Guest Post: Mormon Feminist, yes, Housewife, no, well maybe
“Moana was raised in the church. She has a husband, two daughters and a full time job. Raised by a single mother, Moana is a feminist through and through and is interested in exploring not only the nexus of feminism and Mormonism but also how racial and ethnic identity informs her own feminist Mormon-ness.”
Housewife . . . Maybe
by Moana
I’m going to go out on a limb here and attempt to close the distance between women who work in the home and those who work outside the home. I’m not even going to narrow my attentions (yet) to the mormon feminist housewives out there. I may have a job outside the home but I feel like a housewife. This is not to diminish the women in the trenches at home—I know their joys and sorrows.
I am not a housewife yet I feel very much like I am.
First, let me out myself as a woman, feminist, wife, mother who collects a bi-weekly paycheck. But I feel very much like a housewife. I am at home running the show when I am not at work.
I really have no girlfriends in real life—I feel guilty enough as it is leaving my kids to go to work. But I lead a double life—I’m the working woman at work who, after years of training, does not mention my kids, only brings them to the office when they are dying sick and I cannot worm my way out of work, who tries to not to moan about how much more productive I could be at work if I only had a wife holding down the fort at home.
I am also the woman who works very hard to make sure that I am home when one child comes home from school, who sets the maximum daycare time for the other child at 5 hours per day, who makes sure everyone knows that I don’t have a whole passel of kids because of fertility problems and who cannot in good conscience hire someone to clean my house (which really needs it, by the way). I am the default “every person” at my home (you know the song, so sing along: “I’m every woman!”)—DH and I have never discussed the possibility of him being home when the kids get out of school.
I am the one who does the laundry, who roots through the basket of clean clothes for the kids every morning because idea #267 to get the whole family in on cleaning and organizing withered at about 7:30 the night before. FLIP, I CLEAN THE DANG TOILETS!
I am the housewife—it is one of the hats I put on in the course of the day. But because society generally has divided the women’s labor as the work-outsides and the work-insides, we don’t talk to each other. When we do, we often don’t have a lot to say to each other or we think we don’t.
For instance, I’m assuming there is no blog specifically for LDS women who work outside the home. If there is, let me know. For many reasons (topics for other blog entries), we just aren’t high profile. Plus most of us are just exhausted from all of the hat-changing. At the end of the day, we mormon feminists who work outside the home also are the housewives of the manor only we are expected to do the whole enchilada with only half the ingredients (hmm, food metaphors, must be getting hungry). At the very least the work-outs and the work-ins should start talking to each other as mormon feminists. We will probably learn much from each other.
reading this now as it’s been posted, i think it’s important to say that i love my family and i love my job–in that order (’course God comes before all of that).
i sound whiny about having to work so i wanted to say that it is a choice i make, though i am the most degree-d partner in my marriage so i makes sense that i contribute in this way. i love my work–most of the time it clears my head so that i can be a focused parent at home. and being at home with my family does the same thing at work. things move along well until there’s a wrinkle either at home or at work. a sick kid really cheeses my week but there is nothing i can do about it.
the bottom line (perhaps one of many) is that i am a working mother in a predominantly LDS community–sometimes i feel like i am the island (as in “no (wo)man is an island”) because my working-ness really does cut me off from the SAHMs–or perhaps my self-consciousness about it does. but i am still a mother and i want to know all the potty training tricks and do play dates and, and, and, etc. but i know i can’t do it all.
sometimes it just helps for me to put all of this out there. so thanks for reading–
Comment by moana — June 7, 2005 @ 11:34 pm
And thanks for sharing. You’ve reminded me that even people who look like they have it all don’t have it easy.
Comment by Cathleen — June 8, 2005 @ 7:16 am
Moana, I think you mention an excellent point, and that is that even in dual-income with kids families, the wife/mother is typically the one in charge of all (or most) family & household matters. Personally, I don’t feel like there really is much actual animosity between SAHMs and working moms. I think a lot of it is a media invention, as it is really played up in all sorts of parenting magazines and the like. Though having been a working mom (my husband and I alternated days throughout our graduate school programs) I can definitely relate to feeling out of the “mommy loop” as I simply didn’t have time to interact with the other mothers in the neighborhood. And maybe people did look down on me or think less of me due to my desire to get a masters degree while I had a very young daughter (she was 3 months when we started), but only one rude person came out and said that she thought I was neglecting my child. Luckily (I guess) I’d known her for years and knew she had always been excessively self-righteous and judgmental.
