Mommies, we have arrived.
If you have yet to hear about the so-called “Mommy Wars,” you’ve been living in a media blackout.
Ladies, we are all the rage.
In fact, we are so popular, advertisers are catering to us. Talk shows are clamoring for our attention. Local news is filled with breastfeeding-breast-bearing Moms, preschool competition, and the best baby gear.
We’ve hit it big.
…and the backlash is starting. But I’ve found this backlash is coming from a rather unsettling source: other women. More specifically, women who took that other path in life and chose to remain either childless or only career focused.
Many of them think we’re silly. And they can’t believe the world, nay, the educated world, is taking us seriously. And as the Mommies gain advertising, page one stories, and credibility, the so-called “Mommy War” talk gets louder. And louder.
I have a theory on why all the rhetoric is growing; It’s classic war tactics here, girls. And we’re too self absorbed in battling breast vs bottle that we’re missing the real fight.
A segment is threatened, and they are trying to turn us against ourselves. We’re being discredited by our own kind.
They’ve turned “Mommyblogger” into a derogatory term, right in front of us. They passively call us “those Mommybloggers” as if we have nothing important to say. And if we do, it certainly does not belong in the same category as their “real” political/news/academia thoughts and opinions.
We’re “cute.” And we’re supposed to be polite and take it like good little housewives.
Not anymore.
Here’s a little something for all the women who can’t seem to figure out what the networks, corporations, and advertisers have: We’re raising the next world leaders. The doctors who will cure cancer. The thinkers that will change the world. And if this generation of mother wants to argue over how to best raise those future leaders we will do it with as much passion and gusto as you argue this week’s congressional scandal.
We were raised like you, to consider ourselves ALL woman. We have or had careers. We are educated. We are just as devoted and important as you. How can we compare potty training to world economics? Easy, we are doing our best not to scar the next generation of economists. To turn them into the next Nobel laureate.
So my dear, Mommy friends. Let’s keep our little Mommy War going. Fight about formula and breastmilk amongst eachother just like those other girls fight about Republican vs Democrat. It’s JUST as important.
…and while you scream yourself blue touting the benefits of Montessori, remember you’ve arrived. Debate and discourse are all a part of being taken seriously.
Very nice. Good job as always!
Well, I’m obviously not a mommy. But I do think that you mommies have one of the top two most important jobs in the world (I have the other one) and It is fully appropriate that the techniques of that job be debated by its practitioners.
Rock on, Mommies.
Queen, I couldn’t have said it better myself. I have friends who criticize me for being a mother and continuing to work. It angers me when I hear others pass judgement on my decisions. I envy the moms who stay home, but I also like my job. Why can’t I have both? I feel I’m successful, especially since I have on-site daycare. I see my child more than most parents.
These are not only Mommy-Wars, these are “Wars of Women”. I think it’s time we support women for choosing what they want and not settling for what society expects of them. If I decide to stay home and raise my child, that is a JOB. It’s tough work. But, if I choose to have a career as well, that is okay, too. I think WOMEN are wonderful and their voices should be heard. Whether we work in a big office downtown, or work our asses off raising our kids — it’s still important to us and no one has the right to turn that against us!
Pah. Not to you, to them. Despite being a Mommyblogger, a WAHM, a volunteer, and having the all important job of Mommy, I still get the “What do you do all day?” questions. Pah, I say. Pah.
Rock on! At first I felt guilty for “wasting” my education by staying home with my baby, but then when I really thought about it I remembered my first reason for wanting to be a SAHM – why should I pay someone else to raise my child? Who is better qualified than me (I’m not talking teaching certification here, though my mom tells me Sweet Pea already knows things that she has had to teach third graders…)?
The woman who cuts my hair tells me that I’m stunting Sweet Pea’s social growth by staying at home with her. What a crock. I’m with Karen. Pah.
I cannot imagine my mother to be the best Mom if she had been career-oriented or had hired a babysitter when I needed her love and support.
My mother did it for me and she’s proud of that, and, for that I’m proud of her.
I’m with the Mommies… Go Mommies Go!
I don’t know about you guys, but being a Mommy is the hardest job I’ve ever had.
18 hours a day, 7 days a week would be a huge break in my work schedule.
There’s a war going on? We’ve arrived? Had no clue… *sigh* being isolated in Spain where blogging is practically nonexistent does that to you…
Go Queen go! Loved the post and damn straight I’ll be creating a ruckus!
I’m for women. Whether they work, stay at home, have babies, raise llamas, breastfeed, bottle feed, sing karaoke, I don’t care. We’re all the same, and yet should celebrate not differentiate that which makes us unique. We have so many choices that past generations never got, and instead of appreciating that, we often try to tear down those who chose differently from ourselves.
Bravo and Amen.
We are all just doing what we have to do to get our kids raised and looked after. That is what the women’s rights moevment was about – the right to make the choice to do whatever the F we wanted, right?
I read somewhere that if you were to put a salary to all the jobs we stay at home moms do, we would be getting paid between $60,000 and $100,000 depending on the quality of the service. When you think about it, it’s so true.
Child Care, nurse, therapist, driver, nutrionist, cook, gym teacher, personal stylist, groomer, activities coordinator, accountant, housekeeping, toy and furniture assembler, etc.
