This is so true!  I love being home with my son (I work very part-time outside the home), but my neighborhood is like a ghost-town.  It would be so nice to have playdates that we didn’t have to drive to.

This is one of the main reasons I feel safer in my home at night than I do during the day.  It seems counter-intuitive, but thieves in our area are learning it’s easier to pull off a break-in in broad daylight because most people are at work, but the shade of dark in the evening offers them little hiding because most people are home.

I think I’ve posted this before, but Dr. Dobson had a segemnt on his radio show years ago pointing out how isolated women are these days & how we lack fellowship with other women.Even in some workplaces.Being in a cubicle 8 hrs a day is isolating, too.
Women used to wash clothes at the river together,draw water at the well,use a communal oven,quilt/sew together,etc.Manual work was harder but you had company.
If you travel to less developed countries you still see women working together & having fellowship.Here in the US,when I see women socializing, they’re often competing with each other in some way.

Absolutely.  When I started staying home 17 years ago that was the one thing I really noticed.  There was no one else around.  Very disconcerting.  When I was a kid my mom would stand at the fence and talk with the neighbor ladies, etc.  No more.  I wound up joining the “Mom’s Club” in order just to meet other women.  It beat driving around over to the municipal airport to take the baby to watch the airplanes take off and land or having to go to the mall just to see other humans.  Very sad for our communities.

Our little suburban neighborhood is really friendly. We have an awesome neighbor who throws great parties for holidays and knows everyone on our little street. He helps them out, and is frequently outside in the evenings and weekends working on some project in his driveway. His kids personally hand out the invitations for the parties, so we know them, too. Because of this one person, and keeping up with him, I know who is home during the day, who works at night, and, therefore, who I could call on if I needed help. I’ve met our neighbors and they know I’m home as well. I don’t have his personality, being introverted myself, but it really did take just one person who wants that community and has the resources and social skills to work at it. That guy was one of the reasons we chose this house over a different one, and it was worth it!

My three children are now in their 30’s.  I was the only stay at home mother on our street when they were very young.  It was very lonely, as I lived thousands of miles from my mother and family.  The solution for me was not to go back to work outside the home. Instead, I took my toddler(s)to noon Mass, and that was a great comfort to me.

WB - Your neighbor IS awesome.  In our first home in 1970’s we enjoyed this relationship with everyone up and down the street.  My husband and I tried to start this up when we moved into our new neighborhood over 4 years ago. It never took off the ground.  We were all too busy.  When I retire in the coming months, I aim to try again.  Several suggestions for others who might be motivated to spearhead this in your neighborhoods.  Be prepared to persist with great patience.  There are many things today competing with neighborliness…kid schools and teams, churches, work, computers, Monday night football and American Idol.  I also believe we have fallen “out of the habit” of socializing with our neighbors.  It seemed (four years ago) that many in the younger culture haven’t experienced this kind of personal relationship with neighbors and will take some time to experience its great benefits. It also pushes neighbors to take an interest in people with different backgrounds, views and interests.  That is counter-cultural to today’s emphasis on groups built around “sameness.”  I also believe that casual short visits around the neighborhood are the glue required to build the relationships we are looking for.  Without these, parties are just parties. My husband and I are committed to this, and with more time at home to plan and foster get-togethers, we are picking one night a month (e.g. first Thursday) to host these.  If there are suggestions from others, we welcome them!

Try forming a book club.  I joined one a couple of years ago and now I know several more people on our block.  It is harder for young mothers to get a free evening, but once a month seems to be do-able for many.  It is a non-threatening way to get to know the neighbors.

I felt this way way back in the late 1970’s when I was raising my children!  Great insight into a problem that I never really put my finger on.  What has always helped me is to stay active in organizations and to be in contact with other people.  Now, I operate an online teaching and training business and help others to do the same. I am constanting interacting with other like-minded people and there is great reward and community in that!

This also is one good reason why I have never lived in, and never intend to live in, a generic suburban neighborhood.  (Other reasons would include having to deal with a homeowners’ association; and not being able to walk to churches, restaurants, car repair shops, or really anything except other people’s houses.) 

I much prefer to live either in a more traditional urban neighborhood (even if it is in a small town, in fact preferably in a small town), or in the country with lots of land.  With the suburbs, you get the worst of both worlds.  You get the limited space of living in town, but you don’t get the advantage of living in a neighborhood where you can walk or bike to various businesses and activities.

Well, I live in a suburb, but it is not generic, and I can walk to a restaurant, an elementary school and my son’s Kindermusik class.  And there is no Homeowner’s association.  But that doesn’t change the fact that the people in the neighborhood are mostly gone during the day, and there are very few SAHMs, so we have to drive to central locations in order to have any socialization during the day.

Yesterday we packed a picnic lunch and went to the beach with five of our offspring.  It was simply a spectacular day, crystal clear, the ocean like a lake, (almost eerie compared to back east) and the coastal temperature a perfect 75 degrees.  What shocked me is that when we got there at 1:00 pm there was almost nobody there. Picture a giant expanse of white sand and only about 4 other people, as far as you can see in either direction. One of our teens refused to come because he was glued to a screen and the other walked home because he couldn’t bear to be away from his screen for more than an hour and a half. It seems to me that people hardly know how to enjoy the outdoors any more.  They are stressed out and obsessed with getting ahead, and the computer is their new portal to the kind of world they prefer to visit.

I live right next to an elementary school and the hours the kids spend in school are the quietest our block gets. I’d love to spend time out of doors but it’s so lonely. And our house is on .13 acres (tiny). I love where my parents live. Everyone is retired and so you see them outside all the time. People are constantly visiting and walking the streets and this is in the country where everyone lives on at least 1/2 an acre. I want that.

Good column.

Yes. Absolutely, yes. The loneliness is suffocating even for introverts. It fuels my internet addiction. Sigh.

I also experienced this.
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I suspect this also influences the amount of time our children spend outdoors.  It isn’t as much fun to be outside when there are no other children to play with.  While growing up I had 7 children my very own age to play with (without having to cross any street).  My grandson has no children at all on his suburban street and it is a 3 mile drive on a busy road to his school playground, which is always empty when we visit.  He prefers to play inside because being outside is lonely and no fun.

How likely is it that a woman who has spent a lot of money on a college degree will be willing to put her degree on a shelf and stay home with the kids? I think it’s highly unlikely, unless her degree allows her to work at home. It is even more unlikely she will choose to be a stay at home mom if she has a lot of student loan debt to pay off. Our society pressures women (and men) to get degrees so they can get a good job, but those degrees make it less likely that a woman will choose to be a stay at home mom.