For me as a SAHM, as I have been since December, it isn’t all bon bons and daisies, but I have enough experience to know that working and/or going to school aren’t all bon bons and daisies, either. A lot of life is hard, regardless of what you are doing. Being at home is hard for me because I’ve never done it before, but I really don’t have a desire to be anywhere else right now. I know that wouldn’t really be easier, just a variation of challenges.
And while I’ve kind of addressed this already, you said “The bottom line (perhaps one of many) is that i am a working mother in a predominantly LDS community–sometimes i feel like i am the island (as in “no (wo)man is an island”) because my working-ness really does cut me off from the SAHMs–or perhaps my self-consciousness about it does.” I truly think that it is mostly the latter. It is so easy to feel like others are excluding us, or thinking poorly of us, when in reality, they are sitting there not thinking about us at all, as they are too busy wondering what people are thinking of them. (I think this has been addressed a bit here in the past.) If you do have time ever, I think it will have to be you that initiates play date formation with other moms, simply because they are most likely aware of your time constraints and don’t want to impose another responsibility on you. I think it is less a matter of avoiding you, and more an issue of respecting that you are likely a very busy woman, with many demands on your time.
Comment by mindy — June 8, 2005 @ 9:58 am
I don’t really think there’s that much animosity either. I certainly don’t feel any. I know it’s out there, I’m sure it is, but I’ve run into almost none of it in my real life.
Certainly there are judgers on both sides, but chances are those types aren’t much fun to be around anyway, so why worry about them.
I kinda think, this new generation is coming more and more to a place where we can accept that different women are making different choices for different reasons and this is really for the best for all of us.
Or I could be all wrong.
Comment by Lisa — June 8, 2005 @ 12:05 pm
lisa–ideally that would be the case but keep in mind i live in a community where 80% of us are mormon. when we moved in, everyone asked what my husband did at the _________ (place of employment where everyone in town works). in my mind, i wrote a ticket to that person, a parking violation if you will–how dare they just assume our circumstances. of course, how could they not when that’s what everyone else on the block is doing?
while you’re right that these peeps aren’t the most fun so why bother, i suppose the distinction i should make is between people who only understand issues in black and white (i.e., if you are a feminist then you are a feminazi who isn’t a good member of the church) vs. those who understand the world in terms of the many shades between black and white (i.e., there are lots of ways to be a feminist as well as lots of ways to be a good church member). sorry, that was a really long sentence.
i guess i should be having these discussions IRL face to face with those i think are judging me instead of blogging about it. but who has time to actually talk to the neighbors, LOL.
Comment by moana — June 8, 2005 @ 12:39 pm
mindy, yes, i agree with you. before we moved here two years ago, we lived in a ward where all of the women who had children the same age as my oldest hung out together–they went to aerobics, went out together once a month, had play dates. i felt excluded–granted much of it may have been self-imposed because of my schedule, but still.
seriously, though, i deal. i do my work, hug my kiddies, date DH, surf the web. it’s all good. sometimes, though, i get grumpy and tend to see life through the grump-colored glasses.
Comment by moana — June 8, 2005 @ 12:45 pm
moana said: “seriously, though, i deal. i do my work, hug my kiddies, date DH, surf the web. it’s all good. sometimes, though, i get grumpy and tend to see life through the grump-colored glasses.”
oh sistah, I hear ya! And I do the exact same thing with the grump-colored glasses (i love that btw). I’ve realized that sometimes I like being a hermit, but sometimes I like being annoyed that I’m “excluded”. Honestly, even now that I do have more time, my interest for frequent group activities with other moms & kids just isn’t super high. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t know the right moms (or if I’m just not the right kind of mom) or if I just don’t really like being around a lot of people that much. I really don’t know. For now I like to say that it’s because I don’t know the right moms, though I am making an effort to just make more friends in general, since I no longer have my school/academic community. I’ve made a really fun friend through my local LLL group.
