Today in an unschooling Yahoo group someone writes in – I’ll call her Jean – about about getting her PhD while her children are young. Her question is, Does anyone have experience unschooling when both parents are out of the home working? She says,
“I do want something in my life that is my own because I don’t want to be one of those over-involved parents that lives vicariously through her children as they grow up and have their own lives (or have the empty nest syndrome).”
I replied:
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By all means get your PhD and do what you need to. But please don’t trot out the “over-involved parents who suffer when their kids move out.” I think it’s a strawman (usually a straw-woman) – I see it invoked often but do not personally know hordes of these people. I hear this often by those justifying their work (usually work away from their kids) and I think it can sound rather insulting.
First of all, mourning our children moving or growing doesn’t seem like such a bad thing (my mom was widowed and she mourned that – I mourned the loss of my father). “Living vicariously” through children’s lives has nothing to do with work and everything to do with traditional parenting schemas of child as Performer (which I find less prevalent in the life learning families I know than traditional schooling ones). One doesn’t necessarily need to perform any ONE particular career move (or even have a career) to make sure the eventuality of child-obsession is avoided – nor will such a career pursuit guarantee a fully-lived life of self-actuated integrity.
I have a chemical engineering degree and had quite a little career going. I loved it. I put that aside years ago and became involved in work in the home, where I am now eight years later with my wonderful kids. Even if you were to surgically remove my kids and their influence from Me (which is silly to think of) I still have something “of my own” -or rather many things. My intelligence, my bodywork, my writing, my sewing, my personhood, my integrity, my volunteer work, my marriage, my friendships. My life with my kids has informed me far more than my career did. Note I am not speaking prescriptively but about me and my family only.
We need more smart and awesome people who are fulfilled in the work they do. If a PhD is what you need, go for it! You have my support. As for unschooling, there are as many ways to go about this and most unschoolers are a creative lot. If you do return to school, reaching out for ideas will help you navigate and do what’s best for you.
Tangentially, I wrote about the so-called “overinvolved mom” if you’re interested: “the over-involved Momster, a convenient premise to continue the laydee-hatin”
Good luck in whatever you go forth with!
***
A few minutes after posting I decided to delete my message because I wasn’t sure how link-friendly the Yahoo group was (I hate breaking posted rules of online groups, and I am a member of many so I’ve sometimes muddled it up). While I re-downloaded the group rules list I emailed Jean and asked if she’d like to hear my thoughts off-list. As I waited other group members began to engage and I’ve watched the conversation flow. Jean responded in kind and I observed as her assumptions about life with kids began to issue forth…
For instance: one can’t travel unless one has money from a second income. Spending time with children while not pursuing a career is life “on hold”. “You need your own life”. “There is a big difference between interests and having work you are passionate about”. Self-sufficiency requires two incomes. And perhaps most illustrative:
“I don’t like the idea of having to put my own life on hold entirely, I don’t think that would be fair to me and my kids. I don’t want to teach my kids that once they become parents they have to put their life on hold for 20 years!”
I don’t mean to pick on writer Jean because, whatever choices she makes and family structure she has, her reported worldviews are common enough in the USian adult sphere (and therefore continue to get passed down to children). I also, upon reflection and reading the conversation unfolding within the group, see she is struggling with these very problematic assumptions she puts forth as Facts Of Life (as opposed to personal and owned realities). For now I shall leave aside this person’s specific claims because at root the fallacies and fears that dwell within many American parents and carers, perhaps most especially mothers, are worth addressing here.
A brief point before I start talking about work for pay (“career”) vs. work without pay (“staying home”). Women are, unfortunately, pressured to justify their work, career, reproductive life, ambitions, and activities (or lack thereof) in a way men are not required to do. Full stop. In fact in today’s supposed egalitarian society this disparity is so striking and so deeply-ingrained it is really quite something to consider when we open the discussion.
If men ignore the conversation – fine. I can’t force them to care or put some time in (which begins by: listening to women’s related experiences, not rushing in and mansplaining or trying to “relate”). I’m not going to talk much more about gender disparity in questions of “work” (income) and family life. But I’d like to give a moment and pause and express my gratitude for the women, especially working mothers (by this I mean all mothers) who struggle with these questions, often without afforded status and proper support while being mocked for their struggles (yeah. Don’t make me link to the Hate).