Jennifer, you are so right! Great article. I just had a meltdown with my husband yesterday trying to explain how lonely the job of stay-at-home mom can be. I love it, feel grateful for the chance and wouldn’t trade it in for anything, but it’s not like how it used to be when I had a neighbor who would chat over the fence with me now and then. That ten-minute contact would make all the difference in the day. I am blessed in that we chose to live in a walk to town location.  It meant a small 3-bedroom ranch and lot, but I’m grateful I can stroll to town when I want. I wrote about that here:  http://finerfields.blogspot.com/2011/08/walk-to-town-location.html
God bless! I’m sharing your article on Twitter and Facebook!

The school playground we walk to is always empty, too.  Of course that could be due to the time of day we go there (usually morning, before it gets too hot).  It’s really sad that even there we can’t meet any neighborhood friends.  Luckily my son still likes to play outside in the yard, even by himself.  Maybe because he’s an only child, he’s used to playing by himself.  But I worry about how that will work when he’s older.

If you enter my address on Google maps, the street view includes a picture of my friends and me sitting outside watching all our kids play!

@ Paul: this female PhD ( biomedical engineering) who is still paying off student loans made the decision to stay home with her kids. And I am generally very happy with that decision, even though it means 3 car seats in the back of my Grand Prix because we can’t afford a minivan yet.

And, Jennifer, you are so right!

Paul Schlenker,
One of my daughters got a degree in Philosophy from a Catholic college & now works from home on ebay.She probably makes more money that way than teaching school.Plus she can be home with her children.
I agree with you about the going into debt/student loan part, though.Most of my kids have been able to avoid that by getting grants, etc but it’s a huge problem for many.

Seems I can’t sneeze these days without having to hear just how badly women are victimized by just about everything that exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist.

When my daughter was a stay at home mom, she put the children’s slide and sandbox in the front yard.  In a short time, she knew all the stay at home moms and their children.  Very few kids out walking with Mom, can resist the opportunity to play.  The idea was catching and soon everyone who was home with their kids during the day followed suit.  It was part of what unified the neighborhood.

David, what women are not victimized by:  the death and resurrection of Our Lord, the beauty of spring flowers and autumn leaves, the fact that some brilliant ancestor learned to roast coffee beans, the joy of having wonderful children and grandchildren, Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog, just to mention a few.  Now sneeze in peace.

Jennifer, you are correct!  I experienced this isolation when my son was born and my husband and I decided that I would stay home and care for him. Not only did I feel isolated, but my son was isolated from the presence of other kids, since they were all in daycare.  When I was growing up, all of the moms in the neighborhood were home, and kids were not in daycare.  When my father was growing up, all of his aunts/uncles/cousins lived on the same street; during the day, the kids were over each other’s houses and the mothers (who were sisters/in-laws) were able to have human contact, unlike me.  I would have loved to have family/others on the same street to receive and give support to mothers with young children.  It’s a shame that my parish didn’t/doesn’t have a means of bringing stay-at-home moms together during the day.

David, it is not a victim’s mentality to note certain challenges to women being fulfilled before then thinking about viable solutions or learning to think outside of certain boxes.  Also, a lot of the way both secularist feminists and their critics have construed the role and vocation of women can be problematic for not going far enough. 

For example, there can be a general tendency to see motherhood as almost exclusively biological and in terms of material—and physical—headcount.  And whether many commenters in Catholic comboxes mean to or not, some are just as unwilling or unable to realize that in Catholicism, motherhood (and fatherhood) has a very crucial spiritual component oriented toward God, in which one fits everything else—from job, career, and any talents that God has given one, along with any children with which God may gift one.  It’s why one is to patiently discern.  The way discussions can sometimes run, it can seem as though there’s no room for anyone in between those women who work, for whatever reason, and those who choose to stay home.  That truncation of women’s vocation as mothers in favor of the material can certainly make one wonder about why people more readily talk about the evils of abortion and contraception, but not so much IVF, and also when people discussing NFP make it almost exclusively about family size.  It also undercuts our ability to see the vocation of motherhood broadly, wherein some of the suggestions in the comments here are instructive (how about starting a book club, and detaching from the likes of American Idol?  And why are American women always competing when they socialize?)—namely that they hint at how women can and should foster community wherever they are.  For women who work or who are pursuing careers (thank you, Ms. Fulwiler for mentioning the exceptions to this article), I think this is much needed, whether they at present have children, would like to have children and don’t, don’t have children due to religious life or infertility, or have children who are grown and who have left home.  And it doesn’t help that our mainstream culture tends to talk more about Mommies and Daddies than mothers and fathers.

And Rebecca, spot on.  All of it.  I’d like to put some emphasis on the first part especially, because it’s what it truly means to see broad and deep:  thinking with the Crucifix.  In Christ’s own sacrificial victimhood, if and when women are victimized by one thing or another, we can know that it’s redemptive when we join it to something that’s just bigger.  It is not a victim’s mentality to note that a lot of the time, the world does not largely treat women well, and what we thought would be freeing has not been the case.  But it then becomes a matter of what can effectively be done about it.

It is so true what you say about the mother who sacrifices to stay home with her children to live not only in isolation, but also frowned upon by her peers. I stayed home with my children and not only experienced this, but also experienced lack of other kids for mine to play with. They were all in daycare and summer camp. It did feel lonely and isolated and the working mother’s could not fathom how I could not work as they did and be happy.

We started a community yard sale this summer. Almost everyone on the street had something that they wanted rid of. Fliers in everyone ‘s mailbox a few weeks in advance was all that was necessary and a small ad in a local newspaper.  It turned into a weekend neighborhood block party,  barbecue etc. Children outside for the weekend, yet under adult supervision and close enough to share their games and electronics.  I found that there are others home during the day who also don’t venture outside,  not all young mothers but retired or disabled members of our community that I never knew lived so close!  The prospect of everyone making a little extra money was a great motivation, tho ’ I think we mostly made trades :)  Now,  we’re planning a neighborhood craft fair.  I can’t wait to see what hidden talents my neighbors have been keeping to themselves.  This was great, because the children were also involved as they will be in the upcoming event.

What an insightful observation. I work from home—I have an office above the garage—but I concur that my neighborhood is pretty dead during the day. And I live next door to a church!

This is EXACTLY what my SAHM friends and I used to say to each other. It was easier to be a kid AND a SAHM many years ago, as there was a mom everywhere! The loneliness can be so awful. I am blessed that I had a support network.

