Mothers! Honor Your Choice To Stay Home With Your Children, or Go To Work. Either Way, Choose Without Guilt.

Ladies! It is time to erase the battle line, and support one another in the choices we make in our roles as parents. Lean in…lean out… it doesn’t matter one way or the other. What matters is standing by your choice and what is best for your family! I bet we would have less divorce and broken families in our world, if instead of buying into what everyone else is selling or telling us that which WE should do, we stop, and listen to our inner voice. Lean into ourselves. Be the warriors in our own lives. Why copy any other experience, when you are an original?  We know an original always sells better than a copy!

Some women are better mothers when they work outside of the home. They do not have a domestic bone in their body and feel better when they work on the outside. Some women like me are for lack of a better term, domestic divas. We love everything domestic. Decorating, cooking, and raising children. The Beaver Cleaver life is very appealing to some. But I assure you; June Cleaver does not live here. Nope. She moved out long ago, and we now appear in living color. There are no pearls, stockings, or high heels or “wait until your father gets home kind of speech.” Mom is in charge and takes her career choice of the parent at home, very seriously. We have never lived at a better time. We have the options to do what is best for our family unit.

I have a dream that every stay at home mom feels empowered to go to any dinner party in town or at the White House and when asked the ever so boring “what do you do?” question, without missing a beat they proudly state, “I am a work at home mom. I stay home and raise our children.” Think about it for a minute… In the eyes of God, we are all just parents when it comes to our children. We all have the freedom of choice in these United States. Make the decision that works for you. This is a non-partisan choice. Be proud of your choice. You are shaping the future whether at home or the office.

One thing on this issue has always intrigued me. An observation in the many mothers I have met and spoke with over the years. Mothers who choose to work feel guilty. Mothers, who have to work, don’t have time for guilt. Mothers who wanted to work and lived with guilt tended to have children that broke more of the rules and experimented a bit more with their rebellion. Mothers who had no choice, whether it be meeting living expenses, or because they were divorced, or whatever the circumstances, tended to have children that behaved a bit better, were quicker to help at home and be an active member in the family team. They treated their working mother with the same respect they gave their father.

It was not a scientific study. Just an observation over the years.

Ideally, we want the mom who chose to work outside to feel secure in her decision. We want her to release the guilt. No one is more righteous than anyone else. We live in a free country. We have better choices than nearly any other country in the world. Let me say here, and now if you choose to work outside of the home, it is not a bad thing. You are not breaking any laws. You are contributing to the GNP, and because you made a choice, hopefully, you are a happier better person for it. Probably you are a better mother.

Not all stay at home moms are created equal. A woman, who volunteers outside the home every day of every week for the Junior League or the PTA, is not a stay at home mom. She is a working mother. Albeit for free, but she is not staying at home. Her agenda is full, and she is often jam-packed with phone calls to make, budgets to balance, meetings to schedule, etc. More than any salaried working mother, I have seen this mother let her family slide. Often embittered about all of the work she has to do for the sake of whatever club it is. I have seen these mothers taste a little power, and suddenly they want to head up everything. They are screaming at their children. Laundry goes undone. Dinner is take-out, and the husband is last on the list. These women forget the sisterhood and criticize the working mother. But, isn’t this in the eye of the beholder? The balance is different, but we are all the same. We are all professional mothers. What matters, is how we raise our children. Are we raising strong independent adults who contribute to society? Or are we raising self-serving citizens who will act like children all of their lives? I say it doesn’t matter which choice you made, to work or to stay home. Plenty of stay at home mothers have adult children living at home, sponging off of them. Plenty of working mothers have adult children living at home sponging off of them. It is about parenting.  You do you, and own that choice!