Go read "Joys of a working mom," in today's Denver Post.
Jessica Peck Corry muses on the mothering business: all the parenting experts saying you should stay at home with the kids, versus the experts saying you'll fall irrevocably behind in the workforce if you quit working.
She recalls an incident:
At a Christmas party with educated female friends, they seemed to gang up on me, questioning what it must be like to spend so many hours away from my daughter each day. Women, I've learned, are so much crueler than men..."
A good friend of mine -- a working mom with a fantastic job that she loves-- had the same thing happen.
Having recently moved to Stapleton, she attended the local block party, where it came out that she worked full time. One Neighbor Mom jumped on her, blathering on and on about how she had tried to work, but just couldn't bear to have her children's milestones be witnessed by a stranger, and how she used to work for a Famous Big Ad Agency in New York, and really, her career couldn't mean less to her compared to the pure joy of raising her child...
My friend went home in tears.
I wondered if I have ever gone overboard in defending my reasons to stay at home with my kid. Women hold each other to such high standards, it seems! At my Stapleton block party, I was one of the only stay-at-home moms, and I found myself answering the "and what do you do?" questions with vague references to my freelancing, lest they think I'm spoiled.
Why do we feel we owe people an explanation for the choices we make?
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