From an early age our lives are geared towards employment, contributing to the economy, financial and personal independence. We are conditioned to view the importance of work and career above other things. When a small child hits the nail with the hammer people comment “oh he’s going to be a builder when he gets older”. You meet parents who have ideas about what their children might become in terms of occupation, and certainly ideas about what they want their children not to become. Children are lead (or pushed) towards what they are good at or what others think they will be good at. Sometimes in opposition to what the child enjoys or in a limited, narrow capacity defined by one persons view of success. All in the hope that they will be employable and gain skills that will lead to suitable employment or tertiary training at a later date.
The cliche question “what do you do?” is still one of the first things most people ask upon meeting someone for the first time. This shows how we seek personal identification, identity and definition through the work we do and what our occupation or job is . We also equally classify others in the same way feeling a sense of connection or disconnection, respect or disrespect depending on their response. The majority of our adult status and self worth comes from our work and the gratification, rewards and success we receive from this.
One of the biggest challenges that comes when a woman chooses to “step off the career ladder” and decides to stay at home to raise children is that her main source of identification and connection with others all but disappears. How she once defined herself has changed and this new “work” which is often unseen and undervalued holds no credibility in the “real world” context.
As much as at home mothers love what they are doing day to day and are extremely passionate about it, we still stumble when someone asks “what do you do?”. How do you summarise all that the role encompasses? What a huge job it is, how important and amazing it is, the extent of the responsibility and burden it carries, the hundreds of small deeds executed in a day to care for, educate and nurture a child. How your whole life revolves around meeting the needs of others.
I have spent many hours pondering what phrase or title truely represents what I do. I certainly don’t believe I am a housewife because the reason I am at home is because of my children, because I am a mother not because I am a wife. I’ve pondered the term stay at home mother but theres something about this that implies entrapment and lack of choice, like when you tell a dog to “stay” and it’s not allowed to move. I suppose it really means that you go home (once you have a baby) and end up staying there. This seems a bit too passive when for most it is a huge decision though one which in our hearts really only has one option.
What about Fulltime mother? Inorder for a job to be considered fulltime it must be at least 30 hours per week. Well I don’t know of a single fulltime Mum who works anything close to 30, 40 or even 50 hours. I tend to use the phrase “Alltime Mother” which I think is more reflective of the job. We work or are oncall 24/7, attending to those crys and “bumps in the night”, normally starting our day when the wee ones first call arouses us from sleep. Once our children are asleep there is always cleaning, tidying, organsing etc to be done. Sure we can attend a “coffee morning” during working hours but in most jobs you get paid breaks and a whole hour for lunch. I consider coffee mornings to serve the same purpose as workplace meetings – to share information, get encouragement and support from colleages and mentors, strategise on current challenges and plan for the future.
We need a union to protect our working terms and conditions. No reasonable union rep would allow for these taxing conditions and high levels of work related stress. It’s an ACC nightmare – hazards galore and stress levels to induce burn out in any top executive.
I have been part of the PAFT or parents as first teachers programme since my eldest was 6 weeks old and like the idea that I am my childs teacher. Does that make me a Mother as First Teacher, or am simply just a mother? Does a 6 month old really need a teacher or do they just need to be cared for? There is such a continuum within mothering from basic needs being met (and sometimes not) to absolute care, enrichment, education and development. I believe that when a woman chooses to be at home with her children she will most likely be committed to the latter. So maybe we are teachers. If my child went to day care they would have a teacher, doing similar tasks to what I do daily. But do I need to have a diploma to sufficiently educate my child or does knowing and loving them count for a whole lot more?
Then theres the at home mother, this is the term that I seem to have rested upon. We are not “working mothers” in the official sense of leaving the home to go to work, and we certainly don’t get paid for our work, but home is our base, our place of work, where we spend most of our waking hours. However this still doesn’t touch on the intricacies of the job.
But at the end of the day (once the kids are asleep) we love our job, whatever you call it and know intrinsically the value of what we do and why we do it. We don’t need a business card exclaiming our title in bold print, or a certificate on the wall. We get to design our own jobs, write our own job descriptions and the rewards we get could not be quantified by any monthly paycheck. We have to change the way we view our jobs in our own minds and hearts. Give ourselves regular performance appraisals, look at the health and wellbeing of our children to determine our success, spend time on strategic planning sessions so that we can see if we’re heading where we want to go as a mother and of course giving ourselves regular bonuses and incentives.
Personally there is nothing else in the world I would rather be doing than spending my days raising my beautiful babies.