I experienced this also having worked building/grounds maintenance in multiple subdivisions during high school. I quickly realized that people rarely went outside their homes, except to go to the car. Also, the aforementioned utter desertion during the day. As well as the decline of the stay-at-home mom, this is partly a result of how we have constructed our cities/towns & neighborhoods since the invention of the automobile. Suburban neighborhoods have the houses spaced too far apart and set back from the road, meaning that there is no casual interaction between people on their porches/yards and passers-by on foot. Plus, as others have noted, nobody walks because they are too far from anywhere they would want to go. Read “The Geography of Nowhere” by James Howard Kunstler for a good explanation of this phenomenon and all its ramifications for our society. Myself, I much prefer living in town in a small town, with traditional city blocks, sidewalks, and being a 5 minute walk from downtown with cafes, shops, restaurants, grocers and our local parish.

I think you’d find this article interesting too,

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/author-hopes-to-reignite-appreciation-of-motherhood/

It’s about this woman Dorothy Pilarski’s book Motherhood Matters, she makes an apt observation

However, Pilarski said that when she had her first child, she was “startled” by what she began to notice around her.

“It seemed like my suburb was stranded during the day. There were all of these beautiful houses, but no children and no mothers,” she said. “It struck me odd that while we had these incredible homes, there was nobody home to actually at home to create a home.”

“Women were driving in and out of their neighborhoods leaving at the crack of dawn,” she recalled, “and coming back late in the evenings. I kept on thinking of all of the ironies of working so hard, but not having the time or children to actually relish in a family life.”

I enjoyed staying home with my children, now 24 and 27. Having other stay at home parents nearby made a huge, positive difference. It’s too bad that too many families have bought into the mom working routine. When the mom did work full time, most of her salary went for day care, professional clothes, and entertainment to get us through the stress. Entertainment like we ate out more often and took nicer, more expensive vacations. That was a foolish trade-off.

I understand the curiosity, but stop spying on your neighbors! You don’t know people’s lives!
I probably would be one of those people getting in a car. Because there are women like me who work because we HAVE to. Not everyone has the blessing of a husband OR a family, or a work-from-home job. I’ve never been married and I’m almost 50. I own a home and HAVE to work. My job doesn’t lend itself to work-from-home.
So stay-at-home moms are lonely? I say ‘boo-hoo’ Is it spooky to be at home alone during the day? Try at home alone during the night, when you hear somethign go bump, and you have no one to send to go find out what it is, except yourself.
Being single has taught me to be grateful for everything God has given me and NOT given me, it makes for a happy life. I think people in all vocations should practice more gratitude and less fear and doubt.
Besides learning to be grateful I’ve learned to be to mow my own lawn, put up tile, fix toilets, cook, knit, garden. Yes, I don’t have piles of laundry and dirty diapers to clean like so many married women like to complain about, I also don’t have a husband to take out the garbage or cute little faces to watch sleep, children that instinctively run to me when they are afraid, I don’t have giggles or heart-to-heart conversation with teenagers discovering themselves and the world.
So people…, especially married women, practice more gratitude and less judgement about your neighbors eh? I’m so tired of reading about laundry, diapers and the inability to have a grown up conversation with other human beings, the need to work and feel ‘human’ among adults, the horror of a dirty van and finding sticky candy in your purse… I mean come on people… I especially read this in Catholic blogs all the time - really, what is up with that??
And please don’t get me wrong, I’m not down on married people, after all - even though I’m single, I chose to live in a suburban neighborhood, because when I have a day off and stay home it is quiet and I love it, and in the weekends when I’m home I love the sound of kids playing in their yards, the lawnmowers, the dogs barking, and the mothers yelling at their kids to put their bikes inside :-)
More gratitude!

This is profound.

Maria, no one here is spying, and you are telling us to be less judgmental, yet your post is extremely judgmental.  I was single for a very long time, and I had no choice but to work fulltime outside the home when my son was a baby.  So I know firsthand what it’s like to be alone when something goes bump in the night, and I also know how important it is to be grateful for being a SAHM.  But your approach to remind moms to be grateful is ineffective because of its judgmental tone.  I am now home almost fulltime (I work just 15 hours/week outside the home), and despite the lack of neighbors I would never trade it for working fulltime.  But that doesn’t change the fact that isolation in neighborhoods is a real problem.  I don’t even care about it so much for myself, but it is a big problem for my son.  My son is an only child (something I have no control over), and his social skills have really suffered from it.  Traveling for playdates does not provide the same social opportunities as having built-in playdates in the neighborhood.  Furthermore, most of the posts here aren’t necessarily criticizing individual women for working outside the home.  They’re commenting on societal trend in general that has resulted on more mothers working outside the home.  There is a difference.

I think it’s ironic that women don’t stay home because no one else is home. Am I understanding it right? It’s like my children who don’t want to stop at a playground to play because no one else is there. .of course not, I tell them. . because all the other kids who drove by with their moms have the same idea. . if everyone would just stop to play, the playground would be filled with kids. . the women I know who work do so because they haven’t a clue what to do with themselves when they are home and are bored (I know because they’ve said as much to me. .) They don’t see “home” as a place to be “made” therefore they are not “homemakers.” Whatever place in our culture we women enjoyed in the past we’ve given up. . for the most part we are breadwinners like our husbands or needy teenagers like our kids. Where HAVE all the women gone?

Bored + lonely = depression for lots of women. And even if clinical depression is avoided, lots of women are unhappy & frustrated by the situation. It’s bad for our marriages!

In my neighborhood, I’m the only SAHM because the other women with children in the neighborhood are all single mothers.

I agree with this as well.  I also think social networks such as Facebook etc, don’t help.  People don’t need to get out to talk anymore because they can do it all through Facebook and texting.  I DO think that the toughest part about staying at home for a lot of moms is finding a good group of women to meet with consistently… creating healthy relationships and keeping your identity.  I think that some moms work (for non-financial reasons) because they want to be “good at something.”  Meaning, they want/need that people telling them “good job” or “you’re promoted because you’re great at this.”  Anyways, my two cents.

This is a very good commentary on today’s society.  I live in a small, Northeastern town.  We have a lovely neighborhood with sidewalks and houses with front porches.  And as lovely as it is, it’s mostly quiet and empty.  Of the 60 or 70 houses that line my street, there are exactly 5 homes with children.  Only 3 of those homes have children under 12 and in a few years, ours will be the only 1.  During the day, I am the only mother at home with young children.  Every one else is old and retired.  It’s a very long life indeed.  I came home from the work force when our 3rd child was born almost 12 years ago.  It hasn’t changed much.  What is also sad, is that even with the day care center around the corner, the sound of children playing in the afternoon is so rare that it is startling when you hear it.  Earlier this fall, we had a lovely warm day.  I took the children to the park at 1 pm.  There was not a single mother with children there.  Not one.  My children played alone, like they do every day.  40 years ago, when I was a child, the streets were full of children and Moms spent their days drinking coffee in the mornings, gossiping, shopping together, and visiting.  Those days are long gone.  It takes a very strong and committed woman to do it!  As my priest says, Persevere!  The rewards will be great.

