It occurred to me that the only way to #EndMommyWars is for mothers with clashing views to find time to listen to each other’s thoughts or opinions. Call me judgmental here but it seemed to me that the so-called Mommy War, is mostly about jealousy, stubborness, and the feeling of superiority. Take for example the cause of the stay-at-home Moms (SAHM) and work-outside-the-home Moms (WOHM).
I felt like its apt to talk about this issue the day before the world celebrates International Women’s Day. After all, mothers constitute a great majority of the world’s women. And… I also happened to have experienced being a WOHM and now a full-fledged SAHM so I feel the need to blabber and write a lengthy rant as a blog post.
Hear me out… okay?
I don’t promise you won’t fall asleep but I kept it interesting to be worth your while.
I was a balloon of a woman working two jobs when I got pregnant with the twins. My first pregnant and… Twins! Two creatures my husband and I didn’t plan on having less than a year being married. But there they were inside their individual sacs swimming in amniotic fluid inside my uterus as I was traipsing one island after another for my social development job and occasional trips to some locations for some articles I wrote for a newspaper.
Two months after the twins were born, I was back on the job, pumping milk from my breasts under trees and storage rooms so I can still provide my precious kids with liquid gold. There were several times that I felt bad about leaving home at 7:30 a.m. and coming home at 8:00 p.m. but I was working. I had a contract to keep and there was no way I would break that.
It was difficult especially when thr front portion of my blouse got soaked with breastmilk all the way to the armpit area without me even noticing it. Or the time when I have to explain to a native tribe that I need to private time to pump milk because my breasts are hurting and I was 30-second close to crying. But everything worked out. We had two stay-in nannies who tok very good care of the twins while I was away. My Mom and brothers visited almost all the time.
While it was challenging, I also felt empowered and important. There I was a first-time mother (to twins at that!!!) and I was working, earning a salary on top of what my husband brings home to the family’s coffers every month. I was surrounded by family who helped me manage the challe ges which came with motherhood. My co-workers were more than happy for me. I was feeling good. I felt like I was the epitome of that woman who can successfully juggle her career(s) and family life. I was a WOHM.
My husband and I were not living and working in the same country even when the twins were born. We agreed that at some point I would have to give up my career(s) in the Philippines and move to China with the twins to join him there.
“We can’t live two separate lives,” was his argument. He had a very valid point.
So I quit my jobs before the year ended and three months after, packed my bags, and moved to China with the twins. I still did part-time writing projects, started graduate school, and managed a three-bedroom apartment in Guangzhou, China with three ayis/cleaning ladies who come in thrice a week to do everything and when I say everything, I mean everything. Because we were living in a hotel apartment, there were fresh sheets every other day, the sink is clean by the time I’m ready to wash the feeding bottles, the bathrooms were spic and span just before I took my second shower. It was heaven.
Then came Pregnancy Number 2 and my husband and I unanimously voted for giving birth in America. We went through hell to work on the paperworks for the twins’ American citizenship (Consular Report of Birth Abroad) and passports that we thought it’ll be much easier to have the baby delivered in the US. We have family in Montana and we have visited before so we decided to once again, pack our bags and haul the entire crew to the Land of Milk of Honey.
And this is where it dawned on me that I was becoming a full-time SAHM. The US was a thousand miles away from the Philippines. It was not the China-Philippine-China route that I was so used to in the past year that whenever I get homesick there was always a budget airline called Cebu Pacific which can snag me a Hongkong-Cebu-HongKong ticket for only $200 five days before my flight departure.
I was seated on the couch of our new home in Montana after a warm welcome from my in-laws when the then very pregnant me – with eight more weeks before delivery day – realized that I’m going to be a real SAHM. No more helpers, nannies, cleaning ladies… it would just be me and the craziness of housework: ooking, managing the kids, doing laundry, folding clothes, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom and God knows what else.
I collapsed, cried, and called my Mom who only said: “You are so far away now so you have to pull yourself together and be stronger.”
I cried some more.
We moved in the beautiful Kalispell, Montana on the 27th of May 2015. The days and months after found me in my most depressed state. The last trimester of the pregnancy was an on and off battle with depression, the days and months after giving birth was a struggle to fight postpartum depression, and the days and months leading to the very day I’m writing this was me telling maternal depression that I had enough and I’m going to “pull myself together and be stronger”.
It took me nine long months – heck, that’s like carrying a baby – to finally accept the fact that I’m a full-time, stay-at-home mother with tasks and responsibilities more important than my previous professional tasks and responsibilities. If I was able to perform my professional obligations very well with exemplary results and commendable feedback from my superiors, clients, and readers, there is no excuse for me not to be as great as a wife and a mother.
So I made the learning corner livelier and prepared weekly lesson plans for my toddlers, made sure that my husband comes home to hot meals for dinner, let the baby play with his siblings on the floor of the living room, and find time to attend face-to-face classes at the local community college (because online education, while amazing and convenient for a stay-at-home mother like is not a healthy solution to ward off depression).
I’m not at all perfect. I just figured out the entire SAHM business but I admit I pretty much understood it the moment I let go of my stubborn thinking that the working mother is the successful woman.
Shame on me.
My mother dedicated 30 years of her life raising four children and she was nothing short of incredible in molding us into fine human beings. I have a sister who’s a pharmacist, a mother of two, and attend zumba classes with my Mom. My first brother is an architect and artist who pays the bills and contemplated on being a Buddhist monk but backed out when my Mom gave him the I-will-kill-you-before-you-get-to-do-that look. My baby brother Kevin, who’s turning 24 the day before I turn 30, has embarked on his first paying job as a seafarer. And I… well, I’m a wannabe writer who thinks that coconut cream pie is an appetizer.
Aren’t we amazing? Four amazing children raised by a stay-at-home Mom?
So… come on ladies… #EndMommyWars right now, right at this very moment.
No one really is superior over the other. No method is fool proof. No strategy works better than the rest. And yes, no matter how perfect you may seem to be, you’re bound to commit mistakes. And yes, you will get better as mother and make great breakfast, one that your toddlers won’t spit out. And yes, your children will love you because you find time to be with them even when you’re going gaga over work deadlines.
Whether you’re a WOHM or a SAHM, you’re great. You carried aliens inside you for eternity (it felt like that, right?), pushed them for another round of eternity or had yourself laid on a cold slab to be cut up by some doctors who talked about football the entire operation, and then proceed to breastfeeding the tiny tots even when their milk teeth bit your nipples and made you howl to the moon in pain.
You’re wonderful, Mama.
WOHM or SAHM or..
IDRCWSLMALAIKTIDMVBTBAGM.
(I-Don’t-Really-Care-What-Society-Labels-Me-As-Long-As-I-Know-That-I’m-Doing-My-Very-Best-To-Be-A-Good Mom)
