A Mommy Story

Sometimes I wonder if Linda Hirshman likes the taste of her leather Manolo pumps? She’s given another interview, once again attacking her favorite subject: the stay at home mom. She argues that any time spent at home raising your child is a waste of your precious degree. She also claims that in order to have the most power, you need to have only one child max, and stay away from degrees in art. The entire interview is here.

As someone who now works part-time and would love to stay home full-time with my daughter, I totally disagree with Ms. Hirshman. The point of feminism is to give all women choice. We have the choice to work or not to work. We have the choice to study art or study business. (And besides, Linda? Your degree was in Philosophy. I don’t see you CEO’ing any businesses with a degree in that.) We have a say in our reproductive rights. And telling women they should only have one child max, and that child should be put in daycare so you can keep working, is no better than a conservative man telling women their place is in the home, having several children and caring for them.

Yes, I am an educated woman. True, I have a Bachelor of Arts in History, which qualifies me to do little more than spout off facts about British monarchs, but it also shows I went that extra step and have a well-rounded college education. With my education, I have the power to do the most important job in the entire world, more important than any CEO of a major corporation or the president of any university. I have the power to teach my children. I will teach them about tolerance, about equality, and about the value of history and its ability to repeat itself if ignored.

My being out of the work force for a few years to raise my children will not have the catastrophic effect you say it will. I have no ambitions to be a corporate drone. And I do not see how being a corporate drone, a backstabbing, climb-your-way-to-the-top-clawing-and-kicking member of the business world will bring me “influence, honor, compensation, a way of being political and a hand in shaping the world around you.”

You and I, Ms. Hirshman, are clearly from different worlds. You scoff at volunteer work and think a fancy corporate job with a big paycheck is the only way to shape the world. Yet I could point you to thousands of volunteer organizations that, with the help of their volunteers, are changing the world for the better. What can your 3-piece suit job do to shape the world, other than inspire new heights of greed and commercialism?

And where is it written that a woman can’t do great things working part-time? There are many female professors teaching their classes, writing books and attending conferences, all part-time so they can have a greater role in raising their children. Plus, you always seem to leave out the fact that men are also finding a way to stay home with their children now. You say that women are the ones who naturally are forced to care for their children. Well, maybe the real truth is that men have been forced to be the ones who worked, and only now are finding it easier to ask to be stay at home dads. The walls of gender restrictions are coming down for both genders – let’s not limit it to women.

Finally, I pose this question to you, Ms. Hirshman. What is your advice to a woman who works at a daycare and then has children? She is clearly working as you would want her to. Should she put her child in daycare so that she can continue to work at her daycare? Doesn’t that seem just the slightest bit silly?

Linda, quit giving feminists a bad reputation.

Also, please keep those ideas coming for my contest. The deadline is just over a week away, and I could really use a new logo, tagline, or t-shirt!