Don't Judge Me

There isn’t much that pisses me off but people saying that I “don‘t work” is one of them. I know it’s only semantics but the term “work” is loaded with connotations. I’m sure most people who say it don’t mean it this way but it does imply that I do nothing, despite having 2 kids, a man and a house to care for. To me it just sounds judgemental. They say political correctness has gone too far so why haven’t they come up with a politically correct term for what I, and many other mums, do?

As a “housewife” you feel unbelievable pressure to have a perfectly turned out home, perfectly behaved kids, home cooked meals on the table every day and spend every available second dedicated to furthering your children’s development, because if you were to go out to work, that is what a childminder or nursery would do. Staying at home is not just physically but mentally draining, so have to find for yourself those rare decompression times at some points during the day lest you go insane with boredom, stress or both (thank you Cbeebies). Being a stay at home mum (or any mum for that matter, just compounded for stay at homes, as there is no break from it) is not good for the self esteem either, as children are notoriously hard to please (“I won’t eat that toast now you have cut it into squares instead of triangles“) and honest ("isn’t your tummy wobbly?"). Imagine if a boss said either of those things, they have trade unions for that kind of thing.

It’s the insinuation of luxury that pisses me off. That in some way I live some kind of ‘lady who lunches’ life of luxury. We can’t afford holidays, savings, nice cars or pensions, so being a stay at home mum is no more glamorous than going out to work. I do occasionally go out to lunch, but probably a lot less than I did when I used to go out to work (I had a lunch break then for starters). And on the rare occasion when I do decide to go out to lunch it is not particularly enjoyable, having 2 small children to keep under control, not to mention the disapproving glances from people who think that children under 8 should be kept under house arrest lest they spoil the experience for everyone else.

The other thing that grates is when people say “aren’t you lucky?” I don’t think that luck comes into it, we all make choices in our lives and those choices, more often than not, determine where we are today. Maybe I am “lucky” in that I have a fella that earns enough to just about support us all (and I am ever grateful and appreciative for that) but I’d consider myself a hell of a lot “luckier” if I had done a degree or training before having children which gave me a job that paid well enough to justify me going out to work. Therefore paying someone who actually knew what they were doing to look after my precious offspring, unlike me bumbling around not having a clue - just another thing to feel guilty about.

I personally think there is an awful lot of pressure on women these days. If you go out to work you feel guilty for not being there with your children, and if you don’t you feel guilty for not being the perfect mother, “having it all” and providing for your family. I don't love my children any more or less being a stay at home mum than those that work, nor am I any better or worse mother for it, but the life of any mother is a life of feeling constantly judged. The last government made it perfectly clear where it stood, all mothers should go out to work, full stop. But to me that’s just as bad as saying everyone should have a dog, it’s not a case of one size fits all and where is personal choice in all this? There’s no “should“, women should not stay at home nor go out to work, women should do what is right for their family and we should be freed from this unbearable burden of guilt we are all carrying.

My point is that this burden is not made any easier for me personally by the terms available for what I do. “Housewife” is long gone, and doesn’t apply to me anyway because I’m not a wife (and house partner sounds wrong because despite “partner” supposedly being universal, you can‘t help but think “gay“), house mother would be more apt but that makes me sound like some matronly woman with a shelf of a bosom looking after children at boarding school. Stay at home mum sounds far too cute for what I do, child tamer would be more apt. But “not working” is by far the most irritating term there is.

I think it just upsets me that still, despite our time of political correctness and trying to be more sensitive to people feelings, the labels we have do not accurately reflect the life of a stay at home mum (child tamer). And it’s those two “not working” and “lucky” labels that I hate. Not working is being lazy. Lucky is winning the lottery, it is not sentencing yourself to day after day of shitty nappies and relentless routine. Maybe it’s time to polish up the CV.