What Hillary Rosen meant was, women who stay home with their children and work at homemaking, rather than enter the workforce, do not have real jobs. And she's right. A job is defined as, "a regular activity performed in exchange for payment". The work I have been doing for the past 36 years could most definitely not be classified in any sense as "regular activity" and I certainly was not paid for it. No, I don't have a real job, and neither did Mrs. Romney. So why all the outrage? The answer makes me smile. The answer lies buried deep within our culture's frenzied efforts to eradicate ideas like selflessness, femininity, masculinity, female dependence upon men, and the original intent of the real American Dream.
I smile, because your outrage means, you really do care, America. In your heart of hearts, you know this heedless remark was not about work. You were instantly, instinctively angered, because you understand...and value...what the nonworking, stay at home mother is doing. Most of us had one, many of us are one, all of us know one. And we know that some things in this life transcend remuneration, are beyond valuation, and that mothering possibly tops the list. So I'm simply gratified that for all our high sounding, progressive ideals about equality and empowerment...there's within us still that spark of truth - of knowing - what's really important in life. And like it or not, the knowing involves recognizing that the old fashioned models of selflessness, real gender roles that embody femininity and masculinity, and, horrors, female dependence upon men, are incumbent upon the brave woman who chooses this most difficult of...er...jobs.
So, no, it wasn't Ms. Rosen's stay-at-home-moms-don't-really-work remark that lit my fire. It was the one she made in a CNN interview later: "This isn't about whether Ann Romney or I work. Other women of some means can afford to make a choice to stay at home and raise kids. Most women in America, let's face it, don't have that choice." Now that made me mad.
"Other women of some means can afford to make a choice to stay at home and raise kids". Really? You really think the millions of us who have chosen to rear our own children are all women of means and do it because we can afford it? How could one so educated and experienced, and having risen to among the highest ranks of highly paid working women in the world, be so ignorant of the simple demographics of her own gender? Surely she knows that the median income for men is currently in the neighborhood of 50K. This is not a figure that gives families a sense of financial freedom and whimsy! And given that this wage is an average, many millions of men are earning far less than this. No, dear, we don't do it because we can afford it. The vast majority of us really can't, and are making significant sacrifices to manage it. We do it because we believe.
We believe it is the best thing for our kids. We believe it is the best thing for our husbands. We believe we are responsible for our own kids and we welcome it. We believe in the American Dream of our founders: that any American, male or female, can be anything he or she desires with hard work and honesty, and we want to be the ones to help our children grasp this vision. We believe we are better equipped than anyone on the planet to give our children the unshakable and tangible knowledge that we love them more than anybody or anything else. We believe we are the ones from whom our children should learn about right, wrong, good, bad, and yes, Virginia, there really are moral absolutes. We believe we are the ones who can instill a deep sense of familial identity, security, and belonging in the hearts and minds of our kids. And we believe all this is more important than money and is really a matter of priorities.
What kind of obtuseness, Ms. Rosen, fails to see that we, Mrs. Romney included, are neither motivated nor unmotivated by money in this stay-at-home endeavor? We do it, Ms. Rosen, because we are women of conviction, commitment, and courage. And we'll take it over your real job any day.
