The career dilemma
June 20, 2008
It is an ever occurring question that I have debated for hours and hours with all my mom (and non-mom) friends: what is better — full time mom or career mom? We have as yet never found a solution, and maybe there isn’t one and something always has to give…
I found this article in the Guardian newspaper really interesting. It explores the role of the mother as a worker versus a stay-at-home mom and how it has developed throughout recent history.
-Emilie
Category: For Mums, Interesting Articles
2 COMMENTS - Add your own
Try the Dutch ‘1.5 earners’ model: both partners work 4 days and stay at home 1 day (or, I admit, often also: the man works 5 days and the woman 3). I work 3,5 days per week myself and feel this gives me the best of both worlds: a reasonable amount of time with my children (of 1 and 3) and still enough days at work to have an interesting job. (If only it were not a full time job I try to do in 3,5 days
) It is stressful at times, but so can staying at home full time with 2 small children be. I guess it depends on what type of stress you prefer. And in the end, the most important question is of course what is best for your children. I strongly feel that going to day care is very good for my children’s social skills and they both love it. Moreover working also gives my daughter the (in my eyes good) example of a financially independent mother.
I have been a stay-at-home mom for 3 years now and hope to go back to work part-time within the next year. Finding the work and at-home balance for our family (including 3 children ages 5 and under) will be very difficult but it is something I think we can achieve and will be very good for my family in the longrun. What strikes me each time I read articles like the one in the guardian is that just because you work it does not make you a part-time mother! We are all full-time mothers whether we stay-at home or go to work. Even though, I currently stay-at home, I feel it very important to support other mothers who work. We should be careful to make this distinction in solidarity with all mothers who have the difficult and most rewarding job of rearing their children whether they are stay at home or working moms or some combination thereof.