One of These Books Makes Me Feel Kinda Yucky

Friday evening after dinner, I played wiffle ball in the front yard with my three children. It was a warm night with lots of laughter and we had about an hour of fun until the mosquitoes really got busy and drove us inside. I was the pitcher the entire time. My sons noticed that my cheering gets louder and more enthusiastic when my daughter is at bat than when they are. They weren't complaining, just observing, and sweetly followed my lead of "atta girl" and exhorting her to "show 'em where you live," "show that ball who's boss," and from my six year old "whack the dingleberries out of it!" God forgive me, but dingleberry is his new favorite word. When my boys are at the plate, I tend only to comment on their extraordinary hits. Why the discrepancy, I've wondered all weekend long. Perhaps because my sons don't need my encouragement to swing like there's no tomorrow. They do everything like there's no tomorrow. They'd rather swing hard and miss than just stand there. My daughter waits for the perfect pitch and even then is nice to the ball. She doesn't really whack it. She's a girl who always lets others go first and when she's interrupted says "never mind" or "it's not important" about her ideas. I don't want that for her. I want her to fight for what she wants, to attack life, to never back down or bow out. I'm filled with guilt that I may have taught her to discount herself by the fact of my stay-at-home momhood. I've been at home full time for her entire life and I worry about it. I worry that she hasn't heard me tell tales of daily struggles and triumphs in the workplace. I worry that the only financial contribution she sees me make to the family is writing out the checks to pay our bills and clipping coupons. Even when I remind myself that staying at home allowed me to take her to years of speech therapy and her baby brother to physical therapy for the first eighteen months of his life, to volunteer scores of hours in her class, to chaperone dozens of field trips, to be the one who cared for her when she was sick, clapped for her during school performances, and help with homework, still I worry. So you would think that Dr. Laura Sclessinger's latest book, In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms would make me feel better, but it doesn't. Probably because I'm inclined to dislike Dr. Laura. She insists that mothers should stay at home full time for the sake of their children and that in the first three years of life the best caretaker of a baby is the body it came out of and the breast it sucked at. That is a not too loose paraphrase. When asked in a recent Wall Street Journal interview at what point she advises mothers to go back to work, Dr. Laura said, "The answer is never." Yikes! She feels mothers should be home whenever their kids are. I don't buy that. In fact, I think the experience I had of babysitting my younger sister on afternoons when my own mom was at work helped make me a good parent. Not a good stay-at-home parent, just a good parent. There's so much to be gained from the example of a working mom as well. I feel much better about having recently read Emma Gilbey Keller's The Comeback. In it she presents seven stories of women who went from career to stay at home parenting and back to their careers. This book was encouraging because I also worry that nobody will want to hire me after all these years home. ( Clearly, I'm a worrier. Don't get me started on children choking, driving on icy roads, thin ice, insufficient sunscreen application, and head injuries!) The Comeback is interesting in that these seven women, and actually the author herself, had very different situations, and all were able to go back to satisfying careers after years at home with the kids. It eases fears about on ramps and off ramps and becoming obsolete. I had quite a bit to obsess over this Mother's Day weekend, but I'm glad it ended on a high note with The Comeback.