yet, the government thinks that my care is less valuable than hers simply because they are my children.
Have you looked at the foster care scam? Foster parents getting far more money than the low income parents would have gotten for the same children because foster parenting is a “job” yet parenting is a “life choice.” A child labelled “special needs” earns even more money for the child protection system. A disabled child is worth big bucks.
Parents here have had to choose to care for their own disabled children or give them up to foster care where there would have been more resources available. That is just not only not fair, but not right.
Mothering is not a valued commodity. Yet paid for child care so that mothers, and fathers, can work is. The world is warped.
As a mom who has worked I get it too. Any woman who thinks her non-verbal child (eg under 2 years)is getting quality care from a paid non-familal care giver is out of touch.
The idea that I am supposed to leave my kids with someone who lacks job skills (or money or time or whatever) to get a high earning job just so I can earn more money….! And spend it on what? What is the MOST IMPORTANT thing in my life? Shouldn’t it be my family? So why would I want less than the best for my family! Esp. when they are young and vulnerable?!!
Perfectly put. I’m not saying there aren’t situations where it’s better for mom and kids to use some type of child care while Mom works… single mothers, being one example.
But really… it’s the perfect example of the hypocrisy in the feminist movement. Women should be out in the work force… then who is caring for the kids??…. Put them in Daycare… So we pay other women to watch our kids so we can go work? SIGH…. it just screams “take out the middle man!”
The best example of a suitable time for a dual-income home that comes to mind is my grandparents (and since this was before the feminist movement, I would just like to point out that all men should be like my grandpa was, viewing his wife as his partner, not someone who was there to just cook, clean, and raise his children)… My grandma waited until her children were both in school full time… then she went back to school PART time… and got a part time job… so she was home when they came home from school every day… my grandpa simply had to help out a little more by helping out with the laundry, going grocery shopping on the weekends (but he did that anyway), and the kids had to help out (but what kids don’t at that age?)
It wasn’t until they were in middle school (and old enough) that she went to school full time, finished her bachelor’s, her master’s, and got a teaching job (so again, still being home before, when, or AT MOST 1hr after they got home)… My grandfather was working a shift where he was sometimes home before or at the same time she was (leaving before dawn for his shift), so it worked perfectly. He would help out with cooking while she graded papers… the kids helped out keeping the house clean and learning to do laundry… again, totally age appropriate.
I don’t see why everything has to be so cut and dry these days… why can’t people just do what they need to do, but working around each other’s schedules and the children’s needs and schedules??
And if homeschooling/unschooling is what works best, then of course, that means one parent needs to be home…
what’s sexist (whether men or women say it) is saying either way which gender parent should do it.
My mom was a single mom… my grandpa was retired and my grandmother continued working until I started 1st grade… so for a long time, because they wanted to avoid daycare, it was my grandfather taking care of my sister and me. Should he have not done so because he was a man? Of course not… but to listen feminists, you would be led to believe men are not capable… because their solution is always daycare… not simply realizing that just because more women stay home with their kids than men do, doesn’t mean that sometimes it goes the other way.
I could go on and on like this, but I’ll stop now. Suffice it to say…. GREAT comic… FANTASTIC choice of subject.
I’m a little confused about this comment “The idea that I am supposed to leave my kids with someone who lacks job skills (or money or time or whatever) to get a high earning job just so I can earn more money….!”
Why assume that a women who earns her pay as day care provider does not have job skills? My daughter is in daycare and I work for pay full time. Her care givers all have at least a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and years of experience caring for little ones. They are loving, gentle, and fully embrace my nursing my daughter during the day, our attachment parenting style, co-sleeping, and general corporate crunch. Perhaps we have a fortunate placement outside of the home, but why assume that someone who was trained to take care of children is doing it wrong or makes less money?
Perhaps we should simply learn to value child centered care whether it takes place at the hands of either parent or a paid individual.
*loves this*
and so many good points in the comments!
so perfectly put, can i print about a thousand of these as flyers and post them through a few letter boxes?! and translate it into french and send them to that mental french politician? my die hard hippy mamans in france would love to do a bit of word spreading!
I like this comic too…but don’t forget we all owe a lot to the feminist movement. Just the fact that we CAN work outside the home, that so many of us who came of age in the 1980s or later just assume we can do whatever we want to do – INCLUDING being a mother – we owe to those trailblazing women who came before us.
That, of course, does not mean that people don’t make asinine comments. “Wasting your life” by spending it with your kids?!?!!? Wow.
That said, please don’t insult day care providers across the board. Many of them are skilled professionals and truly adore children. And thank goodness. Parents who do find meaning and value in working outside them home – even in corporate office jobs – can rest assured knowing their kids are getting quality care with these nannies/day care professionals.
my best friend had this to say about the topic(he has amazing insight on the topic, especially for a guy who will never be a dad):
“What is the difference between a woman who gives up her dreams of being a career woman to stay at home, and a woman who gives up her dream of staying at home to have a career?
Wouldn’t the only ‘anti-feminist’ act be to NOT do exactly what you want, in spite of anyone telling you otherwise?
If being feminist is just a different shape of cookie-cutter then it’s all amazingly pointless after all, isn’t it?”
I’m an infant “teacher”. I don’t have any kids of my own yet. I can tell you that I feel really ambivalent about the purpose of my job. I enjoy the babies I take care of, but I really don’t believe young children should be in institutionalized care (and especially babies). I agree with the point of this comic and have always wondered the same. When I have children, I know that I will not put them in childcare. I’ve been on the inside and it ain’t always pretty.
Heather – I am so honored that you replied to my comment and that you value my comments. I copied your comment (and mine) to save in a Word file because it was so special! You have been such a source of inspiration and wisdom to me and so many people.
Thank you soo much for this. I have 2 babes (5m, and 25months, both still nursing) and have in-laws that bottle fed and were bottle fed. I love what I do on a daily basis with my babes, but was getting down thinking what you just posted in your comic. That if I was not out selling my talent and earning a wage that’d I’d wasted my life. Lucky for me I have such strong role models (mother and aunts), and YOU!!! You took my stress and made me smile about it. Thank you for that! -Tara