Mom or Wife: Which is the Tougher Job?
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Nat Turner's Revenge
by Christopher Chambers
The scene is the Washington DC Metro Red Line, between the Rhode Island Avenue and the Catholic U. stops. The train’s slowed to tortoise pace due to “track work.” Bored and ruffled, I eavesdrop on two white women who look to be chaperones for what’s apparently a middle school field trip…yet quickly, as I crane my neck like I have no damn sense, I realize that all these kids are theirs. One of them carries a nylon backback with a “Palin” sticker. Not McCain-Palin. Just Palin.
Turns out the two of them are housewives from rural Virginia visiting the Capital with their brood in the aftermath of the annual anti-abortion march protesting the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Funny, they talk about the crowd. On 1/20 I could have shown them crowd, Lord. Funnier still, they live only 25 miles away yet are only now marveling at our decaying, unreliable subway. As if Kismet, there’s a poster for a cable TV show on TLC about an evangelical Christian family with sixteen children. Oh, the conversation moves to Michelle Obama. Nothing positive yet nothing nasty, either, as quite a few sisters got on at Rhode Island Avenue. My molars grind anyway when one grouses to her daughter, “She [the First Lady] must have had such an easy time of it.”
Now, diagonally across from me all this time sits a young Hispanic woman with a long pony tail. That–not her security guard’s uniform–caught my attention first. She’s pretty but has that tired, beaten look. Not ennui. Not the weariness of her young blond counterpart also seated, punching on a Blackberry and sporting a vinyl satchel embroidered with the name of a large D.C. law firm. The Hispanic woman nuzzles a little girl who’s clearly doing her homework on the train. No wedding ring on the mom’s finger. Before a tunnel cuts her signal the woman finishes a conversation on her mobile phone. Perfect English, not Spanish. Something about rent, cut back on hours. Health insurance…
That’s the vignette. Here’s the totally unrelated premise. Being a mother is the toughest job on earth. But is being a housewife so? No.
My mother, who was a housewife till she decided to go back and get her degree, then a masters then a real job, would agree were she alive. I’m sure she, like a lot of middle class women from the 1950s to the 1980s and irrespective of race or color, had sprinkles of Kate Winslet- “Revolutionary Road” moments.
Being a working mother/wife is very hard. And being a single working mother is toughest of all-especially if you don’t have the type of job where Blackberries are de riguer. The only reason housewife is even in the mix is the mom component.
So…let me have it with both barrels, or agree. Talk to me about equal pay battles, pregnancy leave, the fulfillment of motherhood versus the glass ceiling, giving it all way to be with one’s baby. Knowing “Dora the Explorer” episodes by heart. I’m only a man, after all. Being a husband and dad, well that’s supposedly a piece of cake…
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I think or at least eight years reactionary people have denigrated working women–particularly working mothers–and extolled this obviously fallacy prone image of the 1950 of which “Revolutionary Road” has trashed, as a form of public policy. Indeed every right wing economic effort has been couched to the faithful as a means so women can retreat from work to the kitchen. Don’t believe me? Do the research. All the while it’s taken battle after battle to create equal pay.
If Nat Turners (Chris Chambers) is being snarky about it, fine. That’s his approach. It’s designed to stir debate. But after checking on your background it’s clear to me that his snark–which isn’t really snark at all–certainly isn’t aimed at someone like you. It’s not even aimed a woman who drops out of the workforce for a limited period (as long as it’s ok and encouraged for men to do the same thing). I think he planted that seemingly unrelated Metro subway story for a reason, and it lends toward the issues you feel strongly about. I’m 100% sure he agrees with you.
Cut the brotha a break. I knew him in college and his favorite Caucasian song was “Cruel to Be Kind.” LOL
P.S. My wife watches that show on cable: TLC’s show with the Duggers and their 16 children, along with the one about the “silly” woman who has 8 children — twins and sextuplets. She took hyper egg producing drugs on purpose. My wife watches it for ammusement purposes, not emulation. However there are too many epople who think it’s great.