I have actually always thought that being a full-time SAHM would probably be *less* isolating than being a working mom, at least for me. (I have always had to work at least part-time).  Let me explain.

SAHMs have a lot more freedom in terms of where they go, what they do, and when they do it. When you’re at work, yes, there are other people around, but you do have to get work done, and interaction is usually limited to small talk, which I really dislike as an introvert. Plus, you are limited to interacting with the people in your office. It’s possible that you could develop a friendship with someone you work with, but if you don’t, it’s not like you can easily go to another office to socialize. You’re limited to the same people. Whereas if you’re an SAHM, you have complete freedom. Maybe you won’t hit it off with one mother’s group, class or playgroup, but then you can always try a different one. Maybe it’s just where I live, but it seems like there’s a lot during the day for SAHMs.

Also, while you certainly have things that need to be done as an SAHM, it seems to me like it’s easier to fit in socializing around your duties then it is if you’re in an office all day. SAHMs can spend a whole afternoon socializing in someone’s backyard while their kids play, and still have plenty of time to get all the housework done. You can’t do that when you’re in the office all day. You have complete control over your schedule as an SAHM (with the exception of naps, of course).

There’s a mother’s group at my parish that meets once a week that I’ve always wanted to join, but I’ve never been able to go to their meetings because I work. If I were an SAHM, I would start there, and hopefully make some friends with other Catholic women who I could socialize with at other times during the week as well.  Work has actually been a big impediment to making new friends. It’s just SO hard balancing a job with kids and everything else that needs to be done.

I also have to completely disagree with GGLUNA about Facebook. I think Facebook is awesome. As a busy working mom who struggles to find time to socialize, Facebook is great for connecting with people. Sometimes you comment on someone’s status and then they realize that the two of you need to get together soon.  It also has helped me keep in touch with people who live far away who I probably would have completely lost touch with otherwise. 

Really good points, SD.  I mentioned in an earlier comment that I worked fulltime outside the home when my son was a baby (at the time I had no other choice financially).  Every job is different;  mine was such that I did have a good support network at my job.  There were other things I hated about it, though, many of which you mentioned:  the lack of control over my own schedule, the lack of time for socializing outside of work (I was away from my son so much with my job that I couldn’t justify taking even more time away from him), etc.  Now that I’m home mostly fulltime, I can’t say that isolation is an issue for me personally.  I think that in the past 40 years there have been several shifts.  In the 70s most mothers were home.  In the 80s the neighborhood started to empty out (of SAHMs), and there weren’t many other resources for moms.  Now the neighborhoods continue to be largely empty, but at least there are resources like Story Hours, Kindermusik, etc (and the internet does help for arranging playgroups, etc).  So I would say that in my area at least, SAHMs today are better off then they were in the 80s.  My biggest issue is with socialization for my son, not myself.  I have always taken my son to all kinds of activities, so he’s had adequate exposure to other kids.  But he hasn’t had the daily exposure to built-in neighborhood playmates that he has really needed to foster good social skills.  One day we’ll meet x family at the playground for a playdate.  The next day we’ll see a group of kids at Kindermusik.  The next day it will be a whole different group of kids at Story hour.  The next week we’ll have a playdate with a different family.  For some kids this wouldn’t be an issue.  But he has a reserved temperament, and is an only child, so he really needs more consistency.  He is currently in his second year of preschool;  last year he attended two mornings/week and this year it’s three mornings/week.  That is helping a little, but not enough.  I can’t help but think that if we had a few neighorhood friends that we saw several times/week, his social skills would be better.  So I’m in the ironic position of second-guessing whether I should have kept working fulltime and put him in daycare so he could see the same group of kids all day every day to help with his social skills.  In our case, daycare would not have been a good option (other than the social factor) for a host of reasons that would take way too long to explain, especially considering that I’ve already written an novel.  But anyway, it’s a tough situation.

Claire, it sounds like you’re doing a great job making sure your son gets socialization. I am very shy and reserved myself, and was even more so when I was a kid. If your son is an introvert, he is certainly getting enough interaction with other kids. I am glad my mom was able to stay home with me. I think being in daycare all day long every day would have been too much for me at that age.

Our oldest daughter was an only child until she was four. My husband and I both worked full-time and my MIL watched her during the day, plus none of our friends had kids yet, so she had little interaction with other kids except for preschool. (She went two mornings a week when she was two and a half, three mornings a week when she was three, and five mornings a week when she was four). She is now 8 and VERY social. (We are lucky that there are a couple kids on our street who she plays with almost every day). She’s always been an extravert (not sure where she came from!) So if your son is in preschool, I’m sure he will be fine if my very extraverted daughter was just fine with just preschool at that age.

Claire, my intention was not to be judgemental, it was a tongue in cheek commentary/attention grabber and a reminder that people ought to be more grateful and whine less, inwardly and outwardly. I read lots of blogs, and this is a trend I’m observing more and more in Catholic married women blogs - complaining. This is something that as women we need to watch for because it is an inclination of our female psyche. If you were single for a long time,then you must know how difficult it is at times to remain focused in living virtously - a reason why I admire married people a LOT, not because they are married and I’m not but because living the vocation of marriage in a topsy turvy world like ours I think is amazing and takes a lot of spiritual finesse, something that I aspire to, and why I read their blogs.
Mine, again is an observation: More gratitude!

I am currently a stay at home mom. But I have done it all-worked full time with 3 toddlers, worked part-time with a newborn and three kids under 7, and am now staying home with 3 in school and 3 at home with me. And you know something? They all had good points and bad points. I don’t think that perfection is for this world. As my kids say “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit!”
There are not a lot of moms at home during that day-and it would be nice to have someone over for coffee a couple of times a week. Especially if it was someone that I didn’t have to clean my house for :)
No matter what our calling in life is, parts of it will be good to great, and other parts will be hard to nearly unbearable.

Maybe the culture AND the economy need to change so that more moms can stay home or at least work from home.

Do not forget that the labor saving devices we have today have made housework (cleaning, food prep) relatively simple and quick to do. Quite frankly, on those days I am not actively involved in homeschooling the kids, I am not sure what I should be doing. It’s all been done hours ago.  I’m not the sort who is willing to play tennis/golf with the ladies four hours a day to fill up my time. Not one for hobbies either. 

