A few months ago I went to an annual work function that my husband organises. I went for a kid free night out, with a nice meal and a charity auction.
Busy with his official duties hubby relegated me to a table filled with colleagues and spouses of colleagues, many of whom I met for the first time on this evening.
There were ten people including me on this table and after introductions the first question asked of me was, invariably: “And what do you do?”
To which I would always respond: “I am a stay at home mum of four children.”
And then the curtain would lower down over their eyes with the initial appraisal that as a stay at home mum I was busy, boring and hardly going to have anything interesting to talk about. There might be a polite inquiry about how old our children were but after that they would excuse themselves from my company.
Now, to be honest I could have launched into answering that question with: “I’m a blogger, editor, aspiring novelist, small business owner and stay at home mum of four.” But I don’t feel as though I have to validate my choice to stay home with my children to people, mostly women I’m ashamed to say, who have had their two, perhaps three children, and rushed back into the workforce.
Certainly, I’m not a cool mum but I’ve never been a trendsetter or follower. I had nothing to contribute to the dinner table conversation regarding the Fifty Shades of Grey books and movie which the majority of others had watched and read and I couldn’t enter into office politics because I don’t work alongside my husband in paid employment.
I don’t take regular shopping jaunts to Melbourne in order to compare expensive diamond encrusted watches or designer handbags. I think the dress I wore that evening was at least 8 years old and I’d certainly worn it more than once in public. Shock horror!
Now, I did end up having a lovely night chatting to two new colleagues of my husband who lived in Tasmania and who humoured me by saying that I looked too young to have four children and must have started at 16 years of age. I learned a lot about pivots and am planning a trip down to Tasmania for the family once our children are a bit older based on their descriptions and suggestions. And we paid an enormous amount for umbrellas during the charity auction.
But all of this got me thinking. Why do some – though I’m sure not all – women fear the label of being a mother? Why is being ‘just’ a mum such a bad thing? Why was it that my presence as a stay at home mother was rendered so insignificant?
Generally speaking I think we have come to devalue the role of mothers in society. Certainly we understand the physical aspects of becoming a mother but we also place so much undue pressure on mothers to return to work and ‘contribute’ to society when the best way for us to ‘contribute’ is to throw our energies into being a mother.
Mothers have so much influence on who their children become and the shape of the future society we live in. If we continue to devalue the vocation of being a mother our children will grow up doing the same.
I think that I would have failed as a mother if my daughters grew up and said to me: “Oh, I don’t want to be at home with my children. I saw the way that it took over your life and I don’t want that.”
I want my daughters to say “I want to be at home with my children because it’s so important to me to be there for them.”
I want my sons to support their wives to stay home and mother their children.
Yes, I am a stay at home mum of four children and whilst you might think I’m ‘just’ a mum, I can assure you that there is nothing insignificant about motherhood. It’s vital, important and contributes far more to society than anything else I will ever do!
Originally posted 2015-06-02 12:00:18.