The pressures on families to have both parents working outside the home are omnipresent; to me, they’re a bit suffocating. At times I resent it and feel depressed about it because we seem to forget so easily that life isn’t just about the material. We are inundated with a simple, shallow, message: “Spend, spend, spend.” Home improvement stores want our money so our homes will reek with domestic perfection, with just the right shade of robin’s egg blue on the kitchen walls, the perfect balance of annuals and perennials trailing up the walk, and a themed out room for each member of the family. Relatives and friends want for us to be able to fly around the globe for visits – who wouldn’t want that? And to do all of this, to have all of this, both mother and father need to work outside the home. And the longer we buy into this paradigm, the more normal it seems. We are to send the kids to a daycare for the price of a second mortgage and then we are to work ourselves into an early grave to pay for child care that is often not as good as what we could provide. There will be a time, maybe it’s already here in many places, where children will think it odd and quaint that one parent used to stay at home.
On top of the material pressures, there are the political ones. As a person who proudly calls herself a feminist, even on an Orthodox Jewish website if that gives you a sense of my enthusiasm for that moniker, we women who stay home are often looked down on and told that what we are doing isn’t important because we aren’t competing in traditionally male arenas- politics, academia, running non-profits and companies. Many folks of either gender see it as politically indulgent for one person to stay at home. It is seen as a waste of time, and a waste of a perfectly good worker bee, and a waste of a perfectly good education. Some of my fellow feminists wonder if women are really changing the world if we are at home with our kids for years on end.
I’m sorry if that last sentence caused you to spray diet coke all over your screen. To clean it off use distilled water, a little vinegar, and a flannel dust rag. Actually I had to look up how to clean off a flat screen monitor. Because stay-at-home moms aren’t cleaning experts, we aren’t maids. At least I am not, and nor are many of the women and a few men I know who stay at home. We are doing spiritual work that is much more important than knowing how to get a spot off a carpet. We are shaping the world on a micro level, but in ways that are anything but small.
Before I get to the big punch line, my big argument for why we are changing the world, let me make a disclaimer. There are many families where both parents must work outside the home even when the children are quite young. I am not judging you. It is simply a fiscal reality for some people that in order to pay for basic necessities like healthcare and groceries- and for extremely important religious schooling- both parents must work outside the home. I get it and I don’t judge.
So are we changing the world? Yes, yes, a million times over. When a parent gives a child attention, company, love, instruction, playtime, a puppet show, a story hour, a bath, a home cooked meal, a snuggle stolen here and there throughout the day- we are changing the world. We are teaching a fellow human being, one given to us to raise by our Creator, to love. We are showing that human through actions, through deed, what it means to be part of a tribe, a team, a family of man. Through millions of small actions we create in them the ability to bond with others, to spread the wealth – not material wealth but the spiritual wealth that no one can take from us or tax- love. We are showing them that life is not about the junk with which we surround ourselves, as fun as those toys can be and those trips can be. It is about elevating ourselves spiritually, and therefore the world around us, through loving action.
Our children are given to us by Hashem. They are not inevitable. They are not a burden. They are not workers. They are not appendages. They are a gift. Our Creator hires us for the most important job on earth, to raise a child to fulfill his or her unique spiritual mission here on earth. The work we do for our spouse, for our family, for our child – we are partnering with Hashem. When we as parents, as members of a family, instill morals through loving action in our children, we create spiritual agents of change. We create people who are offended by injustice because they know what justice is at its core. They may not be playing on the travel league soccer team that costs four grand a year. They may not know what it is like to live on a street where all the lawns are manicured. They may not have the ski trip in the Alps over winter break. But they are whole people spiritually speaking who will – God willing- go out into the world and through their actions lift up their neighbor.
Feminism is about justice. It is about a belief in the equality of man and woman, something that is totally in line with Torah. It is about creating a world in which we see beyond the physical to the soul of the person standing before us. Feminism is about working as equal partners to elevate our existence on earth, to restore balance. Feminism without spirituality is merely politics. When we raise children spiritually, which requires our presence in their lives, we create world citizens who understand that there are inalienable rights and obligations that we all have as humans who reflect our Creator. The pay we receive for this work is a spiritual connection with Hashem that is worth more than any McMansion, European vacation, diploma, or promotion. I didn’t need to run for office to create this change. No one needed to hire me to create this wonderful little citizen. And I’ve got a beautiful office – it’s just cordoned off with baby gates.
11/10/2008
Feminism is a stolen word by the politicos like gay, which used to be a sweet name for some little girl. Mothers are vital to life, l’chaim; the whole process of pregnacy, birth, and raising a child to enter adulthood; does change the world for the better; without it we have Noach’s flood; a great worlwide spiritual decent. So if you want to purify the ideal of women then drop the politially incorrect and elivate Emma. The samething happen for youths to teens. Rewording divides families.