Member-only story
I Gave a Dozen Years To Be a Stay-at-Home-Mom
And I’m Really Proud of That
I am a child of the seventies and eighties, when we were told that we could have it all — career, motherhood, marriage — the whole ball of wax. Women were wearing big, floppy bows where men wore neckties, and they were headed to Wall Street with briefcases and navy blue skirt-suits.
My mother worked as a full-time school teacher for my entire life. And her mother had been a school teacher until she was required to leave, because in 1940 it was “unsightly” to be pregnant in front of a classroom of fifth graders. My grandmother returned to work as a substitute teacher in her retirement, though, so I was accustomed to smart, working women.
I had a full-time sitter (we didn’t call her a nanny, but…) until I was old enough to go to Kindergarten. Because both of my parents had jobs.
Me, though? I wanted to spend every possible moment with my kids until it was clear that it was financially imprudent to do so.
The desire for motherhood ran so deeply in my veins that when I was a little girl, I sometimes wished on my birthday candle: “Please give me my very own baby.” I wasn’t old enough to understand how this wish would come about, and I did not mean a baby-doll, I meant a human baby to care for and nurture and raise to be amazing.
