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| Society needs to place a value on stay at home parents. |
By Tonya Yancey
Recently, I was at my
monthly Bunco meeting and a fellow female player mentioned she put in an
application at the local school district.
She was a stay at home mom of a senior in high school, an eighth grader
and a preschool-aged child, but now was headed back into the working world of
the 9- to 5-ers.
“Oh that is going be
so difficult,” I said.
“Thank you,” the
woman said. “You are the first person to say that to me.”
As stay at home moms,
we know the challenges that every working mom faces, whether they are in the
working environment or “just” a stay at home mom. We moms all understand that parenting is a verb;
it is active 24/7. There are no breaks
and there are no vacations, unless you pay someone else to monitor your
children.
Where and when did we
get so far off track, in that our value is based on whether or not we have
earned income? Someone has to raise the
children. If it isn’t you or your spouse, then you will have to seek out
proper, paid child care. It seems to me
that raising a child is the most valuable job position anyone in any society
could have. Perhaps, I’m wrong. What I do know is that parenting has most
definitely been my most challenging job.
Not just the physical challenges, such as feeling as though I had
chronic flu the first trimester of my first pregnancy or the sleep deprivation
headaches I got for the first five years of their precious lives, plus the
added pressure of the fact that I was raising little sponges who absorb
everything I do and say.
All of my behaviors
have a direct impact on how my children will perceive themselves and then be
able to relate to others. Marianne Williamson says, “If hours of active
mothering were calculated even at minimum wage, then mothering would be the
largest industry in the world.” So what
is this idea or perception that being a stay at home mom or dad has little value? The idea may be that the stay at home parent
is just lounging about on the couch eating bonbons, when the reality is the
stay at home parent just wants to be able to use the bathroom before their
bladder burst and alone would be a treat if not a
mini-vacation.
What all stay at home
moms and dads want, the one thing they really, really, want is validation. They
want to hear that the job that they do, the hours spent diapering,
feeding, cleaning up something or someone, endless piles of laundry, driving
someone to and from, getting up at 3 a.m. to clean up someone’s vomit, every
hug, kiss, smile given and received, matters.
It matters and is honored. And
when the stay at home parent at a social gathering is asked the inevitable
question, “What do you do?” and when one replies, “I’m at home with the kids,”
honoring them with a response of gratitude and a simple “thank you” would be so
healing and gratifying.
We stay at home
parents are in service for our families and ultimately our communities and no
amount of earned income can ever buy back these priceless years of
childhood.
Find out the salary a stay at home mom would
earn here.
