Quote of the Day 7-13-10
I don’t feel as if feminism has passed me by - surely it is every woman’s right to choose. I choose to be at home….
It makes me laugh when people say to me, rather pompously, at dinner parties: “And what do you do?” I am not going to apologize for being a stay-at-home mum and yet people can look at you in such a pitying way, as if you’re sacrificing your ambition for the sake of your children and letting the sisterhood down.
… I love my life. I want to see my children’s first steps, hear their first words, and be there to take them to school and pick them up. Those tiny moments in the day are so valuable to children, and you can never get them back.
~ Poppy Pickles (pictured right with daughter Rosanna), former Sotheby’s auction house researcher, as quoted by the Daily Mail, July 13
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Amen.
While I agree that the storybook scenario of a stay at home mom taking full time care of her children is great, it really bothers me when comments like these are attached directly to the pro-life issue.
We all know that many women consider abortion because of their financial situation. Chances are that if they decide to keep their baby they’re going to have to work. When I got pregnant at 19 and chose to keep my child I had to drop out of college and work full time to provide for her. On top of that I attended school at night in order to care for her better in the future.
While I am now mature enough and secure enough in my life to smile at comments and quotes like this one, at the age of 19 they really felt like a cricism of my lifestyle and choice to raise a child alone rather than have an abortion. To a very young, very frightened pregnant girl stories like Poppy’s might be enough to convince her that she won’t be a good enough mother to her child and therefor she should just end the pregnancy.
len,
Please think of it this way.
You have done what is best for your child. You may someday be in a position to not work outside and decide you wish to stay home with your child or children, you can decide that then. True feminism is the ability to decide what is right not only for you and your children but what is right for this moment. As the needs change, the mind may or may change. Working mothers are still awesome mothers. I’m one!
To a very young, very frightened pregnant girl stories like Poppy’s might be enough to convince her that she won’t be a good enough mother to her child and therefor she should just end the pregnancy.
Posted by: len at July 13, 2010 12:29 PM
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It’s not the pro-abortion zealots who scream “you’ll never have a future if you have a kid” who might convince a pregnant teen that she can’t parent? It’s the women who love being stay-at-home moms who do that? Hmmm. I’m thinking “no” to that idea.
The point of this article is that if you stay home with your kids, it doesn’t make you some sort of loser. The point is that having a career has value, but that value isn’t necessarily greater than choosing to be home instead.
mama3,
My daughter is now 17. I have had the opportunity to stay home with her, and I did for four years, when she was ages 4 through 8. I agree with you that families have different needs and what works for one doesn’t work for others. I know I did what was best for my child. I am only pointing out the feelings I would have experienced had I come across Poppy’s words shortly after finding out I was pregnant.
Kelli,
It’s not the pro-abortion zealots who scream “you’ll never have a future if you have a kid” who might convince a pregnant teen that she can’t parent? It’s the women who love being stay-at-home moms who do that? Hmmm. I’m thinking “no” to that idea
Your snarkiness and dismissal of my experiences and feelings as invalid are duly noted. Perhaps I was too sensitive when I was pregnant, but I was alone and faced with something bigger and more difficult than anything I had ever experienced. My own mother tried to convince me to abort. In fact, she used a lot of the very same language that Poppy uses in her little quotation here to convince me I was destined to be a terrible parent. And just how do you know that there aren’t pro-abortion zealots who aren’t women who love being stay at home moms? I’m not saying that it’s common, but you sound like you think that the two must always be exclusive.
I understand what the point of the article is, Kelli, but thanks for summing it up for me anyway. I guess because this is a pro-life blog I thought a reader might try to make a connection between the articles written here and the issue of abortion.
I think the quote is relevant because some women, such as Gloria Steinem, think you can’t be a feminist unless you’re pro-abortion. Pickles is dispelling the notion that moms aren’t feminist enough. We’d all like to aspire to an ideal, but we shouldn’t feel inadequate because our lives aren’t perfect. Len, you are your child’s hero! Well, okay, we don’t realize our moms are heroes until we get a little maturity, but you are!
Len I hear you loud and clear! I agree with you. I had my child at age 26 and was married but there was no way we could pay rent or put food in our bellies if I didn’t work too. I felt judged by pro-lifers who acted as if I CHOSE to work when every fiber of my being longed to be with my son! I hated going to work and missing all the little sweet things he did all day!
I was insanely jealous of women who COULD stay at home and felt very defensive about this topic. Then I lost my job and my husband and I discovered he COULD step up (he doubled his income the year I lost my job) and that I could stay at home and we would not suffer financially. Then I felt judged by the pro-choice feminists (though I cared less ) because the women I would encounter in that mindset acted like I was strange for WANTING to stay at home.
And having done both I can tell you staying at home is NO PICNIC! I am more exhausted now than ever. But I am so glad to be able to stay at home. It is less emotionally stressful. I don’t judge moms who WANT to work or moms who stay at home. But I feel so badly for moms who wish they could stay home with their babies and can’t. I’ve been there and it hurts.
Len, you have done the best you could for your daughter and have shown her by your example what it means to step up and be a parent. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel guilty for providing for your daughter. I admire you.
len, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to minimize your experiences at all. That wasn’t my intent. My intent was to say that the article itself didn’t even discuss the pro-life issue. So, no, not all of our quotes here have to relate to abortion. The fact that it did for you must mean you are very sensitive to the particular issue you mentioned. No offense was intended.
I grew up in a home where my mom was divorced and my dad was uninvolved and she worked full time to provide for us. I don’t judge any mom who has to work, because i know from experience that those moms love their kids just as much as those who have the privilege of staying home.
My point was more along the line of feminism (as was the quote itself) in that you don’t have to be viewed as a loser simply because you’ve CHOSEN family over career.
Being a stay at home Mom is extemely important job. I’m so proud of wife for doing it.
And in our case, it is Daddy who stays home with the little ones! If you think women get slammed on for being stay at home parents, you should hear the crap HE has to deal with. (A lot of, when are YOU going to get a REAL job?)
Um, we have seven children. He HAS a real job.
I was able to stay home after my third was born for awhile and I would be asked “are you a working mother?” What?
Any parent who stays home to raise children is working.