Open Question: How do you do those quote bars, and italics, and bold, and smiley faces? It seems it’s slightly different on every blog/discussion board.
Comment by mindy — June 8, 2005 @ 12:58 pm
mindy,
i think you have to use the blue buttons above the box where you type in your comments like this:
i think you have to use the blue buttons above the box where you type in your comments like this:
you have to click the blue button of your choice, copy in text, and then click it again.
i don’t know what the arrow one means . . .
Comment by moana — June 8, 2005 @ 1:22 pm
Smiley faces are texted in, for example putting a : next to a ) will give you :). Putting a : next to a D will give you :D. Putting a ; next to a ) will give you a ;). Putting a : next to a | will give you :|. I also use : and S together, but haven’t tried it here; let’s see: :S.
Comment by Artemis — June 8, 2005 @ 1:35 pm
Nope, doesn’t work. But it makes a great frumpled face for email, if you need one.
Comment by Artemis — June 8, 2005 @ 1:36 pm
Ooh, one more: putting a : next to a P will give you :P.
Comment by Artemis — June 8, 2005 @ 1:37 pm
Thank you!
Comment by mindy — June 8, 2005 @ 1:57 pm
You know, I don’t enjoy housework, I like to cook, but it’s a pain to figure out what to cook every day and do something different.
But I like being at home. One thing I struggle with is my guilt that I am not working and helping my husband pay the bills. So I console myself by saying I’m his secretary and he couldn’t make it without me. Sometimes I believe it.
Comment by annegb — June 8, 2005 @ 1:58 pm
Sistahs,
As my Bishop used to say, “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” We are all just trying to get ourselves and our family back to our loving Heavenly Father. Many choices will be presented to us before we arrive there, and there isn’t always an obvious answer as to which one will get us closer to our goal. But you can skin that cat many ways, and I think that our Father in Heaven just wants us to keep our family and marriages as the first priority as we journey through this very difficult time called Life. Have any of you ever heard this talk by Pres Hinckley a few years back to the young women? Here is a link: http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-183-38,00.html ( I am very new to blogging so you may have to just copy and paste it into your browser but the pertinent part is pasted below)
“The whole gamut of human endeavor is now open to women. There is not anything that you cannot do if you will set your mind to it. You can include in the dream of the woman you would like to be a picture of one qualified to serve society and make a significant contribution to the world of which she will be a part.
I was in the hospital the other day for a few hours. I became acquainted with my very cheerful and expert nurse. She is the kind of woman of whom you girls could dream. When she was young she decided she wished to be a nurse. She received the necessary education to qualify for the highest rank in the field. She worked at her vocation and became expert at it. She decided she wanted to serve a mission and did so. She married. *She has three children. She works now as little or as much as she wishes. There is such a demand for people with her skills that she can do almost anything she pleases. She serves in the Church. She has a good marriage. She has a good life. She is the kind of woman of whom you might dream as you look to the future.*
For you, my dear friends, the sky is the limit. You can be excellent in every way. You can be first class. There is no need for you to be a scrub. Respect yourself. Do not feel sorry for yourself. Do not dwell on unkind things others may say about you. Particularly, pay no attention to what some boy might say to demean you. He is no better than you. In fact, he has already belittled himself by his actions. Polish and refine whatever talents the Lord has given you. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life and look for its opportunities, and forever and always be loyal to the Church.”
-Pres Hinckley April 2001
Moana, don’t feel guilty. Annegb, don’t feel guilty. Like many of you have said, we all sometimes feel like we don’t fit in. Why is it so important ot us?! I am gone for my schooling at least 40 hours a week. Ladies in my ward have founded a joyschool group without me and have grown closer to each other because of it. I watch them interract at church and feel SO left out, but why does it matter? My husband supports me, my children love me, and I wouldn’t have time to hang out with them, anyway. Most importantly, I know Heavenly Father still loves me and I believe that He approves of my decisions. (He loves me either way)
Comment by Laura F — June 8, 2005 @ 3:36 pm
A lot of the things that were said in this post remind me of a book
by Allison PearsonI Don’t Know How She Does It. I highly enjoyed this book, even though I’m not a mom yet, and haven’t really worked full time either. (I’m getting my undergraduate degree right now.) But I struggle with balancing everything, and worry about how to balance it all once I’m out in “the real world.” One of the main messages from this book, and one that seems to keep coming up on this blog, is that each of us needs to figure out what works best for us, and not worry so much about how other people view our choices. It does seem that life is hard no matter what we choose, though.
