![]() ![]() The answer here is simple: Moms stay home to care for their kids, though the reasons differ from mom to mom. When you stay true to your own values and what your family needs regardless of what society tells you, you are doing what is right for you.” Lind-Hernaiz, LCSW-R, who also has a 2-year-old, says it’s up to moms to “stay true to your own values and what’s important to you and your family. So, how does one drown out all the outside noise when it comes to raising one’s children?īronx-based clinical social worker Leslie M. “All of that is labor which takes several steps to execute but is often ‘invisible labor’ because we are not thinking about everything that goes into it, and ‘women’s work’ has historically gone unseen and unvalued.” “A stay-at-home parent is doing similar project management - who needs to bring what to school, do we need toilet paper, what is the dinner plan - ,” she says. Jacobs believes that as our society is undergoing a reevaluation of labor and “essential” workers during the pandemic, it would help to destigmatize stay-at-home parents if we brought their labor and its benefit for the family and society at large into the conversation. Lauren Jacobs, a licensed clinical social worker based in Troy, New York, who is also a mom of two, says, “I believe this stigma still exists because, as a society, we continue to minimize the social and financial value of ‘executive functioning,’” meaning “the skills it takes to organize and execute tasks.” Whether by choice or by circumstance, most of these women spend their days doing some combination of taking care of the kids, managing their activities, preparing meals, scheduling appointments, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, managing family finances, and on and on. That number is largely even higher now, as almost 1.8 million women have left the labor force during the pandemic, often because their jobs have disappeared or because they’ve been forced to stop working as a result of pay inequity and lack of childcare. ![]() More than 18 percent of parents in the United States were stay-at-home parents in 2016, according to Pew Research, and 83 percent of them were women like Drabenstot. I don’t think people understand how large of a toll that takes on a person.” “And even on the rare occasion where I do find a moment to myself,” she adds, “it’s often intruded by the mental load of motherhood. ![]() There is never any downtime for me to just ‘be.’” I am running around doing what needs to be done from the time I wake up to the time my head hits the pillow. They think SAHMs watch television, are lazy and pathetic, have little responsibility, or are bored being home with their kids all day.Ĭaila Drabenstot, a 35-year-old SAHM of five who lives in Indiana*, refutes this.ĭrabenstot, who worked as a waitress before choosing to become a SAHM, shares, “This isn’t an easy gig like many are led to believe. People often think being a SAHM is easy because they don’t have to clock in or clock out. ![]()
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