Motherhood as subversive action

Sometimes I worry about reinforcing gender stereotypes by not working outside the home. I always give a little inner shudder when someone tells me that staying at home with kids is the most important work. Not that I don't agree that it is absolutely necessary and crucial work for us to raise our children. I just question American society's commitment to this crucial work. After all, family-supportive public policies like paid family leave or minimum living wages or affordable childcare options are largely left to the whims of the market. So such well-meaning sentiments ring too shallow for me.

I think the so-called mommy wars are mostly manufactured by media, but the pitting of women against each other is not new. We learn it from birth, and it's so intricately linked in our psyche that any aberration from what we understand to be womanhood can feel like an attack on our very being. The guilt of being a woman is pervasive and manifold.

Like being a stay-at-home mom is not a good enough feminine role model for my sons. Like raising my sons myself is not feminist enough. But I should say that much of this is inside my head, which is where the patriarchy is most powerful.

Actually I know that all of us, women and men, struggle to balance work and family and chores and identities and relationships and futures and destinies. One of the things I love most about raising my kids in New York City is the incredible diversity of fates that they are exposed to. We know moms and dads who may or may not earn money outside the home, who are artists, lawyers, actors, therapists, doctors, teachers, bankers, drivers, musicians, servers, business owners, writers, etc. And we are all both comfortable and uncomfortable in our current fates to varying degrees.

For me, being mother to these children is being true to myself, and I am very aware of and grateful for the many privileges that enable me to focus on just that. But I also hope I can show them that there are multitudinous ways of being and living. I have no aspirations for my children. I try to raise them so that they will know themselves and make their own choices mindfully. This will likely be the most radical thing I've ever done.