Family Matters

I don’t normally watch “Desperate Housewives”, and recently I was reminded why.

When I came home from class one day my roommates were watching lifetime reruns and an old episode was on. The blonde one, Lynette, was in an interview for a job. She was returning to the work force after a seven-year gap in which she stayed home to raise her four kids. However, instead of focusing on Lynette’s previous experience in the field, the interviewer chose to harass her as to what she had been doing for those seven years, as if she had somehow become “tainted.”

I personally wasn’t aware that children make you stupid. Or that stay-at-home moms, maybe even mothers in general, are somehow second-class. I myself would like to be a mother someday, and was not happy about being put down by a soap opera.

Of course, the world is a different place than it was in the fifties. Today, instead of glorifying suburban and family values as they did then, many see this lifestyle as simple-minded. The feminist movement liberated women from the chains of oppression in their homes and allowed them embark into the real world. And good for them, but where has this left the reputations of mothers and housewives?

Having grown up in a small community of a rich suburb, filled with your typical soccer moms and Stepford wives, I wanted nothing more than to get out and go to college. I felt like I was trapped in a world full of superficial people living materialistic lives. It was the last place I ever thought I would want to return to. But I can’t help but wonder if I should really be cursing my old life.

The fact is, that I owe almost all of who I am today to parents who devoted their lives to me. Despite whatever they had going on outside of the family; they were at every softball game, every performance and every parent-teacher conference. We ate dinner as a family almost every night. We went on vacations. We genuinely loved each other.

What is so horrible about that? People like to throw around the word “housewife” like it is some deplorable weakness, as if a woman becomes a stay-at-home mom because she lacks any other redeeming qualities that would allow her to actually contribute to society.

Women are expected to lead double lives in today’s society. They are supposed to be ambitious career women hungry to prove their worth against the men, but when things suffer at home they are called bad mothers.

The housewives of today shape the generation of tomorrow. Good parenting produces healthy and happy children that will grow into successful, well-adjusted adults. I think people lose sight of how important that is.

It is brilliant the way women have advanced in society, but must it come with a price? The feminist movement should not have to come with such a negative status for housewives. When women introduce themselves as stay-at-home moms, I want them to be admired and not scoffed at.

Whether it be mother or father, aunt or uncle, grandparent or friend, don’t sneer at a person who cares enough about his or her family to commit full time and attention to them. It is probably one of the least selfish career paths you can take, and it deserves respect.

Here at Sonoma State, as in many other colleges, women are using education to propel them in society. They are preparing for the work force, to make something of themselves, and maybe even change the world. Our twenties are supposed to be for “big dreams” and having fun. We’re told to wait until our thirties to ruin our lives with long-term commitment and children.

Not a lot of people in college make having a family a top priority. In fact many attend college, women in particular, to escape traditional family values and strike out on their own, planning on saving marriage and babies for later in life if ever.

My friend Julia and I like to laugh about one day earning our pearls and moving to houses with white picket fences and going to book clubs and P.T.A meetings. While maybe not to this extreme, one of the things I am most excited for in life is to be a mother and have my own family. And if I need to take a couple of years off work to be with them, I don’t think that makes me any less intelligent or ambitious.

It doesn’t matter how “big” your dream is, only how happy it makes you. I may not be the next woman president; and I may never be an astronaut or a movie star. My dream is to be happy. And it may not be good enough for the world, but its more than enough for me.