Today's blog entry is a response to Amy Glass , "I look Down on Young Women With Husbands and Children and I'm Not Sorry" written on January 15, 2014.
I realize its been over a month and I'm sure many have responded to her writing.
Since I am new to the blog world I thought I'd throw my "Keep it real" response.
Here is my open letter blog response to her:
Dear Ms.Glass,
I want to applaud you for your well written thoughts in regards to young women with husbands and children and how you look down upon them without apology.
I too want to vomit when those that say feminism is about validating every choice a women makes.
After all, why should we validate a women who walks down the aisle, gets knocked up and spends her days in a house full of toddlers, doing dishes, laundry, scrubbing toilets, sweeping crumbs, washing floors, cleaning hand prints from the walls, washing window smears,picking up toys, ironing, cooking, changing dirty diapers, wiping snot from a preschoolers nose, packing lunches, talking baby talk, teaching ABC's and 123's, singing old McDonald had a farm 50 times a day, reading the same Dr. Suess book over and over again watching Finding Nemo for the thousandth time, scheduling Dr. appointments, running errands, and greeting a man at the end of the day with a smile and a hot cooked meal.
You are right we should not validate this and treat it as some sort of milestone in a women's life, or accomplishment because as you say "they are actually super easy tasks" that anyone can do. Anyone can walk down the aisle and anyone can get knocked up, anyone can stay home and run a dishwasher and washer machine, yes anyone can scrub toilets , wipe snot, cook, clean pack lunches, wash windows and do all the things a stay at home mom does. But, the fact is Ms. Glass not everyone does these things. It truly is reserved for the "house wife", "stay at home mom", and "homemaker".
Working moms get to experience hints of this work before and after work while their child spends their day in school or childcare. A lot of them pay women like me to do this work for them, while they run off to work supporting themselves, but in fact if it weren't for someone caring for their child/children they wouldn't be able to work and be successful as they would have to be home doing it themselves.
You are right the dominate culture will tell you as a woman that you can have it all and still have a husband and children and I agree with you, it is a lie.
When you get married you give yourself away to the other person it is a selfless lifetime commitment you are embarking on, and many give up and end up in divorce, marriage is not for the faint of heart. Likewise, when you get "knocked up" you truly are giving up every part of yourself to this little being who is dependent of you for everything from the time he or she is conceived and until adulthood. It is not easy nor is meant for everyone, truly it is a gift.
So while I agree with you that we should not validate women who chose to live their lives this way or applaud them when they can be doing anything, because truly laundry will never be as important as being a Doctor.
No, we should not validate these women but rather we should be celebrating these women. Celebrate them for responding to their calling for their willingness to sacrifice and willingness to give up all the "important things" like being a Doctor, Engineer or building buildings, because to their husband and children they have all the validity they need.
They are clothed with dignity and strength, they are confident in their job, they have no boss to dictate them yet they run and manage their own homes with pride.
So while we may secretly like to gloat about how hard it is to manage a home and children, we cant expect women like you to understand and frankly we aren't looking for you to understand nor do we look for your validity, praise or celebration for that matter. Stay at home moms and homemakers have more validity, more praise, and a houseful of voices celebrating and cheering them on day after day after day more than any one else.
Our joy is found in serving those that we love and seeing those we love happy by the work of our hands we enjoy not missing any milestone in the lives of our kids, where as most moms who work miss out on these things.
We love what we do and do what we love. No one is forcing us to be home with our children and love our husbands some of us chose this purposely, some of us embrace being a homemaker and feel proud to stay home even if we just fold laundry and do dishes all day. We know that folding laundry and doing dishes may not be important to women like you you may even look down on us for it, but guess what, the opinions that matter most to us are the little faces we wake to everyday and in the end when we are old we will reap the fruit of our labor when our children and grandchildren rise and bless our name.
Sincerely Homemaking For Real Women
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