Credit: Art Poskanzer, Flickr
By Amy L. Hatch
The fight for women’s rights and equality in the workplace have created opportunities even my generation’s mothers could never have imagined.
But those battles may have had an unintended side effect, may have created a group of walking wounded who move among us wearing clothing stained with spit-up, a baby sling and under-eye bags: The professional mother.
The Wall Street Journal recently published a story about well-known feminist Jessica Valenti, author of Why Have Kids: A New Mom Explores The Truth About Parenting and Happiness. The story explores a startling premise: That being a mother is not a job.
The Journal piece relates this concept to the lack of government spending and public policy regarding motherhood and family life. But for me, this was a revelation of a different sort. I didn’t even finish the article—the idea stopped me dead in my tracks.
How many of us approach our parenthood with the same zeal we brought to our workplace? How many of us, even those of us who choose to stay home with our kids, internalize the messages that pressure us to professionalize our parenthood?
It explains so much about the way our culture views childhood, parenting and even the way we choose to talk about the subject of child-rearing. There are manuals. There are spreadsheets of bowel movements and feedings. There are consultants to teach us how to breastfeed—and even services that take us by the hand and show us what instruments, gear and tools are necessary to add to our baby registry.
This? Is madness.
It’s time to stop looking at parenthood as a job. We even talk about it that way: “Raising my kids is the most important job I will ever have.” We are not creating tiny, walking Power Point presentations. We are developing relationships, arguably the most important relationships, we will ever have and maybe, just maybe, treating it like a job undermines that intimate bond.
I’m guilty of approaching parenting as a job. I evaluate my performance. I look for metrics (report cards, teacher conferences, well-baby doctor visits). I put myself on probation when I feel I’ve failed in some way.
If only I could get demoted—just kidding.
Think about it. This could explain so much about how we judge other moms, how we glom on and adhere to philosophies that put forth specific measurements for how good of a parent you are, how we aspire to standards that can never be reached because we are, after all, human beings.
We’re not household CEOs. We’re not domestic managers.
We’re moms. And I’m OK with that. Are you?
Argh! This idea stings in the same way that the “moms have 40 hours a week of free time” argument.
It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to hold a household together. I hate to see that marginalized.
Yes, I am a mom. Yes, that consists of a relationship with my children, and that relationship is not a job.
But what about meal planning and preparation? Clothes shopping? Care, cleaning, and maintenance of the household? Consulting? Transportation? Some days I find these things easy to do out of the love that I get back from the mom/family relationship. Some days I do not. Either way, they are a necessary part of the functioning of my family, for which I am responsible.
Not calling myself a domestic manager takes away some of the importance with which I view my duties. Who cares? I do.
These tools? These books, these manuals, these consultants and spreadsheets are a necessary replacement for what many of us DONT get amidst the difficulties of the job: a supportive community.
I think you’re spot on. It’s hard not to view parenting as “job,” and doing all those things you mentioned. That’s because it’s hard to transition from a career and using your brain to some of the tediousness of parenthood (wiping butts, lugging strollers and baby gear, brushing other people’s teeth, etc). I would *like* to not approach parenting this way. My problem is I really don’t know how NOT to.
P.S. This would make a good book.
I suppose being a mother to a self sufficient adult is pure relationship, but being a mother to young children is primarily composed of jobs like changing diapers, fixing meals, scheduling appointments. The relationship portion grows as the typical child matures. My 3 year old is more work than my 7 year old. I have better & deeper conversations with the older son. I look forward to the day that the jobs of motherhood fall away and it’s all relationship. But the work of motherhood is jobs, mostly repetitive jobs that can be outsourced if you desire.
Totally get it. But not everything that is hard work – even really rewarding but often tedious hard work – is a “job.” Training for the Olympics is not a job. Planting your garden is not a “job.” Making yourself sit down and do the writing you’ve been promising yourself you will do is not a “job.