Comment by Olivia — June 8, 2005 @ 3:39 pm
I work full time (two kids who go to the babysitter) and I’m the Primary President of the ward. I live in Southern California and most of the women in my ward actually are SAHMs and it surprised me a little, because I would think, “How can they afford it?” But they don’t pay for the “extras” which my family really doesn’t need (cell phone, DSL, Satelite TiVo, new car when old one died, etc.) And of course, they don’t have my husband’s $50,000 grad school student loans.
But I digress. The wall I really ran into was when I talked to a sister of a friend in the ward. She was married about a year before I was and I knew she had had some medical problems. We were talking about kids and I (as compasionately as I could) asked if she would have fertility complications because of her medical woes. She said that she and her husband hadn’t even considered trying to have kids yet because they couldn’t afford it. I said, “Honey, you’ll never be able to afford it, you just do it anyway”. And she replied that they would have to have two incomes and she WOULD NOT put her kids in daycare, so no kids yet.
And that was the first time I felt kind of angry. Was she implying that it’s better to have zero kids than to take them to a babysitter? That even though I pulled my son from a babysitter that wasn’t working out and interviewed 8 new ones that they were in a horrible environment and that they never should have been born? Who is further from the mark of the Prophet’s council? Sister No kids or Sister Daycare?
The other trouble I have is that I do a lot with my calling, my husband teaches early morning Seminary (so I get the kids ready by myself) and don’t delegate because I’m surrounded by flakes. But I don’t feel like I can maybe ask not to be a Visiting Teacher because my “Working Outside the Home” status is my own choosing and they wouldn’t be sympathetic.
Comment by Carrie W. — June 8, 2005 @ 5:04 pm
I think that what it matter most is the quality of time that you spend with your family rather than the quantity time. i remeber that my mom woudl spend all day at home with us, but she was all the time complaining about us. Probably because she spend so much time that we got in her nerves. Know I see my parents once a month an we get along a lot better that when I used to live with them. What I mean is that if you have the possibility to find a good day care or babysitter and you need to work do it. and when you get home and spend time with your family give them the best of you.
Comment by selena — June 8, 2005 @ 5:48 pm
I remember being in Boston and a visitor from Salt Lake said to me, “So, is your husband a student here? Is that what brought you out here?” As it happened, DH was in school there at the time, but the 5 and a half years I had spent there before DH got into law school were based on MY schooling and MY career choices. I tried not to be offended, but I was.
And I do think there is some distance between working moms and SAHMs, if you don’t want to call it animosity. I have a good friend who is a working mom, and although I love her dearly, we don’t have play groups or go to the park together during the day because, well, she’s always working. Our kids don’t play together, and we go weeks without talking, just because frankly, she’s too busy. I have a much better relationship with the non working mothers in my ward. I don’t feel anger or judgement about women who aren’t doing what I’m doing. I just don’t feel like we have much in common, despite the fact that they clean toilets and deal with poop, too.
Comment by Heather O. — June 8, 2005 @ 7:13 pm
Sorry, I guess I’m pretty much incapable of posting anything without mentioning the word poop.
Comment by Heather O. — June 8, 2005 @ 7:19 pm
Poop, poop, poop
Comment by Lisa — June 9, 2005 @ 7:59 am
wait, I was going to say poop. Oh no, that wasn’t it, I was going to say I wonder too if some of the distance doesn’t also come from the fact that (at least for me) I need to connect with other sahms because I NEED some one to talk to about grown up things.
Even if it’s only cleaning poop (verses spreading poop).
Whereas, women who get paychecks (and men too) get regular opportunities to talk to other adults. So they may not need to network with other mom’s the way the more isolated among us do.