Were I not homeschooling, I’d have to get outside employement.

Maria, I too dislike the complaining that I see on Mommy blogs.  I am very grateful for my husband who I waited many years for, and I am also very grateful for my son who I waited many more years for.  I’m also grateful that I am now able to be home with him mostly fulltime.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues.  As CH said, there are issues with any arrangement.  And yes, we need to be grateful.  That doesn’t mean ignoring the issues and neglecting to pursue solutions, or avoiding a discussion of what caused the issues in the first place.  Jennifer’s article is not an obnoxious complaining post.  It is an analysis of what’s going on with the current trend of mothers who prefer to be in the workforce rather than being home with their kids.  Her article, and many of the comments, were helpful to me as someone who is home most of the time.  I suspect her article was helpful to others.  Who knows, maybe more discussions like this will help reverse some of the trends that have pushed so many mothers into the workforce.  (Not that I think it’s wrong for a mother to work, but it would be nice if more mothers had a choice and if the choice to be home was more appealing.) 

The mommy blogs that bother me are the ones who complain about their kids, and seem preoccupied with the drudgery of motherhood rather than looking beyond the drudgery and seeing how valuable their daily interactions are for their children’s development.  And then there are the ones who just can’t wait till their kids are out of diapers, and then can’t wait till they go to school, and then can’t wait till they finish school, etc.  That drives me crazy.  But Jennifer’s blog is not like that, and there are many Catholic mommy blogs that aren’t like that either.

I’ve been thinking about the subject of this blog and some of the responses, and have realized a few things: We are *all* lonely because we long for God, who is our final end.  I have an amazing husband who is the love of my life, but for many years, I saw very little of him as he chased a career and the illusions of “the good life”. In the past, when I have felt somewhat “imprisoned” by my choice of life, I would recall with fondness the words of a lay mystic who lived alone, (but also traveled with her job). She didn’t have an avid social life, or a “significant other”.  She had Our Lord. She heard these words in her soul, from Jesus: ...“wouldn’t even my cloistered ones admire our existence together?” I understand this divine secret. It more than got me through many an isolated moment. At the risk of sounding sentimental, I would find peace, looking upon my home as my monastery, a place that I shared intimately with Him.  Having to move around and change homes and schools with a big family caused a bunch of busy work, but in the center of that, there was always a silence with Him that I cherished.  When I moved back to my home town, I realized how much I’d changed.  I couldn’t reconnect with my old party friends, at least not very often, because their lifestyle is so foreign to mine now.  Sitting around talking about clothing, makeup, relationships, and gossip leaves such a bad aftertaste. I wish I could be a better friend to them, but for now, this is how it is going to have to be.  I miss all my Catholic friends that I shared the same world view with, but we have all gone in different directions, to different cities, and countries, because of our husbands’ jobs.  I haven’t connected with very many Moms at my new church.  There are so few SAHMs, and no large families like mine at all.
I have come to terms with the fact that despite my old life, I was always an introvert beneath it all, but now that we are forty something year olds with kids all over the map, we share very little in common with our (mostly divorced, one or two kids) friends from Catholic school days.
As I survey all of the personalities in my children, I realize that even the wild extroverts will sometimes come back down to earth, and express a certain longing for something deeper and more transcendent.  I take these moments to nudge them toward finding soulful friends who most share their values. I tell them to look in logical places! Trying to find this in the middle of an avid social life is like trying to find firewood in the Sahara.. When the world leaves them lonely in the midst of it all, I tell them that the heart will truly never rest until it rests in God.  This resonates in them.

This is so true! This is the main reason I pay high rent to cram my family into an apartment in Brooklyn.

Maria, why do you read Catholic mommy blogs if you are think they whine too much?

Yes, Jennifer, I have had the thought about how hard and isolating it is. I am going to work on cultivating the relationships with the three great families we have nearby. I like realizing that facebook can make me feel like I’ve connected, but I really haven’t. I need to do it in real life.

The increase of internet blogs and social media can add to this isolation for some women.  I know from personal experience that you being connected online can serve as a distraction and keep you from being present to and reaching out to the people around you.  It can prevent you from engaging and entering into real relationships with people in your neighborhood/church and community.  Yes, there are times where it decreases isolation and brings connection.  But this connection seems to be with people online who you can’t touch in real life.  It is important for your kids need to see you interacting with you community in real life and forming friendships with people you see in person.

I know for many reasons this may not be possible for some and I do believe online communities serve a good purpose.  It is a balance.  It takes a conscious choice everyday to reach out to people in your neighborhood.  Things that I think are helpful are: calling your elderly neighbors when a storm is coming and let them know you are there to help, bring a family with a newborn a meal or send them a congrats card or bring a new neighbor a “welcome to the neighborhood” gift or card.  I know I regret many missed opportunities.

If most of your neighbors have school age kids they are not going to be outside until 3 or 4.  So it also depends on what time you look.  Personally, I enjoy a part-time career and being home with my kids and being very connected to my community.  This includes my neighborhood, church, (public) school and other activities.  But I have had to work on that for years (more than a decade!!) and it has not always been an easy road.  Prayers to all of you trying to find those good connections. May you be given wisdom and insight into how you can get to where you need to be.

this is so true. i took my daughter to a nice playground within a neighborhood and the whole place looked abandonned except for ppl who were hired to mow lawns.  was hoping there would be other kids/moms.  oh well *shrug*

I a SAHD with a four and two year old and it can be incredibly isolating and monotonous. My wife made so much more money than me it didn’t make sense for me to work (I’d basically be working to pay for childcare). I don’t regret the decision but it can be an unbelievable grind. Doesn’t help that my wife’s father has checked out of our kids’ lives and her brothers do little to nothing to help us. My mother is elderly and my sis is too busy with her two kids.

And regarding women with advanced degrees who aren’t willing to stay at home…you have my sympathy. No one tells you the absolute dearth of intellectual stimulation there is in raising kids.

Jennifer’s right about the ‘burbs being isolating. We live in a beautiful neighborhood but it mostly retirees and couples with kids in daycare or too old to play with ours.

We used to live in an urban neighborhood that wasn’t great for kids so we moved out to the ‘burbs. And as soon as our youngest is in college we’re moving back to an more urban environment.

We’re probably going to stop with two kids because we both realized neither we nor our marriage could handle another one and its not fair to have a child that isn’t 100% wanted or that neither of us have the energy to raise properly. Both our kids have significant speech and motor delays, my oldest is borderline austistic, which necessitate frequent doctor and therapist visits. I love them more than I love myself but I need to get out of this toddler-infant nightmare phase.

