Mothering – a career in itself

Yesterday I overhead a conversation in a checkout line between two people and my blood began to boil.

In response to the question, "What are you doing now?" the answer was "I am JUST a stay at home mom."

Just a mom! Give me a break. Ensuring that our future is secure through the nurturing of the generation that follows us is without a doubt the most intense, demanding, dynamic, important and rewarding occupation we will ever assume. Yet it is consistently undervalued.

By necessity mom’s job description includes many facets of multiple occupations – i.e. housekeeper, short-order cook, nurse, teacher, social secretary, events manager, conflict negotiator, therapist, always with the every present other duties as required clause. If mom is also engaged at a job that she gets paid for, the one that our society seems to actually consider work, her home based tasks are often relegated to what many would consider off hours.

My son has on occasion made reference to his ‘laundry fairy’. Like the tooth fairy she comes at night to empty the laundry basket, so when he wakes up the socks, underwear, shirts and pants are now clean and neatly folded on top of his dresser, ready to be put in their place.

Then there is the complex task of nutritional planning. I read recently that you know that you are a mother when you hope that ketchup can be included as a vegetable selection in the Canada Food Guide because that is the only one you can get your kids to consistently eat. You can be assured that what ever you have prepared, is not going to be welcomed by the entire family unit.

My mother now insists that she has been promoted. She is now a grandmother. With this promotion she alleges that she acquired increasingly more complicated responsibilities. In addition to her ongoing and welcome supportive suggestions for my brother and I, she is now obligated to love, nurture, worry about and entertain yet another generation.

The designation of mother with either a prefix of grand, foster or step or a suffix of in-law is, in my opinion, a venerable title. However there are also many women in our lives that fulfill a mother role or provide a mother support that are not recognized as perhaps they should be on Mother’s Day.

They include the maiden aunt who encourages your academic pursuits, the neighbourhood lady who has no children of her own but makes the best cookies while providing a warm place on a snowy day, or a favorite teacher who always made time for her students.

Mothering is a challenge. Mothering is also an opportunity. The perpetuation of a loving caring environment is a vital component of our society and sorely needed for the future. The hand that softly rocks the cradle is not only suffering from sleep deprivation, she is setting the tone for a kinder gentler world.