For now I’d put forth the following:
The careful societal delineation of working for pay versus work required for living is a false dichotomy that has no positive results and ultimately disproportionately hurts women, children, and other marginalized parties.
This false dichotomy enforced by kyriarchal standards punishes every parent (especially mother) no matter what choices she makes (make no mistake, mothers who work out of the home are still judged and socially policed heavily). She is truly damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t.
People work-for-pay for all sorts of reasons. Many work-for-pay because they simply have to in order to survive. Many work-for-pay because they can’t stand to have fewer material possessions, or delay ownership of Nice Things. Many work-for-pay because the external validation of status and pay are essential to their sense of well-being. Many work-for-pay because they like to. Many work-for-pay because working in the home is disparaged. Many work-for-pay because they are afraid to consider anything else, ever; money and job represent a Security either abstract or more concrete – for instance medical benefits or retirement benefits – they cannot fathom finding anywhere else and have good cause to suspect won’t be supported by our culture today. Reasons vary far more than I could list and obviously there are many combinations therein.
Most of us Work whether for-pay or not. And some find work because they can and they have the extraordinary privilege of making their life about work they love through-and-through. These are the fortunate ones. I am one of them.
I’ve been working without pay for most of a decade and this “housewife with no life and no security” bit has been beaten on my head ad nauseam. The idea that living a life with our children alongside means we “have no life”, or that while we are full-time parents “nothing can get done”, or that we will be husks of people when our kids one day move out, is not only supremely insulting to those of us who thrive in such work, it is demeaning to children themselves and I’d say at odds with the natural order. For instance: human beings eat and shit and make messes; younglings need TLC and food and instruction and protection and – really – love. Some of us deal day-to-day with those realities and quite well (and in my case, not because it came to me “naturally”). The idea that our work is not “real” or it’s kind of pathetic or short-sighted or unintelligent fodder (my mother used to call women who thrived in in-home work “cows”) is insulting and in the end analysis, sad and limited. This does not, of course, only extend to female carers. I’ve long thought it ridiculous that words on a memo could be esteemed as Important while the shiny floor my father procured day in and day out as a janitor would be disparaged and his ilk mocked.
The kids and I spent part of yesterday in our working-class fishing/touristy town on the south beach of Grays Harbor. While following the children as they ran along fishing boats, I had a whole new respect for the men and women working hard at their jobs. These workers let us run in and about and, because they were on their boats and not on the floats themselves, we were able to observe one another without hindering one another. The unselfconscious and bustling aura of Work was one I felt entirely grateful and exhilerated by virtue of being around, and I was glad my children were exposed as well.
I reflected: we have a class and job caste system in America that is complex and remains largely undiscussed. I am familiar with worldviews that place my so-called “mundane” bum-wiping stay-at-home work on the lowest tier of worthwhile daily fare, the working class fisherman getting the chuck on the shoulder of being “a good American” who tries hard at least and pumps money into our tax base, God-bless-’em, and one’s own illustrious sciencey- or brainy-whatever Work much higher on the Worth continuum. This has always irritated me (even and perhaps most especially when I was an engineer and surrounded by other engineers, many of which clearly thought themselves the apex of human thought and performance). Worldviews may differ but the myopic analysis of worthwhile exploits flourishes within those who don’t actively reject such narratives. I’m reminded of a Facebook friend L. who posted a rant about the “modern domestic” woman who was taking too much joy and pride in her at-home married and kidlet life. According to L. women needed to farm out their kids, get Master’s degrees, and get into the workforce to advance Feminist Agendas! Coincidentally the exact same pursuits L. had recently embarked on.
Funny how it all works like that for some people.
As for another key aspect to the worldviews demonstrated in Jean’s original message (in the Yahoo group), it seems rather obvious that “living vicariously through children” is not at all the territory of those (women) who work in the home. Please don’t make me immediately Google the high-profile adult children who have cracked under pressure, with sometimes tragic results, in response to a lifetime of familial training and expectations of high-status careers or “work” or societal esteem. “Living vicariously through children” (which we charge with pitying snarkiness on the futures of vast numbers of women, not men), as I understand the author to mean, is important to discuss and safeguard against but will not be precluded by bringing home a paycheck.
