According to a report by ABC News, a stay-at-home mother (or father) should earn a reported $144,000 per year based on time invested and hours spent working. Doing the math, this means that a stay-at-home parent should be paid around $16.44 per hour (based on today’s market for similar jobs), working approximately 8,760 hours in just one year. The sad part is that those who choose to make motherhood their career will never see that paycheck—at least not in actual currency.
The question is: Is motherhood a career? And if it is, has it finally been accepted into a category where it can be praised and appreciated, rather than viewed as a compromise to professional success?
The Shift in Attitudes Toward Motherhood
The New York Times recently published an article (and research study) about a 19-year-old attending Yale, with all the qualifications of someone being groomed for an elite professional life. Yet, at the young age of 19, she has already decided to set aside her Ivy League education and the likely six-figure salary that would come with it in order to become a stay-at-home mother. It’s pretty amazing, considering she doesn’t even know who the father of her future children will be. However, the study went on to describe a growing trend where more and more women, even with all the professional opportunities and education available to them, are choosing… CHOOSING motherhood as their career. In fact, this study, conducted across the United States at Ivy League schools, revealed that more than half of these highly educated, career-driven women plan on pursuing the one career path no college professor could truly prepare them for: motherhood.
Just a few decades ago, most mothers stayed home with their children, bound by deeply ingrained gender roles that were rarely questioned. Then came the women’s rights movements, which propelled women into the role of breadwinner and prestigious professional. Now, some 30 years later, many women are stepping away from their newly acquired rights and responsibilities as professionals. Some experts suggest that younger women today are more inclined to choose stay-at-home motherhood because they’ve watched their own mothers struggle to balance both motherhood and a professional life. Perhaps they feel, on a deep level, that it is difficult to do both well and are choosing to reconnect with the passions of mothers from previous generations.
But still, is motherhood a career? The definition of a career is: an occupation or profession, especially one requiring special training, followed as one’s lifework; and/or a person’s progress or general course of action through life or a phase of life, as in some profession or undertaking.
By this definition, motherhood is undeniably a career. Not only does it require special training, but it also becomes one’s lifework. It is a general course of action through a phase of life, and the definition says nothing about being monetarily compensated.
So, then… why are so many people embarrassed by, resentful of, or even ashamed of being a stay-at-home parent? Why does raising our children into healthy, happy, and hopefully meaningful assets to society still carry negative connotations? And if it’s not the mothers themselves who carry the notion that they aren’t successful unless they’re out working and earning a paycheck, then who is? Remember, 40 years ago, a stay-at-home mother was completely accepted and was seen as a vital part of a family’s success. These moms didn’t feel the need to work, nor did they feel that not earning a paycheck somehow discredited their autonomy. Remember June Cleaver?
The bottom line is this: Women (and men), or should we say families, should have the choice to raise their own children with a stay-at-home parent. Regardless of who leaves the home to work, both parties make huge sacrifices, and both are pursuing what can be considered a career. Perhaps the biggest—and only—difference is that while professionals may receive a 401(k) plan to retire on, the person choosing motherhood as a career settles for love and values.
With new trends showing younger women opting to stay home, or at least focus more time and energy on their family than on their professional careers, a loud statement is being made. While those who fought for women’s rights and acceptance in the workplace may struggle to understand the modern woman’s choice, the real gift is the ability to choose and to have both. By lifting the barriers in one world, women have gained the freedom to see what truly matters in their lives, appreciate what they have, and—most importantly—decide for themselves what they want to do when it comes to career and children.
As for whether or not motherhood is a career… it is! You would be hard-pressed to find any other career where a person works so hard, invests so much emotion, love, energy, and effort into the success of one project. Plus, it takes practice, patience, and skill to develop your abilities as a mother. Motherhood is a constantly changing environment, full of uphill battles, decisions, heartbreak, and joy. Maybe more women today are choosing motherhood as their career path because they’ve finally realized that little else compares to the love and nurturing of children.
As for the 19-year-old who claims she will put her professional career on indefinite hold the moment she has her first child, time will tell. But apparently, even at a very young age, she realizes that choosing the career of motherhood is not a sacrifice but a blessing.