Remember the mothering part is hard. Watching kids shows all day, making grocery list, playing trophy housewife or packing up toddlers to invade the local mall or coffee shop (and I have heard Nat Turner rail on that before) is NOT when compared with working AND being a mother. My wife is an attorney who works 50 hours a week on average. She loves her work, she loves our children. Both of us side with Nat Turner that lets stop deifying the “cult of mommyhood,” as we now see Anne Coulter doing. If we have to replace it with a NEW hierarchy, so be it!
> lem
Okay, I love your writings, your blog (usually) and your books, but you have lost your mind here. I am going to chaulk up your misogyny to hanging out with Jimi Izrael and having him rub off on you.
Repent!
> MP
i would venture to say that all of these JOBS are difficult. I would go even further to say that if you working, ie, cooking, laundry, ironing, general maintenance of the household, paying the bills, and generally anything else that a spouse doesn’t feel like doing, and you’re not getting paid, then its just that much harder. if you’re not getting paid and not getting appreciated, well that’s slavery. I am an overly educated, several degree having, career woman who stayed at home to nurse and care for my baby when she was born. I can safely say that anything I ever did at my “real” job was never as hard as what I had to do 24-7 in my new job as a spouse and mother. I went from wondering if I would get a raise to wondering if I could manage to get a 2 minute shower. My baby had cholic so she screamed all night. I couldnt log on to facebook, shut my office door, and waste company money, when i needed a break from my work day. I didn’t get a break. But I had the illusion before I actually did it that this would be a BREAK from working. I was on call 7 days a week at my job, which was also my career, and often worked 11-12 hour days. oh, right and i still had to do my wifely duties for my spouse. Was I presented with a plaque from appreciative bosses and colleagues at the end of my stay-at-home tenure? no, but my baby was rarely sick. did my husband say wow, the carpet is clean, dinner is great, and the baby looks well adjusted? not that i can remember. did he benefit from not having to worry about these things. most definitely. but i admit, its one of those things that you have to go there to know there. i wouldnt have known how difficult it was from the outside looking in. but i know when i hear working women talk about a woman who quit her job to take care of her kids or WORKS as a housewife and she wishes she could, cause it would be so easy, i shut em down. and i know i ran my black ass back to what would be considered the “real” working world so fast it would have made your head spin. i needed a BREAK.
> dawn
As a single working MOTHER I do not want to undercut what my sisters are doing, not doing or coping with, but our work never seems to be done. I know there is no true Claire Huxtable on the other hand, and that this view is a fantasy. However, so is the happy housewife.
> TomikaH
also, by the time I had a second child, i had gone back to working in my career. and juggled work, being a wife, and children. for some reason it was still much easier going out to work than staying at home.
> dawn
i have to say im a horrible cook and lazy when it comes to cleaning. being a housewife would be a hard job for me. i am also selfish and not the most supportive/nurturing person–which I assume are also requirements of the job. Just like I can’t assume that a scientist’s job isn’t hard, its pretty safe for me to say that I would suck at being a housewife. Martha Stewart started out as a house wife, and well, need I say more. Can anybody say they can do her job? I think not. It actually takes talent to be a good cook, to do interior design, to be an administrative assistant, to offer support and caretaking like a nurse would, to manage money like an accountant. If you’re ambitious as a lawyer, you’d probably be ambitious as a housewife. If you’re a lazy, getting over on somebody lawyer, you’d prolly be a sloppy, non-cooking soap watching housewife. I don’t dispute that its either are not hard work.
> tina
My wife is a working wife/mother. That’s tough. I will not comment on housewives because I do not want to do so without being anonymous. However, my moms who is now a widow (my dad was a great man and passed four years ago) loved him very much but repeats that women didn’t have as many options. But she said she wanted a career.
> DrewTaylor
Greatings, Super post! Need to mark it on Digg… Thanks for article! Everytime like to read you. Thanks.
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