When you are a stay-at-home mom, the world gets very small — nursing and diapers, and then when that is mastered, adding in the rest of the laundry, the bills, the dishes, the groceries and the tidying up. I almost added meals to that list, but thankfully, my husband does most of the cooking.
I embraced all of this with gusto when Seamus — now almost 19 months — was born. Before baby, I was the kind of person who always said yes to almost everything: plan this action, sit on this committee, give this talk, attend this conference, run this race, write this article, meet these people, take on this new commitment, be in these two places at once. After baby, I relished, reveled in and rollicked with having created a demanding, wholly cuddly and delightful reason to say “no” to just about everything outside of my front door.
I learned to love my small, domestic, mommy world. I learned that it was precious and finite. I learned that many mommies covet and crave and cannot have what my husband and I have chosen. I learned that saying “no” to a lot of the big things meant that I could say “yes” to my son, my family and my community. And that is no small thing.
But then, right when I was getting ready to start saying yes to things again — activism, organizing, a paying job, even maybe a regular exercise routine — I found myself pregnant again. And life inevitably, and perhaps wonderfully, slowed down and shrank again. Taking care of a toddler and having morning sickness tend to narrow one’s field of vision.
For the last eight or so months I have barely kept up with email, barely written this column, barely gotten my household chores done, barely kept up with the bad news of the day, barely been an activist of any sort. I have tried to “keep my head in the game” so to speak. But, over and over, given the choice between those things and being with my family — building my marriage, growing our fetus, watching our little boy develop a language all his own, celebrating our seven-year-old’s daily triumphs — I have chosen family. I have stayed close to home, been an active part of my Unitarian Universalist congregation, walked my little city with a greeting for most people, baked and cooked for families with new babies, helped to raise money for needy people, and tried to be a good neighbor and local citizen. I have built a network of friendships and relationships. I have tried to be generous. I have kept up with correspondence of the old fashioned variety. I have visited people and stayed connected with my far-flung immediate family in Baltimore, Kalamazoo, Philadelphia and the Bronx. It is not the stuff of legend, but it is the stuff of life.
And now, a week or so from my due date, I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that even those little efforts will become nearly impossible, at least for a while, when baby number two shows up. I worry sometimes — and have been straight up told by some people — that my choice is selfish; that it is all about me. But having lived for years as an out there, doing it, 24/7 activist individual and now being hunkered down as a stay-at-home mom with two kids and another on the way — I have to say, “No, this is not a selfish choice.” It is a humbling, human, hard choice. My own ego is much less large and in charge in the rearing of children and managing of a household than it ever was organizing an action or giving a speech before hundreds and getting to absorb the accolades and attention afterward. When you are a headline speaker, no one smears banana in your hair. When you organize an action and get quoted in the newspaper, none of the activists willfully ignore your important discourse on listening and respectfulness.
I opted away from the limelight by choosing to be a stay-at-home mom, who doesn’t get a standing ovation for still being standing at the end of a long day. In fact, if you are doing a really good job, almost no one notices. They notice when you forget their strawberry toothpaste — or underpants — on an overnight trip. They notice when the toast is burnt and the broccoli is al dente. They notice when you are surly and sarcastic and short-tempered.
When you rock it, life is smooth and happy and the snacks are free-flowing. That is what the kids expect, so they don’t line up to thank you afterwards. There is only one person (God bless you, Patrick Sheehan-Gaumer) who regularly tells me I’m doing a good job. Right now, that one person’s gratitude and admiration is more than enough. Right now, the fact that my kids take my rocking it for granted is A-okay. They appreciate me implicitly and will learn to express it explicitly as they mature — and the seven year old does a pretty great job already, with a little nudge from her dad.
So, if it’s not for the praise and if it’s not for the ego-trip, why am I doing this? Why am I a stay at home mom? Because it doesn’t make economic sense to have a child and pay someone else half, or two-thirds of, my salary to rear them while I work. Because it doesn’t make political or social sense to miss out on — and have very little hand in shaping — the most dynamic developmental stage in my child’s life. Because I love it and the kids love it and the husband loves it. Because I think it is the right thing for us right now.
