A new mom insult has come to my attention today that I, thankfully, have never personally encountered. From two different moms, I've learned that some people actually approach working mothers and say some variation of "someone else is raising your child" to their faces. Either in pretend kindness - "it must be so sad to have someone else raising your child," or in outright judgement - "why did you have kids only to let someone else raise them?"
First, I can't believe anyone in the world with a shred of decency would have the slightest thought that accusing a working mother of not raising her children is remotely acceptable or any of their business. I imagine that a person who would say that would also probably walk around half naked, smeared with ranch dressing, randomly french-kissing passersby and bestowing pirate hats upon them against their will. Because decency.
And yet. People are saying it.
So up go my mommy hackles. For any mom who has ever heard, or will ever hear something so ridiculous directed at them, please remember this. You do not abdicate your motherhood as soon as you hire a babysitter. All moms, no matter how many other obligations they have, get help from other people. It doesn't matter whether you work in an office all day, half the day, only on Wednesdays, or you spend most of your time in your home, taking care of your kids or working on a degree or writing from your bedroom or making sure the family doesn't run out of toilet paper.
It is absolutely the most human thing in the world to get help with caring for your kids. It is a time-honored human practice for moms to outsource their childcare from time to time so that they can do other things. The people who tend to insist the loudest that mothers need to constantly carry their babies and nurse them for 5 years seem to forget that those ancient childrearing practices they love so much also included multiple caregivers, and the influence of those other adult figures was and is beneficial. Why do we care so much more about baby-carrying than we do about babysitting? They're equally prevalent in ancient parenting, they're equally "natural", and yet moms are praised for doing the one that literally ties them to their children, and attacked for doing the one that allows them to do something other than mothering.
There is an almost instinctive attack in contemporary motherhood talk against any mother who does anything other than mothering. A mother who needs to do other things is so easily and so often criticized for having the gall to have other things to do. Who does she think she is? Some kind of man?
And this is not just for mothers who work outside the home. Even moms who stay at home, those amazing herculean people who put up with so. much. crap. every single day, all day long with no rest, even those marathon-mothering women are guilted for asking, just every so often, for a break, or some time with adults.
Your children will not forget you are their mother if they spend time with another adult. They will not look back on their toddler years and think "I learned all my values from that daycare center." Even if you work in an office all day, and only see them for a couple hours on weekdays, they know who you are and they follow your lead. Imagine your own mother. Now imagine your kindergarten teacher. Now imagine that someone told your mother that your kindergarten teacher was actually raising you.
Your kindergarten teacher was an important person in your life. But she wasn't your mom. And even though you spent many hours a day with your teacher instead of your mom, you could tell the difference between them. The values you inherited were mostly from your family, and if you were lucky, enriched and accompanied by things your teachers taught you. All the adults in a child's life have the chance to support and love a child, and a child who meets and learns to love multiple adults is a kinder, more confident and well-balanced person.
Even more importantly, a mom who meets and gets to spend time with multiple adults is a kinder, more confident and well-balanced person. It works both ways. Accusing a working mother of not raising her own children is a crushing, terrible thing to say to someone. It's not true. And it creates a crazy ideal of motherhood that isn't realistic or beneficial to anyone.
If I ever hear someone say that, I hope to God I have a tub of ranch dip in my hands.
