Motherlode
Motherlode: Revisiting the debate of working moms vs. stay-at-home moms
February 14, 2011
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Lorraine Sommerfeld
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Thank you, Diane Finley. Thank you Honorable Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development for finally stating what we’ve known you — and your boss — have long believed. Thank you for letting all women know how valuable they are to this country, the economy and, most importantly, their families.
Parents — surprise, there are two of them — should absolutely have the option to raise their children in a way that is most beneficial to those children and that family. But all of those options need to be safe, affordable and good. Politicians are elected to do the greatest good for the greatest number. You may not always get what you want, as Mick says, but you should be able to get what you need. And most of us need decent child care at some point in our children’s lives. Canada is a rich country. The allocation of those resources should reflect a considered view of the health and well being of our citizens, even the ones who can’t vote yet.
No matter how hard you try to indoctrinate your children with your rigid belief that the “best” children are raised at home by their mothers, they are going to go out into a world that includes families who act, and interact, differently. Our children will mix and roam and learn; they will make friendships; they will fall in love. Metaphorically speaking, Ms. Finley, your children are going to marry my children. For that selfish reason alone, we should take good care of all of them. In your short-sighted rush to punish those you deem bad parents, you punish yourself.
Since you seem to want to go here, Ms. Finley, perhaps you can explain to me the logic of the most preposterous – and mean – tenets of your Conservative politics. Why is it that women shouldn’t work if they are mothers, but if they become single mothers they are freeloading leeches if they don’t work? I’ve never been able to grasp that. I’ve been a single mother. It happens. I’ve always worked. Wouldn’t want a Conservative telling me I’m failing my children. Oh wait. I work. I am failing them.
You have succeeded brilliantly in one way: You have revived a debate that deserved to have a stake driven through its heart years ago. Working mothers versus stay-at-home mothers. Do we really need to do this again? Every mother I know works, and works hard. Every one of us has used some combination of maternity leave, job-sharing, nannies, daycare, after-school programs and babysitters. Some have given up jobs to stay home; some have worked from home; some have called on family.
But what happens when things go wrong? What happens when a marriage crumbles or someone gets sick? And consider how many women in the workforce in the past two battering years have kept their family anchored. And how many of those families have been grateful, even in the face of uncertainty, that at least one income meant they could keep their homes.
We teach our children to work hard and stay in school. But we don’t tell our daughters to work and excel, only to have to remind them that ultimately they should stay home. Wait. Maybe that’s the message all Conservative members do tell their daughters. And if it isn’t, please tell me why it isn’t. The only consistent thing I’ve noted from the Prime Minister’s Office is a complete disdain for the majority of the populace.
Politicians like you need to stop gazing into so many mirrors and start looking out of a few more windows. You are taxed with representing all of us, not just the tiny few who still make up your world view from another age.
Lorraine Sommerfeld appears Mondays in Living and Saturdays in Wheels. Reach her at www.lorraineonline.ca