Bringing it to the personal sphere with regards to charges brought against homeschooling and/or life learning families, I’d posit that those of us who’ve embraced the autodidactic lifestyle for our children – which usually ends up influencing family life far beyond the role of an educational model – are some of the least at risk of the “vicarious” living so often thrown about as a potential Parenting Danger. In the unschooling Yahoo group I mention moderator Meredeth writes, “If anything, I think unschoolers do this less than any other parents because we’re actively working on Not projecting our own needs and hopes and fears onto our kids.” (I don’t know if the capital “N” in “Not” was intentional but I rather like it.) No life strategy is a guarantee for Better Thinking, but personally our exploration of unschooling has been instrumental in my partner and I developing better parenting strategies for our children. Should my children attend school again some day, we have already reaped many benefits from these studies and life pursuits.
The truth is, really – and I am not going to touch on this much further for now – in some ways I am that pathetic mother some want to flesh out as being a Social Wretch. I have give-give-given to my children over the years, beyond what I ever thought I would want to, or ever thought I could. The results as they stand today are not what others might predict. I have found the more fully I release to this giving the more I absolutely have my own life, the more my children are walking and breathing and joyous demonstrations of healthy nurture, and the less struggle Parenting is for me (I’ve been surprised to see my children reaching remarkable self-sufficiencies when not submitted to schooling and authoritarian schema). I am beginning to undo the damage I did them and myself in earlier years when I had internalized the “scarcity” model I was raised on (especially with regards to society’s messages), when I was suffering and overwhelmed and couldn’t believe how much work young-kid-rearing was (and when, I hasten to add, I was ill-supported by society at large as a mother to young babies, and when also our financial circumstances were far less sound). Life circumstances were hard for me and I did not perform well as a parent. Life circumstances are better now – due to my work a bit, my husband’s work a bit, the support of a few friends and my own mother, and good fortune. My parenting and the Work in my life is a font of inspiration and happiness – for now. I am enjoying this while I can.
I’d add one caveat: “give and give more” (a quote from the below-posted Sandra Dodd article) is not possible for some people without further inflicting self-harm. I have been relatively fortunate in my resources and my privilege. So I write here primarily for those who are not so different than I, those who aren’t in immediate danger (any more than any of us) of losing their homes, those who are not struggling with a legacy of abuse or mental health issues or poverty or debilitating life changes. It isn’t that my writings would have nothing to offer anyone else; it is that in offering my experiences I do not want to be experienced as delivering prescriptives to all who read. Rather I want to testify change is possible from the garden-variety damaging legacies we were delivered. For some, parenting is miserable and scary and claustrophobic – and it used to be for me. Undoing the damage has been a lot of hard work but I want to help those who are able and willing.
For now I will say I am tired, TIRED of the oft-mocked “no life” housewife caricature. You can’t invoke it and say Well, I don’t mean YOU Kelly. Yeah, but, you do, you mean me and all the carers who love their Work and take it Damn Seriously. It’s time to let this trope go and stop talking about her ghostly wretched form.
Let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about me.
Honestly, it’s a better conversation.
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A great tongue-in-cheek but entirely heartfelt and awesome read: Sandra Dodd’s “Precisely How to Unschool”
8/26/2010 Edited to add:
This post was in response to the oft-repeated stereotype of the lifeless, boring housewife with no personal autonomy and agency, etc. It occurs to me as I write that since many at-home carers have been victimized by these assumptions and narrow views they may have developed vitriol in reaction and might be tempted to say something negative about other types of parenting/caring strategies (specifically, moms who work outside the home). I ask anyone commenting comb through their intentions and words before posting here; nothing said should in any way further laser in on and/or negate choices of mothers, “working” (for pay) or otherwise. If you have doubts, don’t post, or send the comment to me first. Thank you!
Poor Jean. I bet she was not ready for what others replied. 🙂 I hope the input she got from everyone helps her come to some happier conclusions. I’d love to hear you muse more about the housewife caricatures…
@schoolofmom
The discussion as it seemed to unfold seemed pretty great. The original poster was definitely challenged in her views but it never got nasty. I put in eventually. I really enjoyed the discussion (which veered into many other arenas of anxiety, income-earning, etc and will probably continue over the next few days) and I think she was helped. I also gained a few new readers, so yay!
“Does anyone have experience unschooling when both parents are out of the home working?”
