Puttin on your panty hose

Anyone see Dr. Phil today? I don't normally get to watch daytime tv due to my daily napping with Sophie (that was a confession so please withhold judgment), but we were up early and I caught the beginning of the show before I had to pick up Liv.

The show was stay-at-home moms vs. working moms. I must preface this by saying, I have been, and consider myself both a stay at home mom AND a working mom. I feel this way even more so now that I'm working weekends only. I'm home all week like a stay at home mom...SAHM if you will. I'm also working on the weekends. I've also been exclusively a SAHM and I've exclusively worked. I understand why SAHMs criticize working moms and vice versa. I've found myself jealous of both at some point in my mothering life. So I get it, I feel. What I didn't get today was this particular woman, a SAHM that had some severe judgments against those who chose to work.

Here is one of her quotes:

“I don’t really want to be told by women who pull on a pair of pantyhose every morning, and go hang out with their girlfriends, that I’m somehow less of a woman. I’m sitting here; I’m doing the most important job. I dare you go to go to your own mother and tell her that her secretarial skills are more important than her parenting skills."

I realize that this woman sits on the extreme side of SAHM views and I realize that not all or nearly many SAHMs feel this way, but it does disturb me a bunch. Secretarial skills? Chatting with girlfriends all day? PANTY HOSE? Is this really what women think of other women??? I'm sure not.

However, the most disturbing thing I found about this show is the fact that this debate really does exist. It not only exists, but we are fueling it. We are fighting against our own kind! Why is it that we cannot, as women, support eachother no matter what our choice is for our family? Why is it that we are not proud of our SAHMs AND our working moms? Why does one have to be better than the other?

My point is, mother guilt is the guilt of all guilts, working outside of the home or not. Why are we heaping more guilt onto each other's backs? Why do I secretly harbor jealousy towards SAHMs one week and working moms the next? I'm just as guilty as the next gal....except for the crazy left field SAHM on Dr. Phil today. She wins the pot for crazy "judgment" that she calls "a God given gift".

Ugh. I cringe.

Women. We are so awesome! We can juggle work, school, bills, soccer, 14 kids, a home, laundry, cleaning, multiple toilets, multiple schedules, meals, play dates, meetings, shopping, gardens, lawns, mail, updated photos of our kids, toy organization, filling gas tanks, recycling, dishes, sending greeting cards for everyone else's life events and somehow managing to look amazing at all times....mostly. Why don't we notice this about ourselves? And why not notice it in your fellow mamas?

I know most of you do this already, but this tv argument today really took hold of my heart. Why? I dunno. Perhaps because there's so much truth in it, it's painful.

So, let's put a stop to any mama hate we hear in the halls, y'all. You know the ones I'm talking about. We know a few....they think they are the one and only and their way is the one and only.

Let's throw a stick in those spokes. How about this statement? "I'm proud of you for making the best choice for your family."

Love yourselves, love others. We are all so awesome in our own little...and big ways. Now, THAT is God-given, and I think it's our jobs as mamas, working or at home, to shine some light on it.