Comment by Lisa — June 9, 2005 @ 8:03 am
Heather O: I remember being in Boston and a visitor from Salt Lake said to me, “So, is your husband a student here? Is that what brought you out here?” As it happened, DH was in school there at the time, but the 5 and a half years I had spent there before DH got into law school were based on MY schooling and MY career choices. I tried not to be offended, but I was.
Heh heh. I once had the same thing happen to me; I was a nursery worker and a new guy in the ward was with his little kid. He asked me where we had moved from, and when I told him (Berkeley), he said, “Oh, was your husband at school there?” I wanted to bop him on the head and remind him that Berkeley went co-ed about 150 years ago (we were both students there when we met). He then proceeded to give me a pompous lecture about the wonderful opportunities available in the area (Silicon Valley)–because as a resident of the place I surely wouldn’t know that an Internet boom was going on! Luckily, he didn’t stick around or I would have been tempted to bop him every week. Good thing I didn’t mention that I was in grad school; who knows what that would have brought forth.
Oh yeah, working moms. I don’t know how you do it all, so you get a hats-off or something. We’re all moms, doing the best we can with what we have. I agree, though, that it’s harder to get together with a mom with a job; that pretty much leaves evenings, and by then we’re both most likely sacked out on the couch.
Comment by dangermom — June 9, 2005 @ 7:02 pm
Dangermom wrote:
Amen, sister.
Just a couple of quibbles:
I am not, nor have I ever been, a housewife. I am not married to a house. Nothing against the blog name. I heart FMH.
I have full-time outside employment, yet I am still a homemaker. A homemaker makes the house a pleasant place to come home to.
I have tried to teach my sons to be homemakers, too. I want them to take responsibility for making their homes attractive and pleasant. Older son, though he keeps his room neat when he’s living at home, does not do so well with his apartment at college. I have high hopes for little boy, though
Comment by Ann — June 11, 2005 @ 7:45 pm
Sort of on this topic: can somebody tell me why I find this series on Meridian Magazine so soul-punishingly depressing? Something about her whole approach (and she’s a perfectly nice woman, and a great mother, I’m sure) just ties me in seventeen kinds of knots.
Comment by Rosalynde — June 12, 2005 @ 9:34 am
Hey, how come my comments won’t come up on the sideroll?
Comment by Rosalynde — June 12, 2005 @ 8:57 pm
Okay, never mind, that was weird. But it’s all good now. Look at my #24, if you want to.
Comment by Rosalynde — June 12, 2005 @ 8:57 pm
I’ve been both a stay-home mom and a fulltime working mom. In years past, when I was working fulltime, my husband was either home with the kids fulltime, or a fulltime college student and home with the kids. We never had to do daycare, but we sacrificed a lot to prevent it. (IOW, we were very, VERY poor.)
When he was going to school and I was working fulltime, we lived in a suburban ward full of mostly stay home moms, but some worked fulltime, and there were no judgements going on at all. But I did feel more comfortable at ward activities talking to the men about baseball. And my husband had more in common with the stay-home moms. We joked about it all the time. It did get a bit frustrating when everyone would always call me about our kids’ activities. I’d always just say, “I have no idea. You need to talk to my husband about that. He’s the mom.”
Now, we’re both working fulltime. We live in Southern California and we just could not afford to live on his salary alone. I’m making about twice as much as he is. And even so, I feel like we’re just going to barely scrape by. We don’t have cell phones, a new car, or tivo! (Carrie W, where are you? I’m in Huntington Beach.)
Comment by Susan M — June 12, 2005 @ 9:45 pm
Well, Moana, Watch Out for Mama started out as a WOHM blog but now it’s just my musings. Anyway please check it out.
I was at home for 5 years but still worked as a freelance writer and editor. As of next month I will have been working outside the home for a year. My hubby’s getting a Ph.D. right now, thus the fulltime status for me. I was so dead set against it for so long but it has worked out well so far. We still do not have a lot of extras (TiVo? new cars? Whatevah!) but we are no longer sinking into a morass of credit card debt so that’s a good thing.
