The Brutal Truth about Working Moms

Me with baby Pip

Here it is. All moms work and mother. Some moms get paid for their work. However, the mothering work is invisible and unpaid. The age old debate about working vs. stay at home mom is old. But it will never die because our culture is so slow to change and fix the real issue. The issue is that mothers don't really have the choice to parent their preschoolers and then successfully slide back into their career. Mothers know that if they leave their career for the first 4 years of their babies' lives, they will have no career to go back to. This is what needs to change.

French feminist and philosopher Elisabeth Badinter's latest book, The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women promotes this age old debate; suggesting that by encouraging women to act like the mammals they are, puts them back to pre-feminist movement days. No, denying our sexual differences puts us way back. Believing that the only true feminism lies in denying ones' feminity puts us way back. Women have the wombs and the breasts. Like it or not, in mammalian creatures, the females do the majority of physical care of their babies because of these sex differences. Thus, to ignore the fact it is the woman who is pregnant, gives birth and breast feeds, and promote the male as an equal parent in these roles, is ludicrous. Men have major roles in parenting but they cannot give birth and breastfeed and thus women must be supported by our society during these years. Support means parenting, financial and career support. A culture that supports women for who they are is a visionary society. 

I live in a patriarchal society. Most of the earth today is made up of patriarchal societies. I believe this is a gross imbalance that has led to global violence and an imbalance in the division of earth's resources. But it is the truth. As a North American, my culture is dominated by a European patriarchal ideology that arrived on its shores 500 years ago.

Thus, mothering is devalued in our culture as it is simply womens' work and women are devalued, so there it is. To deny the obvious only insults the women on this planet.

Is it right that women believe they cannot raise their children themselves for the first 4 years of their child's life? The reality for most women is that society has made the consequences of being a stay-at home-mom for the child's preschool years too dire.

Dire because the woman has no income during that time and our government won't allow her to "income split" with her partner if she stays home with the children. Also, she is not offered any type of government supplemental income for this most important profession.

Dire because if she leaves her "other" profession for any period of time greater than a few months to a year--she will not have a position to come back to.

Dire because if she tires to get back into the work force after her children are in school, no employer values her "raising my children" work that she has been doing as any great contribution to any field.

Dire because institutions will hire a twenty-something childless 'new to the work force' over an older woman with children who is also 'new to the work force.

Dire because there are no incentives for employers to hire moms returning to the work force.

Dire because if a woman leaves her profession for several years, she is often required to rewrite all of the national/provincial exams again, in order to be allowed to practice her profession again.

DIRE because all employment standards for hiring have been written for men based on an outdated man's work life. The career model must be changed. It must evolve to afford parents the same access  to building a career that the childless are afforded.

ALL parents are being cheated. It is time stay-at-home parents are given the respect they deserve and bridges are built by governments to help them afford to stay at home and raise their children. As well, bridges built to help them gain access to the work force again without extreme penalties and prejudice.

Women do not really have the choice to stay at home and raise their babies. They instead have the choice to sacrifice their career and an income and stay at home and raise their babies knowing they risk never getting back into the work force (or their chosen profession) again.

As a woman, mother, sister, daughter, wife, and worker, I know that if women really had the choice to stay home with their babies for the first four years, most women would.

To the women who decide to stay-at-home for their children's first 4 years (and beyond), humanity must honour you. You have valued the word's greatest profession and taken great risks to remain in that profession despite living in a culture and society that does very little to support it.

The Sisterhood of Soccer

Pippi and the Jewels--first Soccer game ever. Pippi scored the team's first goal and her first goal! She was so thrilled with the whole soccer experience :)

Pippi loves soccer--always has a smile on her face as she intently  focuses on the game.

Pippi in action.

My niece, Artemis. As luck would have it, Artemis' team The Diamonds had their first game against Pip's team The Jewels.

Artemisia in action--so happy to be playing soccer!

Tabs in action. Tabs has a smile on her face as she plays too.

Tabs receives a greeting from Pip during the game.

Sisterhood love.

Pippi as butterfly, cheering Tabs and the Cyclones during their soccer game.

I have been baching it this past week. Peter is in Saskatchewan visiting family. It has been a very busy time for me as all of my darling girls have had activities galore. I have been juggling soccer games, birthday parties, jazz festivals, dance lessons, choir lessons, piano lessons and teaching Zumba.

