Goddess of Hearth and Home

When I was in high school, my best friend Stephanie’s mom, Shelley, fashioned herself a “domestic goddess,” able to handle any task thrown her way.  She was always making dinners, doing something for her church, helping out at school, or hanging out at the kitchen table with us and laughing about something ridiculous.  The term “domestic goddess” became sort of a running joke with all of us, and I think we even affixed a secondary title, “goddess of hearth and home,” after our other friend, Veronica, dressed up as Vestia, goddess of hearth and home, for the Greek gods presentations freshman year.  Maybe you had to be there.  Whatever the case, I have officially made the Facebook job transition from “teacher” to “domestic goddess.”

The move to “domestic goddess” is a big one for me, especially given the fact that I never in a million years thought that I’d be a woman who stayed home with her children.  And I doubt that I will be on a long-term basis, but my husband and I have agreed that, for the first year of Brett’s life, she’s going to have her mother at home.  This wasn’t the easiest decision for us to make, but I think it was the right one, and I’m glad now that we made it.

The main reason that I’m staying home is because of the potential problem with Brett’s heart.  We haven’t had any testing done yet – hello, money! – and we aren’t sure that there will even be any need for it.  The doctor is going to give her a good going-over at the three month check-up, and we’ll find out then if they can hear the murmur.  With any luck, it will be gone and nothing further will need to be done.  But you can never be too safe, and with the possibility of a heart problem, we just didn’t want to put her into daycare and risk her getting an infection and then having it go into her heart.

I’ll also take this chance to ‘fess up to the fact that we are generally anti-vaxers, and Brett hasn’t had a single vaccine yet.  There is evidence in favor of both sides of the argument, but there are enough potential negative side effects that we don’t want to risk it.  For example, with the vitamin K shot, which is given right after birth, the risks are 1 in 500 that the baby will experience a bad side effect from the vaccine.  The chance of the child experiencing the complication the vaccine is intended to help prevent happens to about 1 in 10,000 babies.  Why give the kid the vaccine in the first place if it’s more likely to hurt him/her than the actual problem?  That just doesn’t make good sense to me.

However, I’ll also agree with the fact that Korea is dirtier than the US, and there are more instances of infectious diseases here.  Hep B, for example, is rampant, although I’d like to see the statistics on the most infected section of the population.  It’s generally passed through sexual contact or sharing dirty needles, and the sex industry is enormous here.  There are brothels on every corner in some areas.  It has been estimated that as much as 90% of the Korean male population has participated in pay-for-play activity, at one point or another.  Gross, huh?  We didn’t get the hep B vaccine, since I’m pretty sure Brett isn’t quite ready for hooking and heroin yet, but if she were going to daycare, I might rethink it.

But I digress.  The point that I was trying to make is that I’m staying home for Brett’s health.  I’m also doing it because, frankly, nobody is going to take care of my baby like me.  Daycare providers and babysitters may love children, but at the end of the day, the child isn’t theirs, and a child being your own always counts for more.  A child is never going to get the undivided attention in daycare that he/she would get at home from attentive parents.

I understand the necessity for daycare and babysitters, so please don’t misconstrue this as a slam against parents who have to work or who simply choose to put their kids into care.  Every family has different circumstances.  I know families who have to use daycare but who would love to be able to stay home with their children.  I have known parents who can’t wait to get back to work.  We are fortunate enough to be in a position that we can afford (mostly) for me to be home with Brett.

I never thought that I would enjoy staying home with my child.  I’ve always been pretty into work, even when I wasn’t crazy about my job.  For the most part, I’ve always been interested in overachieving and excelling at what I do.  I never planned to put my own life on hold for someone else.   With that knowledge, you can imagine that I was a bit surprised to find that I actually like staying home with my baby.  I can almost imagine myself staying home for more than a year and even homeschooling her, but then I remember that I would actually like to have a career, at some point.  That’s just me.

At first, I didn’t feel that way.  It was probably because I hadn’t slept in weeks.  I would never dispute that the first month with a newborn sucks.  They are like energy vampires: they will suck away your ability to do anything other than the bare minimum necessary to be considered alive.  But then they start to wake up, and they suck less.  Now Brett is playing and smiling, and that little baby smile has made it all so worthwhile.   I realize how hammy that sounds, especially coming from someone as crusty and jaded as me, but it makes me happy that she’s so happy.  And she is damn happy.  That kid smiles every time you look at her, tickle her, jiggle toys in front of her, read her stories, sing her songs… She can’t exactly babble yet, but she’ll make a wide variety of happy noises, and she tries to imitate the people talking to her, and she grins the whole time.  It’s awesome.