Yes. I do, but only barely (meaning I want to free up more time to do it instead of working outside the home). While my wife is working outside our home during the day, I “unschool” my daughter (age 5). Then I work outside our home at night. It’s not ideal for every family and has it’s drawbacks, but for us the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Eventually, I want to find a way to work for money at home (or at a place of business that allows me to bring my daughter to work with me). Until then, this works for us. I put unschool in quotes because I can’t say that it’s unschooling in it’s purest form. My daughter likes the classroom atmosphere so we do a lot of “school at home”, but when she decides that she wants to go do something else, I do my best to help her make it happen. One minute she wants me to write vocabulary words on the board while she practices her letters, the next she’s playing Mario or wrestling with one of our reluctant pets. If I fail to give her the option of doing “schoolwork” at some point during the day, she gets very upset later when I need to get ready for work if we haven’t done any.
Anyway, it’s doable. Can I say that I have time for myself? No. But it isn’t because I can’t set aside time for myself. It’s just because I don’t have any passionate goals at this point in time other than figuring out the unschooling stuff. If I ever do want to pursue something else for myself, I will make the time available. My guess is that I will find a way to earn money from home in order to free up the time I want for myself when the time comes. For now, I unschool for myself just as much (if not more) than I do for her. It’s fun…seriously.
I would like to add that I am the most disorganized, time-wasting person that I know. If I had any organizational skills at all, we would make better use of our time and accomplish much more.
“…mothers who work out of the home are still judged and socially policed heavily”
I need to put together an email to you or something once I figure out what to ask. When you make statements like this I can’t help but think I’m either oblivious or just too laid back. I suppose I see stuff like this occasionally when the guys at work are surprised that my wife works outside the home, but I always chalk it up to them having values that I have never possessed myself (like the man is the bread-winner or whatever). Why should I care who is making the money and who is taking care of the kids? Sure it gets old that restaurants always hand me the check when I rarely look at it. My wife is the one that wants to see it and she ends up using her card or cash to pay. It all comes out of the family account, so what difference does it make? Everyone also assumes that my wife does the homeschooling when it comes up in conversation. It’s true that most of the time they are astonished when we tell them that I “run” the homeschooling stuff…
I dunno. I guess I just see all of that stuff as some people trying to be “traditional” to their own detriment. Of course I’m sure I am missing your point entirely which is why I need to figure out the correct questions to begin the conversation.
Geez…darn wall-o-text.
@Kidsync
You are oblivious. 🙂
And so was I. Until I was a lady with kids. And then I started seeing it. Also to be fair I read a lot of feminist sites and I don’t think these ladies are making up the pressures and the judgment they are running across.
I could link you Times One Million and maybe I will at some point. Maybe a good one-stop shopping is to direct you to Sociological Images. Drink deeply, Padawan-learner and read many back-articles. Or not. But believe me… women today feel a lot of pressure and guilt regarding these choices. I believe I’ve written about it a lot at Underbellie, rather a-snoringly lot.
People are being “traditional” to their own detriment, yes. But it is also detrimental to women and children, quite acutely. The lack of respect or interest you may be receiving as the go-to homeschooling dad is also a part of that. My husband could rant for eight hours straight about the assumptions made and how his manhood was questioned that he gave a shit about this stuff. Like how when he said we were homeschooling a female coworker got Fart Smelling Face and said flatly, “Shouldn’t your wife take care of that?” Plus one million other examples.
I love it about you that you are excited and looking into unschooling. Yes, that IS your interest/passion right now and likely others will come and go to. The more interested parties we have earnestly exploring the better, and the fact that you are a male “full-time” nurturer/carer is lovely (for you, and Kylie, and everyone else…).
As far as you and Kylie “playing school”, you know I am a big secret school nerd too. It’s been a couple years removed from school and I am happy either way, when they want to do worksheets together (rare these days) and when they want to build treeforts.
@Kelly
I wasn’t trying to make light of it or suggest they were making it up.
I had a lot more typed out here but it wasn’t coherent so I’ll try again another time.
@Kidsync
I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I did not mean to do so at all. I fear my words stung.
I don’t think of you as someone who’d claim women en masse were “making things up” or that you would making light of some women’s self-reported problems! You said you didn’t see what I was referring to; I related to “not seeing” and began discussing ME and my journey out of my own obliviousness! I should have been more clear or, even better, should have asked you more about what you meant.
