There are some advantages to moms blogging about their kids. The isolation issues that many stay-at-home moms face is no joke. As we've discussed before, it's unnatural for people to live utterly cut off from any real community, as is the case with moms who are outside of the workforce. Blogs give women in these situations a way to share stories and feel close to one another
When I studied anthropology in college, one of the things that stood out to me the most was the element of community: In pretty much every time and place outside of modern Western culture, people lived around family all their lives. The average person was surrounded by brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. For women, the work of raising children was not done alone: Younger nieces and cousins would help with the little kids, the women would socialize as they gathered water or washed clothes, all the children playing together around them. This is the kind of life we were designed for.
In contrast, the average modern woman who is out of the workforce lives her life on a suburban desert island. The nearest family member lives miles (if not thousands of miles) away. She doesn’t know all the people on her street, and not many of them have kids anyway. If she’s like many Americans, she’s moved within the past few years, losing any sense of community she’d built in the last place she lived. Any opportunities for socializing with other women involve the herculean effort of packing up all the kids in the car to drive somewhere. She doesn’t even have the age-old mother’s release valve of banishing the kids outside and telling them to come back at mealtime, since safety concerns mean she has to keep them within sight at all times.
This is an incredibly unnatural way to live.
I have to say that I totally agree. When there are no other stay-at-home moms around you, life can be lonely for the woman trying to go it alone at home all day. And when there aren't moms home, there aren't going to be kids around for your own kids to play with. In fact, the whole sense of community and neighborliness is compromised.
Yep.
ReplyDeleteI even consider myself an introvert who doesn't mind a day (or several) at home by myself, but I am also already feeling this.
Oh man, me too! The immediate postpartum period is the worst for this, bedrest notwithstanding. Hurray for the internet telling me what's going on in the rest of the world. The world being other women's homes.
ReplyDeleteyup... this is why I went back to work. My whole life I dreamed about being a housewife, however I found in reality that it is not a very nice role in modern day society . It is very socially isolating. I found myself going crazy after 3 months at home with my newborn. I hate this modern world. I wish governments and society would realize how valuable the role of housewife is and provide more support to women to go down that route. I wish I grew up in the world before the fifties. Yes it wasn't perfect but at least the housewife was respected. I would love to stay at home but you need adult interaction. For some women it is impossible. In Germany e.g women are legally encouraged to stay at home for at least the first 3 years of the baby's life. They therefore have opportunities to meet lots of women like themselves. I hate working and putting my son in daycare but I feel like socially it is best for both myself and my son.
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