Today, we are bearing witness to yet a crucial shift in the community beliefs that prefers women who stay at home with their children and take care of them. In the year 1999, the percentage of women having children under the age of 18 who did not work outside the residence stood at 23%. The proportion showed a large increase in the recent years with this percentage standing at 29% in 2012. No doubts that the extra attention has been healthy for the kids and were surely helping them cope with their lives in a better way. The wellbeing of these children however comes with a hefty price which bears the burden to the women who choose to stay home. According to an article ‘The Triumph of the Working Mother’ published in the Sunday edition of the New York Times, stay at home mothers report a greater number of cases of sadness, anger and diagnosed depression when compared to women who engaged in employment. Women, therefore, should not stay at home for the sake of their children.
What we discussed above was the situation of stay at home mothers in the entire United States. Now, let’s talk about the circumstances at the state level taking the state of Washington as an example. What follows now is the life story Stoel Rives a lawyer in Seattle, who expresses her fantasies about her life had she been a stay-at-home mother. Her day often starts with a drive to her daughter school coupled with the obsession over all her things from the school bag to gym clothes to lunch. On her way there, she observes so many stay at home mothers wearing workout gear which look like no less than $95 yoga pants. Not long after the fist epiphany, a second thought pops into her head, which in her own words is this; “In reality, I don’t know anything about their lives except that they get to wear comfortable clothing when I am dressed for the office.” It is not easy to live a day in the life of a stay-at-home mother seeing how they worry about the most trivial things around the house. Theirs however is as hard as they come. Fortunately, since Rives is privileged enough to be able to hire a nanny and when she goes to the office, she doesn’t even have to make her own coffee. But just because her focus is towards her work doesn’t mean that she is not capable of becoming a great mommy too. Rives however considers herself lucky that she has work to take mind off of worrying thoughts and according to her, “I also know that when my husband was sick and on long-term medical disability, if it weren’t for my job, we wouldn’t have been able to afford that portion of his treatment not covered by insurance.” Also, “If I were a stay-at-home mom, I would live in daily terror that my husband’s cancer would come out of diminution, and we would lack the resources to manage the costs.” The fantasy of staying at home may be appealing, but it’s good only for a few hours. It definitely wouldn’t have pulled her out of these terrors and financial crises.
People who oppose working mother often focus their attention to the love, the care and support they usually deprive their child of. The argument however is hardly iron-clad. With the sky-high costs of living that many have to incur, living in Washington on one person’s income isn’t easy. And what a child needs more than love and support is a stable environment at home and having a sound financial base doesn’t hurt at all. Of all the fifty cities with the highest living cost, Washington DC ranks number 48. It, therefore, is more important for a mother to take care of her child’s school, food, clothes and other needs rather than staying home and playing Lego or painting with them.
The trend of stay-at-home moms might be increasing, but the state of Washington has so far been immune to that change. When arranging cities in order of the number of working women, Washington ranks at number 2. It is due to the requirement of their lifestyles and the costs that they require to stay afloat, and none of these women should be compelled to stay home. Working women have stable minds and organized lives and who better to teach the children the most decisive life lessons than these women? In my opinion, women should earn for their homes and shouldn’t stay home. The choice between palliates and work may be a tough one, but work ranks higher when it comes down to being practical.
Works Cited
Casserly, Meghan. The Best Cities For Working Mothers, 2010. 26 July 2010. <http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/24/best-us-cities-working-mothers-employment-family-forbes-woman-leadership-parenting.html>.
COONTZ, STEPHANIE. The Triumph of the Working Mother. 1 June 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/opinion/sunday/coontz-the-triumph-of-the-working-mother.html>.
Jacobs, Deborah L. A Working Mom Defends the 'Lululemon Stay-at-Home Mother'. 15 April 2012. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2012/04/15/a-working-mom-defends-the-lululemon-stay-at-home-mother/>.
Toppo, Greg. More women are staying home with young kids. 8 April 2014. <http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/08/women-stay-at-home-mothers-work/7468163/>.