So this paragraph is all about ME. I’ll try to be very clear: when I first starting being at-home I felt very empowered to do so (with a few niggling doubts). I really did not have a perspective on how many other women had been subjected to social pressures and how much second-guessing and criticisms are leveled at women, whether they are aware of or in distress about it or no. At the time I didn’t know about all the “signals” criticizing women in their choices (I really do recommend Soc Images for a starter on some background) nor did I know how these criticisms of women (mothers) would begin to wear on me over time. I didn’t start having an articulate awareness of these factors until I started reading these sites. At first I was skeptical. “Look, work, or stay home, but it’s YOU and our choices, own it, it’s a free country and nothing prevents you, pull up your Big Girl Panties.” After reading and reading and reading I began to believe there were many problems in our social support of women and our criticisms of those – those who work for pay, who don’t, those who breed, those who don’t.
Again, as I said previous, these negative social tropes have costs on our men too, absolutely including male carers/parents and male at-home carers. Let me again extend my support and my gladness in reading about your adventures with family and daughter.
And I am sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings. I’m sure it is a communication error on my part and a misguided thought I could joke with the word “oblivious” which I now see may have stung when wielded in my commentary.
@Kelly
“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I did not mean to do so at all. I fear my words stung.”
Not at all. I was just clarifying. I knew you were joking with the “oblivious”. I was pretty sure I knew what you meant with the “making up” stuff. I was just making sure I wasn’t misunderstood. Thank you for clarifying.
@Kidsync
“Not at all”
Well then – good.
Like you, I am lucky to be able to stay home with my children and I have for the past 10 years. I have a Master’s degree and people are always asking why I don’t use it. I choose to stay home with the kids – plain and simple. Okay, my degree is no guarantee whatsoever of work, so that’s part of it. But I really have no desire to stop doing the work I do now. And you’re right: people don’t see it as work. I had a woman say to me “You don’t work, right?” and I said “Yes, I do. I have 3 kids. That’s my job.” The woman looked at me as though she thought I wasn’t all there and she actually said, “No, I mean a real job.” And she’s a mom of 2. She doesn’t get it.
My sister-in-law doesn’t get the concept, either. She has twin 5 year-old girls and she’s a neonatologist. She doesn’t understand why I would want to be at home with my kids. Hers have been in daycare of some kind since they were 6 weeks old. Even this summer they went to daycamp every day – including the days she was off work. I don’t understand that. But I figure whatever works for her is what works. She, on the other hand is under the impression that because I’m constantly at home with the kids that I MUST need some kind of a break from them. She says, “You don’t do anything for yourself!” I’ve tried explaining to her that doing things for them like sewing or whatever IS doing something for me but she just doesn’t get it.
I thought your initial response was very well said and might give the woman a lot to think about, if she chose to. I tell my daughters that they can have a season of mothering and a season of career-focus or that they can try to find a way to include their mothering life with their work life (like I do as a writer and transcriptionist in the home).
And I totally love this part “I have found the more fully I release to this giving the more I absolutely have my own life,…”
@Jen
The funniest part is that if you had told her you work at a preschool she probably would have viewed that as a “real job”. In my opinion, a job working at a preschool would much easier because you get to go home at the end of the day.
Edit – I just put a caveat in italics at the bottom of my post (look up ^^^ ). No one here has been “naughty”, don’t worry! I would just rather anyone who feels moved to comment think twice instead of having something go up that might cause another reader pain. This post was tweeted by a couple influential tweeps (Ralph hates that I use that term) and who knows who is reading. Any new commentors get vetted through WordPress.
@Jen
ZOMG. If someone were to tell me (pityingly?) I “need to do something for myself” I might strangle them. My mom used to do this years ago. Not quite this. It was more like if I discussed family life she’d talk about how claustrophobic it was. But I’ve not really found that to be the case. That’s how SHE felt. Darn mom, always mixing me up with her. I’ve always been relatively able to take time for myself or speak up for resources (partner-help, money, a break). I’m fortunate in that way. And even I have found motherhood to be challenging and a LOT of work!
Also: what’s with someone telling YOU what YOU need. Don’t you know best?
@Sara
I looked back over my initial response and it seemed fine. In reading the conversation in the group it seemed very productive. It’s up to a few dozen messages by now. At this state the original poster is expressing the desire to work and the fear she won’t be able to, but at least she is making it less about OTHER people (or imagined tropes of pathetic womanhood). That’s a good thing.
@Kidsync
Yes! You’re right. Altho’ working in a preschool/daycare is a “real job” (unlike my work, say), by many it’s not much esteemed and from what I understand it’s often underpaid.
