I posted a question about alternatives to stay-at-home parenting labels to our Facebook page last night. Unfortunately, had to turn comments off because commenting was getting too out of hand. I don’t mind when folks engage in contentious discussion in our comment threads, but blatant disrespect and bullying are not part of our vibe.
I do want to answer some of the questions I received via DM, though, so here we go!
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Why don’t I like the phrase “stay-at-home” parent?
Primarily, I think it’s inaccurate. Obviously, during the height of the pandemic, we stayed home a lot. But now? We’re all over the place! I haul the kiddo to all sorts of places with me, kid-related and grown-up-related.
Additionally, I think the cultural expectation that women and kiddos belong “at home” is kind of dated and weird. The phrase “stay-at-home” has some specific connotations to that I simply don’t vibe with. Stay-at-home parent is better, I suppose, but still weirds me out.
What’s wrong with “non-working parent” or “domestic manager” and the like?
There were many suggestions using “non-working” and “domestic” in them, but those sit weirdly with me as well. “Domestic” implies that I spend all my time doing house things. Which…sort of fair. We have four adults, a toddler, and a menagerie of creatures. There is certainly plenty of domestic work to be done!
But that’s not my primary function.
Housework is split between all the grownups. We all live here, so we all take care of the place. And the kiddo helps too!
It’s taken some work to get a good groove on that, but we have a foundational understanding between all of us that I don’t exist simply to “manage house things.”
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As to the titles with “non-working” in them: How is that accurate? I do work! I take care of the kiddo all day. If someone did that for a daycare or school it would be considered work. Why isn’t it considered work at home?
Plus, I do have a part-time job and run this business, as well. I work just as much as my husband and the other adults that live here. {2023 update: I actually work full time now, but still “at-home” for a lot of it}
But what about people who DO like these alternative labels or the simplicity of stay-at-home parent?
Cool beans! If being a “stay-at-home” or “non-working” or whatever is empowering to you, by all means, keep those labels. That’s the fun thing about words. They can mean different things to different people. I simply don’t find empowerment with them and was curious about alternatives that people may use to describe their lifestyles.
If you think I’m being too picky here, you may want to scroll on by. I like to think really hard about the grey areas, and I think this is a really good one. Labels aren’t super important, but I think it would be nice to have a clear-cut explanation for what I do each day.
I just haven’t found one that fits quite yet!
So do you not like being a mom? Why don’t you want to identify as a mom?!
I love being a parent! But I will say, I don’t like the implication that motherhood is my fundamental identity. In the same way that I don’t expect my child to identify solely as “Morgan’s kid,” I don’t identify solely as “Bean’s Mom.”
Is parenting important to me? Yes. Definitely more important than anything else I’ve ever done.
Would I change it for all the money in the world? Absolutely not.
But was motherhood ever a foundational yearning to me? Nope. And I won’t lie and give the classic, “Motherhood changed everything for me,” spiel because it’s simply not true.
Parenting has amplified elements of my foundational being, but it has not replaced them. I’m still me, and I hold onto a fundamental belief that children are not a symbol of completeness.
Most of my friends are child-free by choice, and the handful of mom friends I do have struggled with the same weirdness as I do:
What to call oneself as a non-traditional working at-home parent of just one or two kids who doesn’t think that “stay-at-home-mom” phrase quite cuts it as a job description when half of society is demanding you get a job and the other half demands you just stay at home making more babies and sandwiches like the good lord intended!