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I don't like calling motherhood my job. Or my career, or my profession, or any other highfalutin synonyms you could think of. I'm not a fan of those memes that describe a stay-at-home mother's work as some insane combination of short-order chef, chauffeur, maid, therapist, coach…and all unpaid! 24 hours a day, seven days a week!
Yeah…no.
It's not that I think mothers have it easier, or that they have less to handle than whatever a typical job entails. Quite the contrary. Motherhood, and parenthood generally, entail some of the most demanding, challenging, stressful things one can undertake. But I'm feeling more and more that trying to shoehorn motherhood into a career box is a disservice both to mothers and to anyone with a job. It's a quintessential case of comparing apples to oranges, and it inevitably leads to mean-spirited arguments of who has it harder, who deserves more praise, and who's generally a better human being than everyone else. This is not productive. And it's a false dichotomy to being with.
( And now for a cursory, entirely unresearched history lesson )
Yeah…no.
It's not that I think mothers have it easier, or that they have less to handle than whatever a typical job entails. Quite the contrary. Motherhood, and parenthood generally, entail some of the most demanding, challenging, stressful things one can undertake. But I'm feeling more and more that trying to shoehorn motherhood into a career box is a disservice both to mothers and to anyone with a job. It's a quintessential case of comparing apples to oranges, and it inevitably leads to mean-spirited arguments of who has it harder, who deserves more praise, and who's generally a better human being than everyone else. This is not productive. And it's a false dichotomy to being with.
( And now for a cursory, entirely unresearched history lesson )