Something I learned about this whole division is that I tended to judge others harshly because I was judging myself harshly. I was not understanding of others because I was not understanding myself. Conversely I was always paranoid about what others thoguht of me because I was far too often thinking negative things about others. This all sounds very nebulous now but in reality it was a big epiphany for me. I’m so much happier realizing that God is understanding of a variety of different circumstances in individuals’ lives.
Back to work now!
Comment by Ana — June 13, 2005 @ 11:22 am
I have a 2 (almost three year old), consider myself a homemaker, work outside the home part-time, have a calling in the ward YW organization and I am seven months pregnant in a 95 degree, 95% humidity NYC summer. Over dinner on sunday night, my husband (who is a NYC attorney who works long hours and many weekends) compassionately suggested that we should hire someone to come and clean the house once a week. I was so surprised that my first internal reaction was to be defensive about my “homemaking” skills, my next internal reaction was a feeling of failure for not being able to be Superwoman. But then, I took a deep breath and realized what a blessing it would be to have someone come in and clean my house. I responded to his suggestion with “That sounds like a great idea.”
I just hate it that women have this need to be so hard on themselves–that includes me.
Comment by Carrie L — June 15, 2005 @ 7:29 am
Rosalynde,
I read some of it (time is precious right now and it a little too long for me to read it all). It didn’t affect me much one way or the other? I would be curious about your take on it however.
Comment by fMhLisa — June 15, 2005 @ 5:16 pm
i really appreciate everyone’s comments here. it means a lot to me that we are “outing” ourselves as less than ideal jugglers of everything. rosalynde and fMhlisa, i just read one of those articles in the meridian series and it’s weird–her ideas aren’t very complex–not that they have to be–but as she seems to value youth in the one i read it seems that what she really digs is immaturity. i don’t know if that vibe is apparent in her other articles. perhaps, a subject for a nother blog entry.
Comment by moana — June 15, 2005 @ 6:31 pm
This discussion of the difference between sahm and working mom’s is interesting - I’d like to twist it a bit to see if anyone out there who is married/ no kids for say…over 2 years or more…feels like there is some distance between yourself and stay at home mom’s in your ward?
I just moved into a new ward 3 months ago after coming to NE a year ago, I’ve been married 3 years and I feel like I can’t make friends or am ‘not part of the group’ because I don’t have kids, although that’s not that far away I hope. Sometimes I feel it’s like this secret organization that they all get to know each other really well because their kids play together and I’m left out of the loop too.
What’s funny is that when we do talk, there’s nothing to discuss! The sahm seem to only want to discuss their children which I have really nothing to contribute, although I try. Another thing is that because I work full time I always have VT companions etc. that are like 20 years older than I, which I feel further distances me from the women in the ward near my age that I want so badly to get to know. Has anyone else felt this way?
Comment by Emily — June 16, 2005 @ 9:33 am
Emily,
I have been married almost 2 years and have no kids and I know just what you’re talking about. The only reason I’ve started getting to know some of the women in the ward who are my age (who have 3-4 kids already) is by enlisting their help for a city recycling project or by asking about book clubs (but now I’ve found my own!! thank you fmh!). Otherwise, it’s usually the older sisters I end up talking to and there are some big cultural differences with them, starting with me having kept my name when I got married. I always get the sense that they’re trying to mother hen me back to conformity–I think I’m vaguely regarded as the ward liberal, but since nobody really knows me that well…. They’re nice enough about it, for the most part, but I have a hard time relating to either them or the SAHMs in the ward and I think a lot of it is because I work full-time. Maybe it all boils down to something like everybody’s busy and they only get to know people who are busy in the same way they are.
The other trouble, frankly, is that our ward is very inactive and the active people are very bad at doing their home and visitng teaching. I’ll have been in this ward for 2 years come September and THIS WEEK, for the first time ever, I had visiting teachers at my house, and that was only because I mentioned something to the RS Pres. a couple months ago and she changed some assignments around. Conversely, 2 of the sisters I’m supposed to visit absolutely refuse to be visited, a 3rd refuses to make appointments (but I can drop by for a quick chat), and the other’s a single working less-active mom who is difficult to get hold of. I’ve taken to writing them all letters, but that doesn’t exactly foster friendships, especially when you never hear back.