One of the problems is that we’re lumping everything into two categories: “job” and “recreation.” Our kids definitely suffer if we view parenting as a “job.” Suddenly (as Amy notes) we’re worried about our “performance review.” And if our children are our “products,” then we have to make sure they are as close to perfect as possible, right?
Ugh.
There are so many other categories and classifications of human activity. Raising your children is not a job, it is a vocation – big difference. Many vocations pay absolutely nothing, despite hard work. A vocation is a passion. A vocation is something that nurtures your spirit. A vocation is something that motivates you even when it is tedious – because you understand the bigger picture of WHY you’re doing it. A vocation makes you feel as if you have left something behind – or made other human lives better. A vocation can produce things that are completely intangible – and yet completely meaningful.
“Our kids definitely suffer if we view parenting as a “job.””
Ummmm……no. They don’t. If seeing the really hard bits of the work as job is what propels me to get it done, so be it. There is a payoff at the end of the “job” for all of us. Whether that’s cooking a healthy meal, getting all of the dang laundry finally folded, or painstakingly reviewing school work and creating extra educational games at home.
I’m a grownup and fully capable of seeing things though…..I can find joy in a job, for crying out loud.
There is a danger in parsing these terms in overall relation to motherhood. Saying that we can’t call some of the work we do as moms a “job” can have the net effect of making moms feel bad about thinking of it that way.
And that’s when WE suffer. That’s what threatens our capabilities. The self-doubt that this sort of thinking puts forward.
How about a little less of this, and a little more supportiveness for the moms out there in the field, getting r done., come heck r high water. Making impossible choices every day for the sake of their families.
Public policy and government spending ought to reflect this as well, for that was the issue of the original article. This smacks of a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy; like if we just get moms to arguing amongst themselves (easy enough, right?), then gov’t can silently cut spending on programs that are designed to help us. We ought instead of bickering to insist that policies to support moms remain intact.
p.s. – this doesn’t have anything to do with seeing our kids as products – you are taking the analogy waaaaaay too far.
I think that this discussion is important, because I think that as moms we get bogged down in the every day and forget to enjoy the amazing gifts our kids are. I have to keep reminding myself that this is a process, nothing is instantaneous or over night even and talks like this remind me of that.
Mostly though I think that this discussion is indicative of the larger issue. So many women (moms and non-moms) confuse doing our best with being the best. We are so hard on ourselves and therefore others, nobody cuts anyone a break anymore.
I think every mom, including myself, would be a whole lot better if we didn’t let other people, media, etc. guilt us about our parenting. Do your best at what you are know works for your family. Stop judging other moms. If you have margin, encourage and offer to help other moms. These are daily reminders for myself.
As for this article, I don’t think the bad symptoms described are necessarily the result of seeing motherhood as a job. Nor do I believe that seeing motherhood as a job is necessarily a bad thing.
The WSJ article seems to be saying is that it’s the government’s “job” to provide services to my children, yet it is not my “job” to raise them. It takes anti-capitalist thinking and uses it to sh!t on mothers who have come to define their role within the current social and economic framework. The author writes that she likes “this idea of motherhood as a relationship, not a job; it’s straightforward, even if it’s kind of a bummer for those of us who left the full-time workforce to raise children.” A bummer? For many, it’s a sanity saving device that keeps them out of the straight-jacket as they go about a life that requires them to put everyone else’s fulfillment ahead of their own. The concept of professional motherhood gives some women the means by which to contextualize their experience the same way everyone around them contextualizes theirs.
I don’t see how defining motherhood as a relationship liberates us. Relationships inspire just as much judgment as work. Standards are just as high. The line between maternal love and obligation is a fine one that makes a dangerous perch if you remove the safety net of “work.” .
Yes. Very much this.
I should have written “I don’t see how defining motherhood solely as a relationship liberates us.” The “solely” is important. We all, I think, exist on both sides of the line i talked about. Why try to marginalize either one?