In talking with other stay-at-home moms, I get the sense that our culture celebrates, hyper-validates and commodifies our contributions, while simultaneously making them invisible, value-neutral and second strata. There are lots of magazines, advertisements and inducements to be thin, fit, happy and 110 percent there for your baby, but not a lot of encouragement to create and sustain a culture and community that truly supports women as mothers. We have to make that up as we go along and thank goodness we are doing it.
For me, being a stay-at-home mom can seem lonely, repetitious and boring at times. But, in truth and upon reflection, it is not forever. I am not alone and we — the kids, me and our world — are always growing.
So, I am ready to embrace this new phase of life, as the mom of two kids under two, as the step-mom of a dynamic first grader, as the wife of a social worker, as a person whose world is small but demanding of the lion’s share of her attention and compassion and energy. I am ready to embrace this new phase of life, knowing that the larger world and its universe of needs and ills will still be there when me and my little ones are ready to tackle it — head on and with our full attention — the work of building a more just and peaceful society. In the meantime, that work is being carried forward by countless able hands and hearts. It is not — and never was — ours alone. And I believe that the love I lavish on those closest to me is large enough to heal some small but suppurating wound in the world.
Frida, once you’re at the point where the kids don’t consume all of your time, I hope that you continue with your choice to be a stay-at-home mommy. Our society and our planet NEED more mommies at home!
When mommies stay at home instead of spending their time and energy in the workplace, they are able to be the activists that we need to fight for a better world. They have the time and energy to devote not just to more charity but to more justice. They can be a powerful force to hold governments and the corporations that all too often control them accountable.
Of course, not all couples can afford to have only one income. However, when mommies can afford to stay at home, living on one income can help the family not to get caught up in the materialism that is unsustainable for the economy and the environment. They live simply so that others can simply live and set a powerful example for their children.
Thanks for all you’ve done for the world, Frida. Enjoy raising your kids.
🙂 “the husband”
Beautiful, Frida, just beautiful!
“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation with violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys her own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
– Thomas Merton
This is such a potent topic. For both stay-at-home moms and activists, narcissism and self-involved worlds can be a challenge . . . as can martyrdom, self-sacrifice, low esteem brought about by a culture that belittles both, and the feeling of not being/doing enough.
It is a conversation each one of us must have with ourselves. And the answer is an ongoing, ever-changing dynamic. There are moms who are activists (albeit, very few with couple of toddlers and pregnant with a third), and there is also a lot of “activism” that is involved in our personal choices around lifestyle. Raising kids with awareness in this day and age requires a certain level of activism. I think Joanna Macy puts it all into perspective with the Great Turning, where she describes that social change requires three components: holding actions to stop the worst destructions (like stopping the Keystone Pipeline), building new systems (like solar energy infrastructure), and creating new belief systems (like raising aware kids! Or writing social protest novels, like I do). It takes all three components, one without the others is not sufficient.
But rather than engaging in competitive mentalities about who is “saving the world the fastest”, we need to practice collaborative awareness. We can support each other’s choices instead of judging them. We can help each other find the most powerful ways to do what we do. I think activists (myself included at times) can feel resentful that “life-as-usual” is continuing on its devastating course, reinforced by the working parents and the stay at home moms and the whole status quo. If we could, instead, connect with each other, and see how each of us is contributing to the much-needed change, I think we could then find greater solidarity and community.
Thank you for inspiring these thoughts in me. Rivera Sun
“I opted away from the limelight by choosing to be a stay-at-home mom, who doesn’t get a standing ovation for still being standing at the end of a long day. In fact, if you are doing a really good job, almost no one notices.”
