I worked later than usual one evening last week. The day was winding down and I was tired. My job has put me on overdrive in recent months with too much travel and too much responsibility. I just wanted to go home. I commented to a guy that I work with that I needed to leave and make dinner. He replied that he needed to go too because his wife had been home with a cranky six-month old and needed a break.
I responded casually, “Aaah, she’s home all day with an infant. That can be tough. I guess she doesn’t work?”
He seemed to fumble with his words a minute. “Well, yeah, I mean she’s looked for a job but there haven’t been any bites. So no, but she should be there anyway. Kids just turn out better when Mom stays home.”
I blinked at him, not responding. “They just do better,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as if I should already know this, and turned and walked out the door.
The statement hung in the air like a radioactive cloud following an atom bomb explosion. In that brief moment I stared at the cloud, wondering if it was going to rain acidic words down on me or if I was going put up my imaginary umbrella as I have already done all these years. I processed his comment and was reminded yet again of the internal battle that I’d been living for too long. “Do I let these words cut me down?”
I reflected on almost twenty years of working really hard at what I do. Two college degrees. I started out with some real goals. I have always, as long as I can remember, wanted a career. I learned at too young an age about life’s “what ifs.” If there ever was a “what if,” I needed to be able to take care of myself.
I have an older friend at work who tells me stories about her college days in California when they used to bury VWs in protest of the war, march, and burn bras. Back then, the “women’s movement” and all protests were in full swing. African Americans battled for much-deserved equality. Young people battled to relieve their friends in an unsupported war. And those young women fighting for equal rights and equal pay for women carried a torch that I’ve never had to haul. By the time the torch made its way to me, the rights had been won; established. My mother and my friend, and all that they fought for, laid a foundation like bricks at my feet with a road ahead to follow.
But this isn’t about me. It is about the implication on my child, that I have somehow sold him short because I have a career.
KIDS JUST DO BETTER WHEN THE MOM STAYS AT HOME. He went to pre-school full-time and I remember too well the guilt I felt when I dropped him off in the morning knowing that other moms were home at that very moment settling in for a day with their little ones and the million ways that I used to try and compensate for that guilt.
But then I also remembered his first day of kindergarten when he walked off with confidence and came home excited about his new environment and new friends. No tears. And all of the moments since. His report cards are stellar. He leads the reading club in his class. I’ve never seen him walk into an environment where he is surrounded by new kids and will shy away. He makes friends easily, accepts routine readily, and is one of the most social and outgoing kids that I know.
And yet, to my co-worker, I have apparently somehow failed my son. And myself.
Yet again, it takes me back to my mother. When I finished high school I had many roads before me. I picked the hardest one. Everything I did from going away to college to pushing myself forward in my career has been an arduous, scary step. None of it has been easy. Yet there was Mom, pushing me on. Mom, mother of seven, with a career of her own.
So when those words hung in the air…when he shrugged and walked away, looking over his shoulder at me and muttering again, “They just turn out better,” I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself squarely in the mirror. I didn’t see my own reflection. Rather, I saw my mom looking back saying these five words, as she had done so many time before we lost her five years ago, “I’m so proud of you.”
No, they don’t just turn out better if you’re there with them 24/7. Nor do they turn out better if you're only with them during non-working hours. They turn out better if they know they have parents who love them unconditionally – who set an example of strength and encouragement. It's time for society to stop judging women for the choices they make and instead start fostering a community of support regardless of the choice.
“I’m so proud of you.”
Those words -- saying them and meaning them is how they turn out better. Funny how, even now that she’s gone, I hear them every day. And refuse to let someone ever make me think less of myself.
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Loved this article. I relate