Mind boggling. That’s what it is when I hear other women say stay at home moms don’t have a job. I’m sorry that I don’t get a paycheck (monetarily that is – my kids’ love is enough for me), I don’t get sick days and I sure as hell don’t get much needed paid vacation time. I would like to go kick all those women in the head when they say Mommy is not a job title but that would take away from my daughter’s 11am shampoo and rinse and my son’s 2pm cardio workout at the park so I’ll just dream at night of the kicking in the heads.
Oh I feel so much better! Thanks Queen! You are the rockingest Q ever!
I almost forgot the most important job besides loving and caring for them: Teacher
Who do these people think are going to take care of them when they are elderly and dependent? The crack addict on the corner whose parents chose to not care, not be involved, not love and nurture them? I don’t think so. I respect someone’s right to not have children however, when they question my decision to stay home with my kids and say I should get a “real job”, well, that’s when my husband leaves the room cause he knows it’s gonna get ugly.
Ok, I’m done. I think. No, I am. I’m hitting the keys a little too hard and getting funny looks from the husband. Where is that beer?
See, now look what you’ve started. You made me go post my own rant on a tangent from this topic.
Thank you.
I can’t think of a better way of supporting one another than to attend BlogHer (again, thanks for the tuition!) and network (yeah, I used that word – so what?) with other women who write. I posted something about it when I first started Blogger (http://www.nwf.org/kidzone/kzPage.cfm?siteId=3&departmentId=81) a while back and yet, I’m not convinced that Eckler is really doing much. Is it just me?
Would you be willing to set me straight if I was too harsh? You are so honest about all else, I can hardly imagine that this topic, which you’ve eloquently written about, is any less. Let me know, girl. I value your opinion.
p.s. Your ass looks great.
p.p.s. You can come look at my tractor anytime.
(To have that second comment follow the first sounds dirty. It’s not.)
All this educated, articulate, future career seeking, “mommyblogger” can say to this post is:
HELLS YEAH, QUEEN. HELLS YEAH.
Will you shut your pie hole, get in the kitchen and fix Aaron a nice, juicy, rare, T-bone. And for godsakes get him a freakin’ Guinness while he waits. Slack-ass.
Now that I’ve infuriated you cute little cupcakes, let me say that the two years that I spent as a stay at home Dad was the hardest thing I’ll ever do. Now get me a beer, bitch. (Oh yeah, Yzerman is a homo.)
Bravo!
Let the games begin!
The reality is that those other women wouldn’t be here had their mothers felt the same. Amazing the shallow minds of those who “think” they are so deep and profound and above the drudgery of motherhood. I’m not saying they should be mothers, but just as I don’t condemn their choice, they should not condemn mine.
I’m educated (finishing my masters) and planning on staying home for at least a few years when I have kids. Not that there’s anything wrong with working while you raise your kids – my mom had to, and she still managed to do a darn good job. I just think I’ll be lucky enough NOT to have to. And that makes me immensely happy. Because you’re right – there is NO more important job than raising and educating a child.
I hadn’t heard of the ‘mommy wars’ until an ‘incident’ at my daughter’s gymnastics class. I now know better than to bring the subject up to my type-A personality disordered *working* wife.
Women need to learn to be like men. I stay at home with the kids (3 girls ages 10mo, 3yrs, 5yrs). Even though I work my tail off, all my friends (guy friends) think I am a bum. They are clueless. The fact that they think I am a bum and that I think they are clueless does not interfere with anything. Stop being so catty.
Having said that, Stay at home moms are better than working moms.
Not only are mothers raising the next world leaders, we are leading by example – by living the life we want (whether we choose to work at home or outside the home) and dealing with the consequences.
Bravo on this post.
The problem isn’t mothers…it’s a group I like to call “entitlement moms”
You know the kind, you’ve met them. They’re entitled to use the day-old coupon, b/c it’s for the children. They’re entitled to be seated first at the restaurant, b/c the kids are hungry. They’re entitled to coming in late w/out consequences at work, b/c Snookums missed the bus.
And so on and so on. The entitlement moms think the whole world revolves around them and their kid(s)
Thanks to that sort of person, people have a hard time taking any mother, nay, any woman seriously in the work place.
So the problem isn’t childless women either, it’s just the few that have 14 cats that perpetuate the sterotype?
That’s about it, yes. A few people can make a whole group look bad. For CF women, it’s the crazy cat lady, for us mothers, it’s the entitlement mommies.
I;ve never heard of a blog over a year ago and now I am one….sort of also a mommy blogger cause I just shot out a tyke recently!
Hey I know the Queen, I can get you discounts at Buckingham Palace and get you a free subscription to The Sun!
Shouldn’t the debate be directed towards having the option to choose?
Am working with no kids at present but wuold definitely love to stay at home and not miss even one single sec of my child’s life but due to financial constraints I know I would not be able to take a break.
So shouldn’t the society/work laws be such which gives us woman, the flexibility to choose…perhaps working from home/a longer maternity leave?
instead of fighting amongst ourselves shouldn’t we be more concerned about this?
I really appreciate a woman and a woman is very influential wherever he is. country needs women, the environment we need women, our children need a mother and a woman that a man needs a woman as a wife and taking care of the household. What would the world be without women?