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Louis:  I totally empathize with your situation, because when my son was a baby, my husband was his primary caregiver (for financial reasons similar to yours).  SAHDs are even more isolated than SAHMs.  The one thing I disagree with, though, is what you said about the lack of intellectual stimulation with raising kids.  Personally, I find parenthood to require a lot of intelligence and creativity.

Louis, I’m leaving for mass in about 45 mins. and will offer my mass for you.  I find that aside from a good book, reading articles on New Advent provide some Catholic, intellectual stimulation between a bunch of little duties.  The articles can be really humorous, scientific and of every day interest as well.  God Bless you for your sacrifice.

I think you have put your finger on something.  Women definitely need to socialize more than men do.  And it is true that in rural societies men and women both work, and also, mostly both work at home, and see each other all day long.  Or they used to.

We are very individualized and more so all the time.  We sacrifice community so that we can maximize the independence of our individual choices in entertainment and interest.  The only thing people in the suburbs have to have in common in order to live next to you is enough money to buy that house.  Any they may not even need that.  And they may not speak your language much or at all, or look like you.  And they certainly don’t have to care about you.  It’s their own private Idaho.

But if you think that these things are a problem in the suburbs try living in the city.

People at work may not even like each other; yet they force themselves to deal with each other because they have to accomplish common goals.  They have to get used to each other to some extent and like each other, at least a little.  If they can’t then they need a new job, and that may not be so easy to come by.

In contrast if you don’t like your spouse you can chuck him or her in a heartbeat and get a new one or do whatever you want and the X will have to subsidize you!  Great deal!  But I digress.

Point is that the ways we have agreed are the best ways to maximize freedom and opportunity often oppose the things that make life bearable and/or worth living.

Thanks Mom! I appreciate it. Actually, reading, debating, and commenting on articles on Catholic themed websites is one way I’ve engaged my faith in a more intellectual, getting that stimulation while with kids. Anyway, thank you!

On the one hand, I can’t think of anyone more isolated than a stay-at-home Dad and I have enormous admiration for those that make that sacrifice.  On the hand, most men do not need the amount of social interaction that women need so in that sense they can take the isolating burbs better.  For countless generations women have had mothers, aunts, cousins help them raise their children but no longer—they are on their own.  My husband, although a wonderful sensitive guy, just does not understand at all what I am talking about when I say I am lonely.  He’s with people all day, and comes home all talked out whereas I can go days without speaking to another adult.  So I then start harboring resentment which is an awful thing. 

Going back to the original topic about Google street view, I need to point out that Google tries not to get people in their pictures if they can help it and if they do they blur the faces.  So I don’t know if Google is a great example but I think we all know from experience that the suburbs today are deserted.  Part of it is the working mother phenomenon and part of it is the drop in the birthrate.

I get your meaning and I agree, but being that you live in TX, maybe it’s the same thing as it was for us when we lived in FL.  For the first week, I thought we had moved into a reclusive neighborhood.  Then I realized because of the heat, nobody came outside between 9am and 6pm.  And I’m sure google edits out a lot of bikes on the lawn and people- they last hing they want is for people to use it to case houses.
On your point, though, it’s hard to get to know the neighbor kids when they are all in daycare until dinnertime or playing sports or going to lessons of some kind.  It’s kind of a positive feedback cycle- my kids don’t have anyone to play with in the neighborhood, so might as well enroll them in karate/soccer so they can be social.
Right now, our street is half families with a parent stationed at the local army base for only a year, and due to arrival times they arrived too late to sign up for the current sports of the season.  So the kids spill off the school bus arguing over whose house to congregate at that day.  Somehow they usually end up here…

@Jennifer Fulweiler

You are so right. And it is not something we can blame merely on computers or the post 90’s culture.  My mother, in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s was a stay-at-home mother and she had *no friends*.  Her sum total of hearing actual voices outside of her own head were her weekly calls to her sister and mother… and overheard conversations with strangers in the check-out line.

The trouble is, her habit of dosing on the daily news meant that she didn’t trust anyone enough to actually make friends. I’d always thought that she was an extreme example, a statistical outlier (because she decided to stay at home with the family), but now I’m not so sure.

Granted, she seemed happy to live in isolation—at times even seemed to crave it. But she would have been much happier if she had not been so alone. In my experience, with health problems and a desire to give support to my family, I find that a little effort, AND being Catholic, has helped immensely to actually having friends, and lessening the pressure of isolation.

But I will admit I don’t leave the house much at 2 pm. Mostly before then and after then, either for shopping, or going to visit people, running errands, etc.  2 pm is the classic time for kids to go to and from school, and there are a surprising number of home schoolers in our neighborhood. 

Also, I live very close to a large urban area where I have a wide variety of people to associate with. My mother only lived in small to medium sized areas and did not seem to have much of a choice.

Ironically, she grew up in a very small town, yet her mother was the epicenter of several great social circles that molded the entire region. They were never short of people to talk to. Her father was the one who stayed home with the children, and worked the “flexible jobs” compatible with child rearing. He was a bus driver and a fishing guide, as well as doing a chunk of the farm work. But they had no shortage of contacts, though they lived miles apart from their neighbors.But culture back then was different, and the only distraction from work and being alone was each other.

Another thing to take into account, is that the trends in this area are changing. The secular social clubs (eg. Moose, Elks, etc.) in our area are all getting refurbished exteriors (for the first time in 20+ years!) and are a lot more busy than they used to be. Use google view to see if that isn’t true in your area, as well. That might indicate that there is more of a social life to have, and that it may well become more attractive in the not too distant future to stay at home. When there is a social network in which to find those who have the same or similar availability to you, it can make a good deal of difference.

Also, we have a lot of home schoolers in our area who work together for certain activities, and a lot of the stay at home mothers find social activities for themselves as well as their children that way. Home schooling is a LOT more common than it was when my mother was raising us.
IN those days it was almost unheard of, and barely mentioned outside of Mennonite communities and the like.

So I agree with your conclusions, I also feel that the tide is turning. Even looking at what people wear every day, you see that my generation (and those near by) are struggling to find adulthood. And judging by the trends, they are finding that, perhaps, an older standard is more satisfying than the sham of eternal youth and irresponsibility.

I firmly believe that the reason why traditional womanhood and motherhood is so unpopular is because it doesn’t look like fun.  :)  Suddenly people discover that the man really is making a sacrifice to be working… and then, perhaps, it’s time to roll up sleeves, slap on the nitrile gloves, and go clean house, iron the clothes, and change diapers yourself with dignity.  God bless you in what you do.