This is Brett’s default expression: happy!

Perhaps I’m being totally conceited, but I like to think that she wouldn’t express that degree of happiness if she weren’t at home with her mommy all day.  I like to think that the one-on-one time that we have reading, playing, watching Ugly Betty (sometimes I have to look at something while she’s eating), and doing chores together (okay, I do stuff and she watches) is better for her than anything she could be doing at daycare, save for maybe interacting with other children.  I’ve heard that babies who interact with children will usually talk sooner.  Brett already “chatters” with people, so I’m sort of hoping that she’ll start talking early.  She might not, and that’s fine, but it would be cool if she did.

As I’ve sat pondering all of this information about being a stay-at-home mom, or “domestic goddess,” I’ve thought a little bit about what those choices mean for women.  I’m not the first girl who has been guilty of throwing shade at women who choose to stay home with their children.  When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I thought being a domestic goddess was a copout.  Kids don’t need a mom at home, right?  We’re all so independent now, and the concept of a mother at home is so old-fashioned!  We’ve progressed beyond that, right?  Women in the workplace!  Equality!  No more being chained to the stove!

Now I look back and see, frankly, that this is an immature attitude to have.  After all, women’s lib was about choice, and nobody should be shamed for her choice.  Not everyone cares about being a CEO or a corporate lawyer or even a supermarket clerk.  Not every woman wants to stay home with her kids, either. Some women don’t want kids at all, and that’s fine.  In fact, I’d strongly prefer that people who don’t want have kids stick with their decision not to have them.  The honest truth though, is that women constantly shame each other for their decisions, regardless of which one we make.  Sometimes I honestly think the cumulative effect of women’s lib has been to saddle women with more responsibility, guilt, and overtime work than we ever had in the past, and even if we make the choice that we know is best for us, that is no guarantee that the rest of the world won’t give us grief about it.

Domestic goddesses today are more often than not looked down upon.  Why don’t we have real jobs?  Why don’t we care about our careers?  Are our husbands’ lives more important than our own?  Do we really feel fulfilled by staying at home, cleaning, cooking, and caring for the kids?  Well, obviously not everyone is going to have the same answer, but is this really the way it has to be?  Are we really going to walk around shaming each other for our choices?  Shouldn’t we all be accepting of each other’s choices and realize that nobody else’s life is my business?  Similarly, shouldn’t career girls be free to focus their time and energy on that, if that’s what they want to do?

One thing that I suppose does rather suck, to put it bluntly, is the fact that women really are expected, in this day and age, to do it all.  Whether we like it or not, the “third shift,” as it’s called by sociologists, always puts the burden on the mother.  The third shift is the time after work that parents spend looking after the kids and taking care of the home.  After all of these years, women still spend far more time doing this type of work than do men.  That’s not taking a stab at men; it’s true.  My honest opinion is that some of that is never going to change.  I really believe that most children are naturally more attached to their mother.  I’m not sure why that is, but it seems to be almost universally true.  In our house I’m sure that it’s because I’m around all the time, but Brett will quite often give Graeme a look like “What the hell are you doing?” when he goes to feed her.

Almost every woman I know with children reports the same thing: she does far more to care for her children than her husband does.  I think that’s partly because women respond faster to their kids than men do.  I would assume that’s a biological issue, which isn’t going to change.  But it does amount to the fact that women are going to physically go to their children more often than their husbands do.  Of course, that’s not to say that husbands can’t help with housework and things like that, and I think most guys today do.  The days of daddy coming home, plopping down at the table, and expecting a meal are over.

I don’t feel hard done by for staying home with my child.  I think I’ll be ready to head back to school and/or work, when the time comes, but I don’t feel at all like we’ve made the wrong choice.  I can’t believe that anyone else could do better with her than I do.  She’s as happy as can be, and that’s all I need.  She’s meeting her milestones either early or on time and, oh yeah, she’s happy!  The bottom line for us is that nothing can take the place of Mommy’s love and care, and I’m just glad that we’re privileged enough to give that to her.