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Shedding the Stay-at-Home Stigma

By Wendy Griffith
CBN News Sr. Reporter

CBN.com – Erica Hotmire's Washington career was progressing quickly. She worked on Capitol Hill, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the White House. But her next transition took her from childcare policy to changing diapers.

“When we found out I was pregnant, I had it in my mind that I was going to stay home, and I had always had it in my mind that I was going to stay home,” Hotmire said.

Today, she has two children. Although it can be challenging, she has no regrets about her decision to stay home with them.

Hotmire said, “Sometimes the job is really frustrating, especially when your kids are young. But at the end of the day, I enjoy knowing my children, I enjoy spending time with my kids, and I recognize it's a real privilege to come alongside them and watch them grow up, and kind of guide them as they develop.”

Jane Cook worked with President Bush since his days in Texas until she left her career to raise a family.

“I wanted to do the job thing, I wanted to work and contribute income to my family,” Cook said. “But deep down in the back of my mind I always wanted to be a stay-at home mom.”

Cook and Hotmire are two of what may be a growing trend of women on hot career tracks setting it all aside to become stay-at-home moms.

Research on some Ivy League campuses indicates a possible attitude shift on priorities. While many of the mothers expected big careers, with kids later, many young women in this generation expect careers to be on hold until their children are at least in school.

Professor Ann Lane heads women and gender studies at the University of Virginia. She said more conservative attitudes like these have come about because young women are inundated with a traditional view of motherhood.

“They get it every day when they pick up the newspaper,” Lane said. “Culture's gotten more conservative. We've now gone backward in time. We're living in a conservative period where women are created for one purpose, and that's mothering, and they should stay home with their children, and take care of them, and men should be in the world.”

While Lane blames the changing culture for these attitude, Darla Shine, author of Happy Housewives, said it was a natural change because a lot of the goals of the modern feminist movement are not realistic, even though they have been presented as what women really want.

Shine said, “The feminists sold us a raw deal. My generation is really conflicted. We were told ‘Go, have your career, become educated, break the glass ceiling’ and we've done that. We're working 12 hours a day and trying to not go crazy in the process. It's too much!”

Hotmire agrees. “It's portrayed in the media that you can have it all, raise a family, have a career, and have great relationships, great friendships, that's just not true. When you have children something has to give in order to be able to focus on your kids,” she said.

Despite that reality, and despite more acceptance of the idea, Shine said today’s culture still has a negative view of stay-at-home moms.

“I think there's a very strong stigma attached with the stay-at-home mom . . . when I left my career to stay at home with the children when I'd go to parties with my husband. They'd say, ‘’What do you do?’ And I say, ‘at home with my kids’ and then they'd walk away. It's as if you're not important. You're not contributing to society,” Shine said.

University of Virginia seniors Julie Dilworth and Karin Agness said similar attitudes persist on their college campus.

Dilworth said, “It's never looked highly upon to go to college and not have a career, to be a mother full time or to get married early.”

“It's kind of taboo to bring up that you are interested in motherhood,” Agness added.

That became apparent to them when it came to choosing classes. They said while they were looking at a syllabi for a class on women and gender, they did not see any positive books on motherhood.

Lane defended her curriculum: “Let me put it this way: does the Black studies program read racist stuff?” she asked. “No, they read stuff that will give an insight of their life and culture. We read a whole range of women's writings and men's writings, but we don't read anti-feminist material.”

That led Agness to found a campus discussion group called NEW, the Networked of Enlightened Women.

She said, “I find NEW really refreshing, because we're saying yes, we're ambitious women and we do want to have careers, but at the same time, motherhood is really important to us, and so we want to account for that, and when we're planning our careers we want to talk about that and admit that openly.”

Shine said that young women like these, are more comfortable with the idea of being stay at home moms.

“More young women, they want their career, but they're becoming more content with themselves. They're realizing I can work for a while, but then I can go home and be with my family, and I don't have to live up to these ridiculous standards of being superwoman,” Shine said.

She added, “I want society to say, you know what, being a full-time mom should be a full-time career option. You should be able to say, this is what I want to do and you can leave the workforce and be proud of that.”

While they may not make high-powered deals in the boardroom, these mothers believe they provide a valuable legacy for the next generation.

“The role of shaping a child at a young age, and the influence you can have on the future in that. I don't think that society recognizes that,” Becky Dummermuth said. “A child is eternity, and investing in him is investing in eternity.”

Happy Housewives by Darla Shine


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