WAHMs and SAHMs CAN CoExist Peacefully

Elana Centor says working moms aren’t talking about the Great Places To Work List. Apparently, neither is anyone else.

So what’s up with all the silence? Is it because women don’t care? Do the believe the list is not relevant? Or, is it a more practical issue — working mothers simply don’t have time to weigh in on the significance, gains, surprises and trends listed in the top 100? (via BlogHer and Elana’s Blog)

I think it’s probably that 1-we don’t have time and 2-we really don’t care. It’s not like most of us can ever hope to work in one of those companies. Maybe if we were in a big city, but the majority of women/men in America are not even in close proximity to those companies (and don’t even get me started about the huge number of non-US bloggers).

In fairness to Elana though, her post just got thinking about working women. There’s nothing in the post she wrote that fuels or even mentions this debate, it just reminded me of a recent debate because her post has some fascinating quips from morons about working mothers. Apparently there are alot of people who, showing their gross immaturity, think that parenting is no different than caring for a pet. Grrr…

What bothers me about any attention given to WAHM or SAHM seems to only start the US vs THEM debate that I am so bored with… It seems you can’t bring up one positively without someone on the other side saying that it’s horrible for your kids to do the other (or vice versa).

I was on an extremely popular woman’s networking list for several months up until last week. The reason I left is that the only side that wasn’t being told was that of the mother who didn’t fit their mold.

These predominantly work-outside-the-home moms were angry at the recent Forbes article, “Don’t Marry A Career Woman”. And, they should have been. That was one of the most cruel and one-sided pieces of janky journalism I’ve ever seen.

However, the response that one woman gave was alarming to this SAHM/WAHM:

” I’d also be interested to see some stats on the percentage of unfaithful men who have stay at home wives.”

My first response was to (nicely) ask her to append her suggestion as I was ‘trying hard not to be offended’.

Um, I’m trying not to be offended here. What are you implying please…

Robyn Tippins
A work-from-home mom

The moderator quickly let me know that my response was ‘flaming’ so I would need to edit it. Though I was surprised, I did append it and I wrote this:

I read the Forbes article, and I agree it was one-sided, but how is your comment above different. The news media enjoys pitting Working Moms against SAHMs and we have to avoid joining in. Your comment made me wince inside because it is something every woman fears and to suggest that SAHMs are somehow doing something that might make their husband more likely to cheat is, frankly, hurtful.

In order to prevent these ridiculous articles from appearing, they have to stop garnering page views. For that to happen, women like us must not be tempted to throw blame at the other side. The author is the one who deserves your anger, he provoked it. However, don’t place any on SAHMs. They, just like us, are just moms trying to do the right thing. The media surely does make that confusing for us all sometimes.

Robyn Tippins (A work-from-home mom)

As I didn’t hear back, I assumed it would go as written. Instead, when it hit the list (two days later) it had several sections removed and had been completely reworded (and was no longer my words). However, it did not say it had been edited, I was not told it needed to be edited further and they actually still kept my name attached.

After going to the business owner and seeing this was not a priority to her, I quickly resigned the subscription. The temptation to name the group is great, but out of respect to the owner (yes, I do still hold her in high regard, even though we disagree on this intellectual property issue) I have chosen to mention it here, vaguely.

Why do we think it’s us against them? We don’t have to agree fully to agree that we are all trying our best to be the best parents we can be… No matter your niche title (SAHM, WAHM, Working Outside the Home Mom), we’re all Moms and we’re trying.

If you’re tempted to make yourself feel better about your decision by demeaning someone else’s decision then maybe you don’t support your own decision as much as you think.

/rant off