Catching up with old news

I'm a good week behind the times here, or more. Presidential politicking is blessedly far away.  I know that it is civicly irresponsible of me to be ignoring the big decision coming up in November, but I'm grateful to be far from the throes of angst and mudpie slinging.  Big issues are at stake, but I keep hoping some perfectly awesome philosopher-king will ride up on a white horse and save the day. (I was just talking with my mom this morning about the crusade to redefine marriage. If marriage eventually is redefined, then perhaps the Church should come up with a new name for marriage, something to indicate its sacramental and procreative nature. A question of semantics, but semantics matter.)

I've also been catching up with blogs, after a respite from reading them because of travel and school.  Lots of mother-issues under discussion, provoked by Time's nursing toddler cover and CNN's Mother's Day  anti-mothering defense. Both seem deliberately delivered to provoke controversy.  The editors probably love the backlash, so I won't add my two cents.  

Along similar lines, Clare Coffey’s article about the glorification of domesticity and mothering (in response to political jabs that I missed) also generated some interesting discussion.  I probably don't need to comment on this either, but to silence the circulating thoughts, I'm writing them down. I read Coffey's article after I read Sally’s remarks, which seemed convincing, and then the comments, which was probably a mistake, because my reading was a bit biased.  My impression was not so much “what naivete!” but “what a difference a generation makes!” I know few real women who claim to find complete fulfillment, or a sense of glorious martyrdom, in being a mother, but blogs may give that perception. It also seems to me that a lot of men are doing a lot more parenting than they used to do.  And does the generation just below mine perhaps put more emphasis on doing things "right"?  

Most of the women I grew up with had good paying jobs lined up to begin after they picked up their college diplomas, unless they were going to spend a year or two doing service work (seeking cheap adventure as well as global peace?), going to graduate school, or traveling. I was the first of my college friends to get married, and my wedding was a whole year after graduation because my future husband was still in school and I was going to grad school. Being a stay at home mom was a little counter-cultural and crunchy, but none of my immediate acquaintances said anything of praise or blame when I left my parttime, stopgap job to have a baby nine months after we married.  Most of my small group of college friends married, had children, and now are raising their children, some while working either parttime or as volunteers, and some full time.

Being a liberal arts major, I never anticipated having a high-paying career, nor believed that fulfillment was to be found anywhere but in the search for Truth.  Nor have I ever cared enough about fashion consciousness to put effort into looking cute at the playground where I might be critiqued by other people's nannies.  I've probably perpetuated the stereotype of the frazzled mother, but if I weren't the frazzled mother, I'd probably be the frazzled schoolteacher or librarian, or whatever. I have that kind of hair.

Admittedly though, I have glorified the idea of motherhood to a certain extent, but this glorification, and ideas about education and fertility and nurturing, were based a good deal on books like Love and Responsibility and Familiaris Consortio, which made my decision to stay home seem noble rather than sacrificial. I’d had a lot of babysitting experience, too, like Coffey, so I thought I knew how to take care of kids, but babysitters don’t have to stay up nights nursing or calming sick kids or worrying about all the ways they are messing up their children psychologically. Plus, I had my brief taste of graduate school and working life, and then happily settled in at home. It wasn’t until a couple of years into it that I realized how hard it was to give up worldly things, like work that wasn’t undone within 2 minutes, adult conversation, reading late into the night, etc. But I never really completely gave up those things, so I've never really felt like a true martyr. And a part of me suspects that the internet artificially inflates the number of people who actually fit the mold that Clare describes.

Since I’ve had paying jobs and I’ve sent my kids to school at different times, I don’t exactly fit the stereotype that Coffey seems to be rejecting.  Have I missed out on something by not working regularly? I’ve made sacrifices, but I’ve also been able to do a lot. I’ve loved being able to take field trips and spend time volunteering and hanging out at parks and libraries.  I’ve also loved my little parttime jobs. I’ve always kind of assumed I’d go to work when the kids were older, but to be honest, I’ve gotten a little lazy. I like being able to volunteer, and workout, read, go to daily Mass, grocery shop during the day, bake every once in awhile, take trips without taking leave, - all those humane perks that make being a stay-at-home mom less of a martyrdom. Working fulltime doesn’t sound so appealing any more.

I don’t suppose it’s surprising that Coffey’s generation should start to backlash against the “it’s good to stay home” mentality.  I am practically old enough to be her mother. Homeschooling/staying at home are no longer new and unusual. What was counter-cultural to my generation – rejecting our mothers’ rally to join the women’s lib movement and be career women – is now what the youth are rebelling against.

The other essay Pentimento linked to was the Charming Disarray one about homeschooling. Again, what a difference a generation makes. When I was datable, most guys my age had never heard of home schooling, let alone thought about asking their potential wives to do it. Granted, I didn’t exactly hang out with the orthodox Catholic crowd back then. It was still pretty fringe movement-ish.

I can understand her objection to it being a marriage criteria.  I probably wouldn’t have dated a guy who asked me to home school either. But I might have dated one who wanted to live in a tent. I like camping.  So I have to disagree with her argument that both home schooling and camping are emergency-only options, because some people, like myself, actually enjoy both of these pursuits.  (And I had an "Ideal Man List" also - created sometime in early adolescence, which included things like "Likes outdoor activities".)

I suppose my own decision to home school took root in small increments – starting with a sense of disappointment with my own education, moving on to idealistic solutions based on reading classic novels and conservative books and periodicals of my grandfather’s. And I liked the people I met who homeschooled. I liked their kids. My college theology teacher’s kids were probably the biggest influence on my decision to home school. I loved that family.  Finally, in our early marriage, my husband didn’t make a lot of money for private school tuition, nor did I think many private schools were worth the money. 

Now that we’ve had a chance to experience a variety of educational options, I have to say, I can see comparable goods in all of them. Thus, my decision about next year is hard.  The number of things I like about home schooling and about regular schools are pretty close to equal. There are also a nearly equal number of things that I don't like about both options.

Both young bloggers are good writers: a part of me felt tempted by their arguments to chuck my ideals, put the kids in public school, and go back to work.  But there are no easy answers. I don’t know where we’ll be living in two years, let alone what my career plans are.

I do know I’m glad I’m not in the dating scene. Yikes. It all seemed so much simpler before the internet.