Very true… I just re-met a neighbor trick or treating that I had met at the local library this summer who lives on my street and we didn’t even know it.  I’ve lived here almost four years.

My coworker shared this post with me as I’m a working mom struggling with the decision to leave a wonderful job to stay at home with my 2 year old. I shared with him that my biggest fear is losing my network of great friends at work and feeling isolated at home without family around or any other SAHMs to connect with (or more importantly - that hold the same interests and values as myself). Its a very hard decision, but my heart knows that this is a sacrifice I want to make for my daughter and husband…and for Jesus, because I will need Him more than ever in it. Your comments have helped, but its not an easy thing to do to sacrifice something you excel at, are instantly appreciated/compensated for, and love doing…but I know I will get this from being a mom as well. I just need to stay close to Jesus and trust in His love. I look forward to not having a commute, being able to cook for my family, clean my home, raise my child and be the mother and wife I want to be.

Blessings on your decision, christmasmom!  Sometimes I think the decision to be a SAHM is harder for women who love their jobs.  There are things about my job that I love, but I don’t love my job.  That definitely made it easier for me to cut back to part-time.  While I wish I had a job I loved (other than motherhood), maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t, because it makes it so much less of a dilemma for me.

Besides the first few years when a child is too young for school, I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to at least work part time. It is boring staying at home, and it is a horrible feeling when you are not contributing financially to the family’s economic burden.

Well Dana, not everyone finds it boring to be at home, and some people homeschool, and some people at home find their contributions to be just as valuable as financial ones.  Your experience is not necessarily the same as everyone else’s.

I was writing a lengthy comment, prompted by Dana’s, in which she was saying staying at home with one’s kids is boring and that stay at home moms aren’t “contributing financially to the family’s economic burden”, but instead, I will just quote the following, from C.K. Chesterton: “the advocates of Birth Control [...] seem to express a sympathy with those who prefer ‘the right to earn outside the home’ or (in other words) the right to be a wage-slave and work under the orders of a total stranger because he happens to be a richer man. By what conceivable contortions of twisted thought this ever came to be considered a freer condition than that of companionship with the man she has herself freely accepted, I never could for the life of me make out. The only sense I can make of it is that the proletarian work, though obviously more senile and subordinate than the parental, is so far safer and more irresponsible because it is not parental. I can easily believe that there are some people who do prefer working in a factory to working in a family; for there are always some people who prefer slavery to freedom, and who especially prefer being governed to governing someone else. But I think their quarrel with motherhood is not like mine, a quarrel with inhuman conditions, but simply a quarrel with life. Given an attempt to escape from the nature of things, and I can well believe that it might lead at last to something like ‘the nursery school for our children staffed by other mothers and single women of expert training.’

I will add nothing to that ghastly picture, beyond speculating pleasantly about the world in which women cannot manage their own children but can manage each other’s.” (C.K. Chesterton, Social Reform and Birth Control, 1927) If there are copyrights, no infringement was intended.

You are expressing “the problem with no name”, that Betty Friedan coined in the 1950s, and was responsible for “women’s liberation”.  It is true that laborsaving devices have made it hard to justify staying home…if you are sending your kids off to school.  BUT, at the same time (and probably because of) women’s liberation, the schools have become toxis, and so homeschooling is becoming a valuable thing to do.  Homeschooling expands the geographic network, so maybe doesn’t solve the neighborhood problem, until it becomes pervasive enough (again!) that there are other homeschool families on your block.

Kind of late to the discussion here, but here’s my take on things. I’m another SAHD and it can be pretty tough as well. Our financial situation and careers made things logically obvious for us.

But it’s tough for her as a mom to be gone all day away from her son, and for me I certainly miss the day to day camaraderie on the job site and feeling like I accomplished something. Going home knowing you built something, versus the day to day feeding, laundry, dishes, and just teaching and playing. Even though it’s important it’s hard to see sometimes.

And at least if you are a SAHM you won’t get scowled at when you go to the playground like you’re just a kidnapping waiting to happen. And to say men don’t need social interaction is definitely false…it might be a bit different than women but after a couple years at home I am realizing it pretty bad. It can also be pretty depressing from the standpoint of realizing your peers are engineers, teachers, doctors…and you do the dishes.

Anyway—good article and I definitely see it around here—we take walks and bike rides in the HOA’s surrounding our apartment complex and they are deserted nearly all day long. Beautiful days sometimes and you won’t see a single child outside playing.

Michigan Dad:  your situation sounds really hard, and my heart goes out to you.  I do think that MM has a good point, though, about men’s vs women’s needs for socialization.  Of course there are exceptions, but there are lots of men who don’t require the level of interactions that women do.  When my husband was home with my son as an infant, he hardly saw another adult the whole time I was at work.  He was perfectly content to play his computer games whenever he had a free moment in between childcare activities.  I am fairly introverted and probably require less socialization than the average mother (which is why I often do a double-take when I here mothers say how they wish they could work outside the home), but even for me his level of socialization would have felt way too isolating.

Annie - not all women working outside the home are doing wage slave or factory work.  A lot are professionals who truly love and have ownership of their work, myself included.  I would go bonkers as a stay at home mom, even with community, because I not only need the intellectual stimulation, I also am comforted knowing that were something to happen to my husband and his income, I could financially provide for my daughter.  It feels good to have multiple sources of achievement and satisfaction.

My husband and I are lucky though; we both have fairly flexible schedules, summers and academic breaks off, and his mother (and by extension, his large Portuguese family)  cares for our daughter while we work.  We both put time and love into home keeping.  But spreading all the burdens, financial, domestic, and parental between the two of us, rather dividing them between “husband jobs” and “wife jobs” I feel like that relieves both of us.  It’s like two people sharing one big load on their shoulders as opposed to two people dividing the load and carrying it separately, which I think a lot of couples do, and which can increase isolation.

But fundamental to making our family work is extended family.  We would be just lost without our mothers, aunts, uncles and cousins.  I think the decreasing role of extended family in American family life and the lack of responsibility we feel towards our elderly, our children and grandchildren, and our brothers and sisters and cousins is a big contributor to isolation at all levels.

Anyway, I’m a fairly liberal Catholic and NCR columns sometimes make me want to pull my hair out, but this one was good and very truthful, and it hits upon a huge problem in society.

AF:  being home with children doesn’t have to mean an absence of intellectual stimulation and furthermore, Annie’s comment was in response to a comment that made sweeping generalizations about being at home (it’s boring and women who do it aren’t contributing financially to the household).

