My generation

I just returned from a gathering with my PEPS group (parent group). I also just finished reading a blog entry of a friend whose wife was harshly judged for returning to work after having twins. I am glad these two things happened consecutively.

To be clear, every parent works whether they are paid for it or not. All of the women in my PEPS group work outside the home -- anywhere between 1 and 5 days a week. Months ago, before anyone returned to work, our group moderator (who was 10 years older than the oldest of us) asked the moms to express their feelings about returning to work. I think she was surprised when no one seemed to have any conflicted feelings. Some people had to do it, others didn't but no one really cared what anyone else was doing.

I feel like my peers get that this stay-at-home/work dichotomy is just false. We do what makes us happy and/or we do what we have to do. If you want to work 60 hours a week, it's great that you can choose that. If you want to stay at home (and you can), lovely! I do both, and it works for me. The judgement seems to come in from people who are resentful that they never had choices or those who are unhappy with the choices they made... the judgement generally seems to come from an older set of women -- I don't notice it among my peers. We all seem to understand that 1. having the choice is a privilege 2. happy parent = happy baby...

Frankly, these days, when people ask me questions I deem judgemental, I lie. Do you breastfeed? yes. How much does he weigh? 19 pounds. Don't you just loooooooooooove parenthood? Every second of it.