Okay, okay, I found this several months too late to reply to Marguerite, a commenter on Judith Warner's NYT blog entry ""Families to Care About, but I have to reply and I have a blog, so I'm gonna.
The article was about those "Real Housewife"-type mothers who send their kids off to daycare so they can have some "me time," and how their whining about their husbands losing huge amounts of salary in the recession was falling on deaf ears. (Not so much at the NYT clearly, but I digress.) I don't usually read Judith Warner, because she strikes me as one of those whining opt-out mothers, and yes, I know writing a blog can be a full-time job, which is why I don't post so often anymore.
However, the commenter who signed herself Marguerite had this to say in response to the entry:
"There is nothing new in the news media providing a slanted perspective on gender roles. Over-coverage of kept wives and under-coverage of the working poor generates more interest, if not sells more papers - who wants to read about people being miserable and having to work their fingers raw? It’s a (journalistic) upper-class version of People and Star magazines.
That being said - I have zero respect for women who chose voluntarily to give up careers to be their husbands’ housekeepers. If they aren’t bored stiff, they clearly have a lack of intellectual aptitude - which is perhaps why hubby selected them in the first place. A nice contrast is Laura Bush vs. Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama. Enough said."
Hold on, there, Marguerite. NOT QUITE enough said!
Let's not assume that stay-at-home moms = "women who chose to voluntarily give up careers to be their husband' housekeepers." Anyone who knows me knows that I am a terrible housekeeper. I'm a SAHM because we prefer to raise our own children.
Sentence #3: "A nice contrast is Laura Bush vs. Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama."
Okay, if you say so. But didn't Michelle Obama give up her career to support her husband's presidency, and doesn't she now call herself the Mom-in-Chief? As for Laura Bush, according to the National First Lady's Library, she has a master's degree in Library science but retired from teaching for work behind the scenes on both her FIL (Bush 41) and husband's political campaigns. Granted, she doesn't have Hillary's strident voice or Michelle's biceps but let's not go assuming W married her because she's a pretty idiot.
I saved sentence #2 for last, because it's my favorite: "If they aren’t bored stiff, they clearly have a lack of intellectual aptitude - which is perhaps why hubby selected them in the first place." A-hem. Where to begin? Rather than listing the credentials I have accumulated since staying home, I'll just put it this way. If I call the last fifteen years "A Longitudinal Study of the Educational and Parenting Needs of Gifted Boys," can I have my IQ points back?
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2 comments:
I lack "intellectual aptitude" because I walked away from my career to raise my family??? Wow, I guess my above-average IQ scores, the summa cum laude on my undergraduate degree, my graduate degree, and stellar resume don't count for much. I guess I couldn't have possibly had enough intellect to discern that whatever I did in my career, however impressive, wont mean a damn thing 100 years after my death. I guess, given that conclusion, I couldn't have made the conscious choice to spend my life doing what I deemed meaningful and fun, rather than racking up meaningless kudos from people like Marguerite. Nah. I'm sure I'm too challenged to possibly think anything that complex.
And for the record, we employ a housekeeping service and my husband has done the dishes for all 11 years of our marriage.
You may be late in posting, but it was a great post nevertheless.
Amen, sister!
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