Blogger Masks Archaic, Sexist Views About Raising Children By Putting SAHM’s On A Pedestal
This week, blogger Matt Walsh wrote a post called, “You’re A Stay at Home Mom? What Do You Do All Day?” In it, he adamantly defends his wife’s choice to be a stay at home mom. I love it when people recognize how hard it is to raise children and acknowledge that it is a job. But Walsh takes his defense of motherhood way off the deep end.
Of course not all women can be at home full time. It’s one thing to acknowledge that; it’s quite another to paint it as the ideal. To call it the ideal, is to claim that children IDEALLY would spend LESS time around their mothers. This is madness. Pure madness. It isn’t ideal, and it isn’t neutral. The more time a mother can spend raising her kids, the better. The better for them, the better for their souls, the better for the community, the better for humanity. Period.
Period. Did you hear that, ladies? Staying at home to raise your children is better for humanity. Period.
His rant was inspired by a chance meeting with a woman in a coffee shop who implied that his wife’s life was a giant vacation because she stayed home to raise her kids instead of going back to work:
“Permanently? Well, for the foreseeable future she will be raising the kids full time, yes.”
“Yeah, mine is 14 now. But I’ve had a career the whole time as well. I can’t imagine being a stay at home mom. I would get so antsy. [Giggles] What does she DO all day?”
“Oh, just absolutely everything. What do you do all day?”
“…Me? Ha! I WORK!”
Implying that a woman who stays home with the kids doesn’t “work” is really stupid. While I appreciate where he’s coming from, Walsh just meets stupid with stupid – swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction for his response-rant:
Yes, my wife is JUST a mother. JUST. She JUST brings forth life into the universe, and she JUST shapes and molds and raises those lives. She JUST manages, directs and maintains the workings of the household, while caring for children who JUST rely on her for everything. She JUST teaches our twins how to be human beings, and, as they grow, she will JUST train them in all things, from morals, to manners, to the ABC’s, to hygiene, etc. She is JUST my spiritual foundation and the rock on which our family is built. She is JUST everything to everyone. And society would JUST fall apart at the seams if she, and her fellow moms, failed in any of the tasks I outlined.
Yes, she is just a mother. Which is sort of like looking at the sky and saying, “hey, it’s just the sun.”
I realize you’re trying to come off as some super-supportive mom-lover, but this is over-the-top.
“Society would JUST fall apart at the seams” if women failed at what you deem to be tasks that mothers are supposed to perform? Tell that to all the single fathers out there molding totally functional family units. Tell that to households that need two incomes to make ends meet. Tell that to all the mothers out there who successfully figure out how to work and have a family. Tell that to gay couples who manage to maintain a household without the “mom” you seem to think is so necessary. Dads are just as important as moms when it comes to running a household and raising children. Society will not “fall apart at the seams” if there is no stay at home mom present in the household.
That’s JUST ridiculous.
(photo: Flickr/ Ethan)
