Heck With the Battle of the Sexes...

We spend all this time hyping up how men don't understand women, the whole Venus/Mar's talk, when I am very certain the damage done to women isn't from the opposite sex or the outside world.  The damage done is by what women say about each other.  It starts in junior high and it never really improves.  We like to judge each other, in this constant game of 'the grass is always greener,' and I am sick of it.  It's time to put a stop to this nonsense.  

Before you tell me you agree, that you don't like those caddy witches that always gossip, I need to stop you.  Because we are all guilty of this behavior.  Really examine yourself, I mean REALLY sit there and think about what happens.  You're sitting in the coffee shop, in walks a new mother with her teeny tiny sweet baby.  The mom looks great, she certainly didn't suffer the cravings of doughnuts and french fries like some other mothers (we won't mention names, because I know none of us ever wanted fried anything while pregnant) did during pregnancy.  You lean over to your friend and you say "Well, it looks like Lisa is just the perfect mom, how does she get so lucky to look like that after a new baby?"  You did it.  You totally just did what I am talking about.  We don't need some dude throwing us under the bus about our bodies, our lives, or work choices, or our intellect -- we do it to ourselves with flying colors.

This brings me around to the one area that I feel like we do the very best job of sabotaging each other -- the continued discussion around stay-at-home and working mothers.  I've read article after article around this subject.  I've sat at lunch date, play date, and real date galore and had conversations around stay-at-home vs. working mothers.  I'm tired of talking about it.  It's not even something that should be a controversy.  

You want to stay at home with your children, great.  Do it.  Support your children, love them, give them what they need, and by all means please raise them to be good people, that contribute to society and make a difference by being passionate, considerate, articulate and ethical.  We all will thank you for it.  You want to have a family, yet still feel you can contribute by working outside of the home.  Do it.  Support your children, love them, give them what they need, and by all means please raise them to be good people, that contribute to society and make a difference by being passionate, considerate, articulate and ethical.   Wait...did you just read the same sentence twice in a paragraph?  Yes you did.  Because that's what we are talking about here, we are talking about raising children and last I checked it's not a damned contest, to see who can be the biggest martyr.  So stop making it out to be one.  

We all make sacrifices for our children and our families.  Stop thinking that yours is the greater sacrifice.  You chose to work outside the home, you feel you can make a contribution to your family and your profession, stand tall with your choice.  Do not beat yourself up that your children  have a babysitter, nanny or go to daycare.  Your family is just that, your family.  And how it functions best is your family's decision (not your mothers, fathers, mother-in-law or sister-in-law's decision - unless of course they are living with you - but I digress).  Do not let other women point their skinny little fingers at you and judge you on how you are raising your children and managing your family unit.  If you chose to stay at home and work in the home, good for you, you felt you can best make a contribution to your family and your passion by working in your home.  Do not value yourself less, do not let other women make you feel like you gave something up, because you did not.  Again, your family, your call on how it can function best.  

Momma's unite, we have to stop judging each other on this stay-at-home vs. work-outside-the-home business, because it is crazy, hurtful and frankly, an utter waste of your gossipy time. I know, I know, the stay-at-home mom will tell you, she is undervalued.  No one pays her to take care of her children.  No one knows what it is like to have the thankless job of wiping runny noses, dirty hind ends, and nasty little hands all day, every day, with no adult interaction for many many hours.  No working mother can relate to the amount of scheduling and planning that goes into weeks on end, at home with demanding toddlers.  There's truth to that, although a working mom would tell you she wipes those same dirty bits, and manages those same demanding kids - but it's not in as large a stretch of time.  And the working mom, she'll tell you that no one understands that precise planning it takes to manage work and life schedules.   How she wakes up at 5 am to get every thing ready for the day, how she cleans the house until 11 pm at night, plans her dinner menus out months at a time, irons every outfit she'll wear two and three weeks out, or how she struggles with the fact that to feel like a whole human she wants her job, she loves her job and she loves the tiny humans she brought into this world.  And the working mom's got a point, there's a lot on her mind too.  Stop thinking one has it worse than the other.

There is not a wrong answer here.  No one is doing better than the other and I am not sure when we will learn that lesson, but it is getting ridiculous because we are eating our young.  Women are the worst at passing judgement on this topic, we like to waggle our fingers and click our tongues when we don't agree with the choices made.   But I have a news flash for you, it doesn't make a rats ass difference, so long as your children turn out okay.  So pack up your school lunches, slip on your high heels and suit jacket or gather up your parent classroom volunteer handbook and fire up the carpool and focus on what is important - raising adults we all want to tolerate.  And quit being so darn hard on each other about who works where.