Comment by Artemis — June 16, 2005 @ 10:33 am
I definatley hear you there on the “everybody’s busy and they only get to know people who are busy in the same way they are.” We tend to gravitate to those in similar circumstances as us naturally, but I think especially in the LDS culture - hello? what ward doesn’t have an “old timers” bench where all of the widows sit? and don’t you dare sit there becauses they’ll let you know right away that you’re in their spot!
Isn’t it silly though? In the spirit of fellowship we should want to branch out to those in different circumstances and get to know them too - expand our minds/universe a bit too - but of course we are more comfortabel with those who can relate to our situation in life and look for people that our similar to ourselves. You need a good mix - I think its cool that I’ve gotten to know the older ladies in the ward - but like you said there are “cultural” differences and they tend to be the ones that also say untactful things about my not having any children yet either. Sometimes I just want to tell them I’m working on it and ask them if they have any “suggestions” just to shock them. No really, I’m in the same mind set of the sahm, just on the other side of teh fence, I really want to get to know those that are my age but find that there is not much in common - I can’t help it that most of them have 3-4 children already, and the time for me wasn’t right until now? Oy! I guess that ’s what brought me here - to have an opportunity to talk to faceless people about personal things because I haven’t found a good local girlfriend here to hash it out with.
Tangent - You mentioned keeping your maiden name - I’ve got to be honest I’ve only met a few women who’ve done that and never had the guts to ask why? Heck, sometimes I’ve even wondered why I didn’t do it just to keep MY family ties, because my family is way cooler than his. (ouch)
Comment by Emily — June 16, 2005 @ 2:20 pm
I was married w/out children for 8 years (not our choice) before our first was born. I DEFINITELY felt like an island. Now that we have two children (now married 13 yrs) I still don’t fit in. So maybe it wasn’t the kid status.
But even as a mom who does not work for an employer outside of the home during daytime hours, I also refuse to accept the label “housewife.” Won’t even acknowledge it on government forms where occupation is requested. I’ll put one of my part time jobs, or simply write “mother” because I am and always have been a terrible housekeeper. To me, a housekeeper is a paid maid.
You know, the pressure and expectation to NOT be a “career woman” when I was young really made it hard for me to decide what to study in college and what to do with my life once I graduated childless. And I’m really mad about it! I didn’t get the degree I wanted ’cause I thought it was unacceptable for a mormon woman, and I wasted my time waiting to carry a pregnancy to term. I know, when you know better, you do better, but I’m really glad that YW are now being more frequently encouraged to get educated and develop their talents for their own sake, not just for their assumed to have someday children and spouses.
Comment by LisaB — June 16, 2005 @ 3:32 pm
Preach it, sister!
Comment by fMhLisa — June 16, 2005 @ 3:55 pm
Emily,
I actually did a whole guest post on this last month, so for a more complete answer, I recommend you check it out. However, the short answer is that I simply did not want to do it, traditions and expectations be damned. The more I tried to talk myself into actually doing it, the more depressed I got about the issue, and what it boiled down to was that my name was MY NAME and my identity and getting married didn’t change who I was. Not to mention that it was a one-sided deal–I was making the same commitment as DH but he didn’t have to change his identity to fit within mine or define himself in terms of his spouse. So I continue as Ms. Artemis, same as before. Our kids will have both last names, though the current agreement is that his name will be the last last name, and that way they’ll grow up feeling connected to both heritages.
It’s been something of a struggle, simply because it is so uncommon and because church culture tends to put MASSIVE social pressure on you to change your name. But I’m glad I did it, if for no other reason than I feel like I stayed true to myself and what I truly wanted.
Comment by Artemis — June 16, 2005 @ 3:58 pm
Emily,
I feel I must answer your shout out to the married, no-children, full-time working misfits. I too have been married for nearly three years, am a childless “career woman,” and I fit in not at all in my ward.
I’m not really sure what is responsible for the disconnect, because I do try to be friendly and engage people in conversation, etc, but there genuinely seems to be no desire to get to know me–which is odd because I’m obviously completely RAD.