The city I live in is a new city. It has grown rapidly only recently. Twenty years ago it was a sleepy town. Suddenly it a large city spread throughout the Okanagan Valley,  creeping up all surrounding mountains. Beautiful? yes. Easy to navigate? NO!

Kelowna has a pathetic public transport system. The city bus doesn't even come up my mountain and we have no sidewalk down the mountain. And yet, it is a very large city geographically, so one must be in the car constantly. I long to have a great pubic transport system like Portland, Oregon. That city has hills, they manage fine.

I have a 1/2h drive each way to the places I teach Zumba. Add that to chauffeuring my 3 children to various activities and you have the makings of a life out of balance. Too much travel time. How to remedy this? Many options. To move to a more central location within  the city that is serviced by the city bus is really the only practical one. Or move cities. Will I move? Not right away. Too many other issues to sort in my life. The house issue would overflow my teapot.

My teapot is filled with work-force angst:

Women who choose to stay home and raise their babies and toddlers miss out on crucial work-force career building years. So, when their babies are of school age and they wish to make an income--things are difficult. It is one thing to be in one's 20's starting out but to be in one's 40's is another thing. And yes, the person in their 40's has more education, more experience, more knowledge, more talent etc. But the reality is that, employers look to the twenty somethings regardless. Because dedicating one's life to raising one's children is not valued in Western society. It is valued only as long as you don't dare try and do anything within the "other" work force after your babes are school age.
Raise your babies yourself, without daycare or a nanny and then see which  employers value the time you spent doing that job. None.
So, the solution is to be self employed or keep going to school for a PhD.

 I will get my novels out and published (two to start) (phase II)--and then move onto phase III.  Oprah says the money will come if you do what you love. I never watched Oprah, except perhaps for the odd show over ten years ago. And I don't read her magazine so that shows you how much faith I have in her words. Yet, I hear them repeated, over and over--and not surprisingly, most often by people making an income at something other than their passion.  

Vampire Mothering

Above pictures of me taken this past fall, 2011 by my daughters (they capture my true wanna-be personality).

Vampires and Witches.
We are no different than other moms. We just work after dusk.
This is who I have become unwittingly.

I want regular Zumba hours. My hours now change every few months: at UBC, campus will be out in March and my contract will end and at the Rec centre, the schedule changes every few months. I don't like teaching every night because this is when my 3 children are home from school. But until I get hired as a regular Zumba instructor at a gym, I have to take the shifts I get. I have an audition tomorrow evening at a new gym. The audition is right after my class at UBC. If I get this gym job, it will add at least 2 more evening classes to my schedule. Thus far I am teaching 3 evenings a week as it is.

This first year of teaching Zumba has been difficult in that I don't know when and if I'll get a contract from month to month. So, I commit to too many classes often, knowing the "too many" may only last a few months. It's hard to parent like this. But at the same time, I love to dance, love latin music, love teaching so I am hooked. Not to mention my job keeps me amazingly fit.

My goal is to get on with an established gym, commit to them and that is it--2 evenings a week and other day light hour classes. Though, I may always teach just one ZumbAtomics class at the rec centre while my girls and nieces are little--because they love it.

 I have no time to study dance anymore. I like to take at least one class a week to learn new steps and keep fresh--but I have no time with my evening so full.

And no, the dance isn't even my regular job. I use the day light hours to work on my writing/publishing, painting and other professional pursuits (I am trying to build am empire here :) ).

On a most delightful note, Pip and I took the dogs down to the lake for a walk this early evening. It was so great to walk along the beach. The evening sun, sparkling water and golden sand made me forget that it's still winter in Canada. Pablo was so naughty though, he barked ferociously at every dog we met. Fernando is much friendlier. Fernando is mean to human strangers and nice to all dog strangers. Pablo is the opposite: nice to all human strangers and mean to all dog strangers.

I must brag just a wee little bit (vampire moms are like that): my smarty pants daughter Mistaya is only fifteen and in grade ten but she is taking grade eleven honors math at school because she's a math whizz (like her sisters). And yesterday she brought home an exam: 100% :) Tabs wanted me to brag that she brought home a social exam last week: 100%. And Pip? She's quite a good little reader already and only in kindergarten. There, all my daughters were bragged about (witch moms like to be fair). In truth though, as a little girl I so wanted to be a real witch. I believed witches had so much freedom, adventure, autonomy and power--and that's what I wanted too. Still do :)