Previous entry: 
Next entry:
Stay-at-Home Genetics
My daughter is not yet 5 but already wants to be a stay at home mom. She doesn't even have a job yet, but she already doesn't want one.
Almost every time she's asked what she wants to be when she grows up, she says, "A mommy.''
"But that's not a job,'' I said. (I know. Clobber me.)
"I don't want a job. I want to be a mommy.''
"Well, who is going to pay your bills?'' I inquired.
"I don't know,'' she answered.
I'm not sure how to proceed on this issue. I've always worked full-time. I keep reminding her that her own mother has a job, and two kids, and does quite fine. Yet, would it be OK to support her idea of aspiring to be a fulltime housewife?
I am forming a theory now that stay-at-home moms might be "born'' rather than "created'' through their environment.
I certainly think that prissiness is a genetic feature and not inherited, since my daughter is like Jon Benet reincarnated and I am ... not.
If you don't believe me, introduce yourself to my daughter and see how long it takes her to comment on your fingernails.
So perhaps part of the prissy gene in my daughter includes the idea that she will never have to get her lipstick smudged from picking up a telephone to say "Sun Sentinel Newsroom.'' Or any other workplace.
BW
Gretchen Day-Bryant has a son in high school and a daughter in middle school. She’s lived to tell about the struggles of juggling little kids and work...
Joy Oglesby has an infant daughter and a sister 13 years her junior, whom she babies to the now-adult...
Cindy Kent Fort Lauderdale mother of three. Her kids span in ages from teenager to 20s...
Rafael Olmeda and his wife welcomed their first son in Feb. 2009, and he's helping raise two teenage stepdaughters...
Lois Solomon lives in Boca Raton with her husband and three daughters...
Anne Vasquez loves to worry, or so her husband says...
Georgia East is the parent of a five-year-old girl, who came into the world weighing 1 pound, 13 ounces...
Brittany Wallman is the mother of Creed, 13, and Lily, 6, and is married...
Chris Tiedje is the Social Media Coordinator, and father of three blonde, blue-eyed kids all under six years old.
Comments
Well, as a stay at home homeschooling mother of three I say yes, definitely encourage her housewife gene! I don't think it's so much of a gene as it is a calling - some women may just feel the calling to stay at home sooner rather than later! Before I had children, I enjoyed working and enjoyed my career. But sometime between my first pregnancy and giving birth to our eldest I felt (and my husband as well) the "calling" for me to stay at home. And I definitely had anything BUT the prissy gene. My middle daughter would still be more feminine than I. (she would also be the one to comment on fingernails and shoes and the dress you're wearing...) By definition, prissy means overly prim and precise : FINICKY. Don't know if that is necessarily a requirement for stay-at-home motherhood...
I do know that God calls us all (no offense intended, I believe in a Creator!) to different roles in life, and stay at home motherhood is simply one of the varied callings available for us as women with children to choose!
: ) Becky
Posted by: Becky | March 28, 2007 3:11 PM
I think that you can discuss with your daughter that being a stay-at-home parent is the career choice of some Mommies or Daddies. As she gets older, you can also share the facts about what enables some parents to stay home (usually, another parent working who financially supports the family) as well as the reasons that some parents work even though they don't HAVE to (as do I). I wouldn't make too big of a deal and I'd be careful to recognize stay-at-home parenthood as a legit choice for some.
Posted by: Amy | November 6, 2007 9:38 PM