You have my standing, jumping, screaming ovation for taking on and doing, I am confident, a fantastic job at the hardest assignment I can possibly imagine. How do I know? My step-daughter and the mother of my three youngest grandchildren (3, 5, 7) allows me to babysit one or more of them for several hours each week while she takes a semi-break to teach pilates or serves as Girl Scout Leader. In my greatly abbreviated time spent trying to keep up with them, I am constantly blown away by what this young lady manages to accomplish at her home with and for those three beautiful beings and her husband. Your influence over them as a stay-at-home money will almost certainly do more to change the world for the better than you could ever accomplish by trying to do so through your own direct efforts. And if you really want to accomplish something truly monumental for world peace and prosperity for the less fortunate, consider home schooling your children to save them from statist indoctrination, which takes place even in most private schools. I know my generation will never achieve peace through nonviolence, and I sincerely doubt yours will either, but those kids of ours just might do it, and our influence on them will be rewarded by their success. Think long term!
Thanks again for your profound accomplishments as a devoted stay=at-home mother.
Frida, I honor you and I thank you for the heartfelt work you are putting into your family. I consider it a gift to all of us. Enjoy your precious children. Enjoy your precious husband. Please allow me to encourage you to continue to keep your focus just as it is. There is nothing more important to do than you are doing right now. Blessings on your family.
When I read the title of this article, I found myself hoping for the answer, for a solution to the guilt I feel about my own desire to be a mother, and devote myself to raising happy, curious children who will contribute to our world.
Unfortunately, I don´t think a solution exists.
In an ideal world, of course every mother should be able to stay at home and spend time nurishing the souls of thier children, and shaping the adults they will one day become. Of we should have the resources and support necesary to do so, and of course we should be appreciated for taking a thoughtful, caring appoach to motherhood.
But we do not live in an ideal world.
We live in a world where violence and want are the norm. We live in a world where water scarcity is likely to be a problem in our own lifetimes, a world with millions of children growing up without the love and care they need, in orphanages and in foster care. We live in a world that does not need more people, but needs the people who are already living to be more thoughtful, considerate, and willing to sacrifice their own confort for the future of mankind.
Having and raising children takes an enormous amount of time and energy. I believe deciding to do so is fundamentally selfish, because it takes that time and energy away from potential contributions to the larger world. Having children, even if those children grow up to be the next MLK, is not a gift we give to our communities. It is a gift we give to ourselves and those children.
If we put the same amount of time and energy we would put into creating and raising our own children into mentoring children who are already living, and who would otherwise be taught that they are powerless to affect change, and who would otherwise not have the tools they need to create change, then that time and energy would be spent in a way that contributes more to our world, which truly does need full time activists.
Of course no one should tell another how to live their life, as we each only have one life to live. There is nothing immoral or wrong with deciding to focus on building a happy, comfortable life for ourselves and our families. I can most certainly see the appeal.
Everyone must make their own decisions.
For me it is difficult to find a balance between my desire to enjoy the world we have inherited, and my feelings of selfishness for not doing everything in my power to help ensure there will be a world worth inheriting for future generations.
I think I would like to have one child of my own, because it is a fundamental part of our human existence that I do not want to miss. But that doesn´t make it less selfish. I would also like to be a part of the lives of children in need, and to do my best to give them all the best posible resources to contribute to our struggle for a better world.
Disclaimer: I appoligize if this comes off as overly judgemental, I just wanted to share my thoughts and my own struggle with these decisions. I´m sure your children are incredibly lucky to have such a thoughtful mother, and I appreciate all the work you have done and will continue to do. Best of luck to you!
I am a good friend of Tony (Anthony) Fromhart. This e mail is for Frida Berrigan. I had a house fire in Mystic, Ct on February 11th of this year and most of the house was destroyed including Anthony’s new address in Flagstaff and his e mail address that was saved on my compute. Dan and Tony visited my wife and I when Dan was a junior in high school. Could you send me his e mail address or forward this to him for me. Thank you. I have no other way of reconnecting with him after so many years of missing him from high school till about seven years ago. Thank you so very much. Tom Benoit.
Ps- my e mail address is snowgoose@tvcconnect.net
Thank you again- Tom Benoit