Thanks AF for your thoughtful post.

Well of course it’s thoughtful.  It’s written by a liberal Catholic who usually wants to pull out her hair when reading NCR columns, and who would go bonkers being a SAHM.  Right up your alley.

AF,

I wanted to explain why I thought your comment was valuable so there is not misunderstanding.  As a SAHM the vast majority of my kid’s lives I have always been grateful for the opportunity.  While I did not find it intellectually stimulating I know others do. That just was not a need of mine at the time.  We are all created very differently and I respect that what I choose is not the best plan for all women.  Being at home was where I was suppose to be.

I value the women/moms in society who work outside the home.  They fill many important roles.  It is evident that you love your husband and child and you work as a team to get things done.  While you do not have clearly defined traditional roles you are doing what is best for your marriage. That is what we all should do.

I appreciated your honesty about your needs and what factors would make it not the best choice for you to be a SAHM.  I didn’t take your needs as an assault on others who chose to stay at home.  I could easily say I would have gone bonkers if I worked full time.  But that relates who I am and is not representative of everyone else.

You also explained well the importance of family and caring for our elderly.  That is truly a gift to have that in your life.

Even though my path is different than yours I still found your thoughts valuable. I wasn’t referencing Annie’s post. I was just reflecting on what you said. I know how intense the differences between working moms and SAHMs can be and I really did not want to stir that pot.

Since AF hasn’t commented in three days and hasn’t responded to any of the comments that were directed at her, I’m assuming that your comment was probably for my benefit.  So I will respond by saying that I have been on all sides of this fence.  I worked fulltime outside the home for 15 months, I was a fulltime SAHM for a total of 8 months, and I have worked part-time (15 hours/week) outside the home for the past 3 years.  My husband was my son’s primary caregiver for the entire time that I worked fulltime (during which time he worked part-time opposite my schedule).  I have a white-collar professional job which pays very well.  So I do not have an issue with non-traditional work situations, and I see the value in all the different situations as long as parents are doing their best to discern what is best for their family as a whole, which I assume that most parents are. 

I found juggling fulltime work with motherhood to be very stressful.  I know that some people thrive on multitasking and having lots of irons on the fire, but I didn’t.  However, I would not phrase it as “I would go bonkers if I worked fulltime” because I find the tone of that statement to be condescending.  I understand that different people have need different amounts of adult interaction and can only tolerate so many hours/day of toddler conversations.  But to say that raising kids is devoid of intellectual stimulation is insulting.  There’s a reason why there are college degrees in early childhood education. It takes intelligence and creativity to meet the developmental needs of children, to help them learn about God, to help them learn to be thankful, to help them learn the value of a dollar, the list goes on.  It is not a mindless undertaking.  Either that or I’m really stupid, because I’m always researching, pursuing and learning better ways to handle the ever-changing challenges of child-rearing. 

I have some degree of autonomy in my job, but no where near the amount of autonomy that I have in my home.  There are boring moments on the job, and there are boring moments at home.  That’s why I do a double-take when I hear women say that they want to work outside the home so they won’t be bored, and so they’ll have autonomy.  If my job has its boring moments and limited autonomy, I can only imagine what it’s like for the many, many men and women who work at low-paying entry-level jobs.  And it isn’t always accurate to say that SAHMs don’t contribute financially to the household.  Many contribute just by saving on childcare expenses, housekeeping expenses, having more time for couponing, etc.

AF’s situation sounds ideal for dual-earning families.  Both parents having jobs with flexibility, and extended family to help with childcare.  This is a huge contrast to what I see my fulltime colleagues going through, struggling to manage their households from their desks, and scrambling for childcare needs which school and vacation camps don’t even come close to covering.  And my colleagues have a lot more time off than the average entry-level worker.  I wish situations like AF’s were more common.  Personally, I would never choose to work outside the home if money were no object.  But a situation like hers would certainly make it more appealing, both for women who have to work outside the home and for those who want to.

Anyway, I apologize for jumping down your throat.  It was Dana’s comment that originally upset me, and then it upset me that yours and AF’s seemed to support it (even though I did actually agree with much of what AF said).

Okay, I’m going to try this again.  I wrote a comment a little while ago that is now in Spam jail, probably due to its length.  This time I will copy my comment just in case.  If the original comment ends up getting released, I apologize for the redundancy.

This time I will start off by apologizing for jumping down your throat.  The comment that I originally objected to was Dana’s, and then it upset me that AF’s comment and yours seemed to support hers.  The irony is that I do agree with much of what AF said (and with your second response).

I have done it all:  worked fulltime outside the home (while my husband was our sons’s primary caregiver), SAHM, and part-time work outside the home.  So I don’t condemn any of those lifestyles, nor do I automatically subscribe to traditional gender roles.  But there are certain comments that I take issue with, such as the “going bonkers being at home”.  I was very stressed when I was a fulltime working mother, due to my own temperament and personality.  But I would never say that I would “go bonkers” if I worked fulltime, because to me that sounds condescending. Particularly when aimed toward SAHMs, who have historically been viewed as doing mindless, unskilled work, which is why I also don’t appreciate generalizations about the lack of intellectual stimulation in childrearing.  Maybe I’m just a really stupid person, but I find that it takes a lot of intelligence and creativity to handle the ever-changing developmental needs of children, to find ways of teaching them about God, teaching them responsibility and independence, teaching them the value of a dollar, teaching them empathy, disciplining them, the list goes on.  There is a reason why there are college degrees for Early Childhood education.  I also think it’s unfair to say that SAHMs don’t contribute financially (or otherwise) to their households.  Many save their families a lot of money by alleviating childcare expenses, housekeeping expenses, couponing, budgeting, and taking in side jobs.

I have a (part-time) white collar, professional job that pays very well.  I probably have more autonomy at my job than a lot of people do.  But I still have more autonomy at home, where I’m the boss, and I enjoy that freedom.  I have moments of boredom at home, and moments of boredom at work.  I’m sure that the many people in our country who work at low-paying, entry level jobs have far less autonomy and more boredom than I do.  I also think that many people have less desirable childcare options than what AF describes.  I cringe when I see my fulltime colleagues trying to manage their lives from their desk, and scrambling to cope with childcare coverage (which school and vacation camps don’t even begin to cover, and these women get a lot more time off than people in many other jobs).  So, while I personally would never choose to work if I didn’t need to financially, I think that AF’s situation (flexibility for both her and her husband, family helping out with childcare) would make a dual-income household much more appealing for mothers who want to work and mothers who have to work out of financial necessity.

Yup, the spam police released my original comment.  Sorry for the redundancy.