It seems like the ward just doesn’t know quite what to make of me, and sometimes (this will sound very egotistical), it seems that they’re almost in awe of me. I should qualify this statement by saying that I live in a Brooklyn ward comprised almost exclusively of immigrant converts among whom the presence of any “real Mormon” (that is, a BIC from Utah–I actually I heard that phrase used by some of the ward members, I’m not making it up!) causes an unsettling amount of deference. They seem to assume that I know all the “right” answers and that I need no guidance, and therefore, no support. I will one-up Artemis’ VT record and say that I have *never* been visited, and to my knowledge am not even on the list of people to be visited (yes, I checked…ahem).
But add to all that the facts that I kept my own name (for the same reasons Artemis cites), work full time, am fairly confident in expressing my views (many of them shall we say..unorthodox), and that I seem to be bucking the system by being 27 and childless, and I must seem like some bizarre, unsolvable puzzle. But maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe I just look scary. I dunno.
I, too, have come to look on this blog as a place to chat amongst the girlfriends I wish I had in my neck o’ the woods. Thanks ladies!
Comment by Athena — June 16, 2005 @ 5:25 pm
I’ll post on the other side. Though I’m a mommy now, it was about 5 years before we had kids, and in our last ward, I felt pretty good–we were there for 3 years. (We moved here when I was 7 months along w/ our first.) There were a lot of young families, some with kids, some not yet. My closest buddies were a mom/chemist having her 2nd baby, a newly-divorced mom of a 5-yo, a mom of two boys, and the childless RS president (who has since adopted). Oh and two homeschooling moms and the choir director, they had older kids. Other friends were having their first children; there were a lot of pregnancies at the same time, and at the same time I lost my first.
Anyway I must say that while I’ve always felt an oddball (and I think most if not all women do), that was a great ward with good people, and we’re still in touch with several of them 5 years later. I did not find that children or not stood in the way of friendships, and it’s funny, but at the time I didn’t really notice that I was probably one of the only women in grad school there. No one seemed to notice it, and I didn’t either.
Also, I have a good friend here who is single and working, and I’m very glad we’re friends and that she has many other friends in the stake (we’re no longer in the same ward).
Final question: is it unusual for all you out there to have waited to have children? As I said, it was 5 years for us, and mostly on purpose. Is that not ordinary?
Comment by dangermom — June 16, 2005 @ 6:58 pm
I found your Blog to be most amusing!!!!!! I am reading it while i am at WORK! I am a full-time working mom and not because i have to be. My husband can support us both but being a stay at home mom never occured to me even growing up. Not that I don’t mind kids i just never had that burning desire to stay home with my children. Mind you i only have one and don’t plan on having anymore (not that i planned the first one). So i guess people would call me selfish but i do enjoy my eating out every night, my cell phone, my cable with the extras, internet, and so forth. so just writing to say thank you for making my day a little bit more amusing. keep it up!
Comment by GEORGIA MOM — July 10, 2008 @ 8:05 am
DAUGHTERS OF PERDITION LOVE CHOCOLATE!!!
Comment by Phoenix Lyons — June 7, 2009 @ 11:16 am
Is there really a restaurant called “ALLAH’S ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTERS”? Hell no, I’m not being careful!
Comment by Phoenix Lyons — March 24, 2010 @ 4:01 pm
If law enfocement can use lsd to solve a crime, citizens can be vigilantes too.
Comment by Phoenix Lyons — March 25, 2010 @ 9:34 pm
On behalf of the rainbow gangs, I declare that the whites aren’t the only anarchists. Since rainbows are half fire who do you think is instigating it?
Comment by Phoenix Lyons — April 3, 2010 @ 4:25 pm
Lambert is only half of the equation, the other half of the church seems to be a couterfeit phoenix who is in actuality a bound devil guliver! The proverbial wolves are insatiably licking their chops for anarchy.
Comment by Phoenix Lyons — June 16, 2010 @ 6:05 pm
Since they are ending the war anyway, I’m more tea partier than republican somehow. The democrats want to bring back the draft anyway but it’s better than debtor’s prison. Does anyone deny that young men and even women qualify?
Comment by Phoenix Lyons — July 21, 2010 @ 6:02 pm