Wait! Don’t go! It’s not what you think… mostly! We’re all tired of the Mommy Wars — SAHM vs Working Mom. Helicopter Parent vs Free Range Parent. It’s tired. It’s annoying. It’s getting us nowhere because, ultimately, it’s all surface-level discussions.
If we want to improve the lives of mothers (and, by extension, their families), we need to investigate what’s really at the heart of these debates. TikTok user @mentalli_unwell, Allison, has some ideas that bear considering.
The video begins with a stitch of a woman holding a baby emphatically asking “Why the f*ck did y’all glamorize being a stay-at-home mom?”
“The patriarchy,” Allison replies simply. “The patriarchy glamorized it. Men did. The patriarchy sold us this idea that staying at home with your kids is a luxury, that women should feel so lucky to stay home all day and give up their careers and financial independence because supposedly there’s no one better to raise your kids than you, mom!”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re exhausted and overwhelmed and overstimulated and underappreciated and that … you might even be a better mom if you were able to get that work-life balance that men get,” she continues. “What matters is that mom is at home with the babies and that she should be so grateful that dad lets her do that while he goes to work and works so hard all day: because that’s the natural order of things!”
She goes out to cheekily paraphrase arguments about the “natural” roles of men and women in terms of cave people. Men are providers, this line of reasoning assures us. They go hunting sabertooth tigers and bond with their fellow manly men in loincloths while women stay home with the babies in their village.
“Oh! Wait!” Allison gasps. “We don’t have villages anymore.”
So, maybe — just maybe — if the “natural order” has already begun to disintegrate, we can’t exactly rely on the same old models to nurture happy, well-rounded, fulfilled humans.
“Men get to stay in the workforce, building their careers and maintaining their autonomy while women stay at home and are boxed into unpaid labor,” Allison asserts. “And then if we question it society gaslights us into thinking that we should want this. That sacrificing our independence is somehow the highest form of love for our child.”
And then, of course, there’s the Capitalism of it all aka the other c-word.
“Keeping women at home benefits capitalism and a capitalistic society. If women are doing this work for free then corporations don’t have to invest in universal childcare or paid parental leave,” she continues. “Meanwhile, men keep working and driving profits and climbing the ladder. It’s no accident that this system funnels power to men at the expense of women.”
“Let us be clear: there is nothing natural about this,” Allison concludes. “It is a design. A very intentional design meant to keep women dependent, men in power, the patriarchy thriving, and capitalism booming.”
Is this all to say that no woman should ever stay home with her children, even if she really wants to, lest she utterly betray her gender? Of course not. This isn’t about the choices women make: it’s about the way those choices are presented to us and why.
Certainly, there’s a way to enjoy being a stay-at-home mom; the comments section of the post is full of thoughtful, honest, nuanced, and sometimes beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking shared experiences. But let’s be honest about what being a stay-at-home mom entails. It’s often a sacrifice, professionally, financially, and otherwise. It’s hardly glamorous. But painting it that way benefits a whole lot of people who aren’t the woman staying home or even her children.
The good news is, as Allison says, this isn’t natural. But since it’s a design, that means we can design something better moving forward.