On a tangent. Not related to your comment but just thinking about preschool. Some of my readers have worked in preschools and daycares and I’d be interested if they weighed in. I was part of a co-op for seven years (under different leaderships). A co-op isn’t much like what we call a preschool or daycare because there’s high parental involvement in every aspect of the operation, very short hours of attendance (7.5 to 10 a week) and a high ratio of adult-to-child. Nevertheless from my wee experience it seems quite a job and aspects seem hard (depending on the environment). At least in the home there aren’t other “bosses” or grownups directly interfering with my authority.
Kidsync touched on an issue that has affected me quite a but as well, the “reverse role” family. My personal experience of being a woman in a family where my partner, a man, works outside the home less than I do (so that I am the “breadwinner” and he spends more time in caretaking) has, at times, been quite difficult – there is the constant feeling (to what extent my at-times-vivid imagination plays into this I have no idea) that I am being judged on the quality of my contribution in the typically female areas – for example, housecleaning (I suck at this anyway, but it is really not my partner’s forte), contributions at the school, being good at keeping the schedule/social calendar/etc, and a lot of other areas I’m not thinking of right now. On top of this (and kidsync, this is my experience, so please don’t think I’m calling you out or anything; i just referenced you earlier because it seems that our family structures are similar), I have been very, very frustrated by 1. People treating my husband like he is So Awesome for Deigning to take on the bulk ofthe child-rearing (he is, but sheesh, can’t I get to be awesome too?) or 2. On the other hand, people making a BFD about how trodden-upon I am and What The Hell Is His Problem Sitting Home While You Work All Day, and 3. Assuming I don’t care to be a part of my daughter’s life because I work outside the home (couldn’t be further from the truth) and so on. Looks like this got kind of long; apologies for that but I think that this dynamic is one that doesn’t get as much exploration but ties in directly with the woman shaming biz.
@Kelly
Yeah, that’s what I get for posting too quickly. Re-reading what I typed, it isn’t what I intended. What I was after was to suggest that the lady Jen mentioned may view a position at a preschool as a “real job” simply because it receives a formal paycheck, not taking into account the actual work involved in either job. I thought it was funny because both jobs (preschool teacher and stay-at-home-mom) involve caring for children yet they aren’t generally viewed as equal work by society. Each of these jobs has its own challenges. The difficulty level is relative the people involved.
As far as my comment about working at a preschool being easier because the employee can go home at the end of the day, I was looking at it from the perspective of having a bad day. If I have a bad day at work, I at least have the option of not taking the problem home with me. If my job IS at home, the problem is with me until I fix it.
I know you said we hadn’t done anything naughty, but I figure if my own words don’t sound right to me, I should try to fix it.
Your point about “bosses” interfering with your authority is one reason I doubt I could handle a job like that.
@Kidsync
“If I have a bad day at work, I at least have the option of not taking the problem home with me. If my job IS at home, the problem is with me until I fix it.”
You words here brought tears to my eyes although you had no way of knowing how they’d make me feel. Back when my babies were small I struggled with this. I’d have the “bad day” and I couldn’t escape, and we didn’t even have $20 to spare for me to go out and get a meal for myself alone after husband got home, and no matter where I “ran” (this part is the most difficult) I still had problems of being a Very Bad Mother and we were still scarily broke and bouncing checks and I loved my kids SOOOO much. Me, personally? There’s never been a “job” that fucked with my head as much as my head was being fucked with.
Over time and through many boring Kelly Hogaboom blah-blah factors these circumstances and experiences changed and I’m so glad they did.
@Christina
We were a “reverse role” family for a year. And YES to all your points (except no one accused Ralph of not doing his part, they more Saintified him). I do think the topics you speak of are underexplored, big time. In fact I read all my feminazi propaganda and I can’t think of an exploration of the phenomena you’re talking about.
As far as if you’re being judged. Sadly, by some, you are. But… I would guess the people who are judging you are doing so out of their own wounded places and the women who are judging you have been damaged or at least negatively influenced by a lifetime of kyriarchal oppressive tactics. AND these women probably feel judged on all the same arenas you do, whatever their lifestyles. Ha. I’m sure that’s not much comfort.
But at least by this mama? I know you’re awesome on many levels and I want to extend my full support to all working women in and out of the home.