An Art of Parenting

Archive for April, 2011

Modern mothers can be divided into two main categories. The first consists of those who feel that while their children are very young they want to look after themselves and they feel that this activity is the most worthwhile job that they can do. However, even a mother who loves her child dearly will be prepared to admit that looking after small children isn’t easy. A woman who finds herself a mother shortly after leaving a job is unlikely to be well prepared for the demands, not to mention the isolation of being a mother.

Motherhood has its pleasures and fulfillment but it is very tough. It is a twenty-four job and it is rather badly paid. It’s repetitious and tedious; it is extremely demanding and wearing. No mother undervalues what she is doing but society does. Consequently when a young mother, particularly if she has been well trained to do a job, is asked what she is doing and all she can say is that she’s a mother, she feels that the admission classifies her as inferior to women who are holding down a job. It is up to society to take a more realistic view of motherhood than the present rather idealized one.

The other category is the working mother. For some reason the working mother is still a pejorative one in our society. If women aren’t prepared to devote themselves entirely to the upbringing of their children it’s generally felt that they aren’t maternal, that they aren’t selfish and heartless. If we go back to our rural beginnings, we find that mothers were always working mothers. They did an equal amount of work to the father and they shared the work of the family with the father.