The Working Mom Label
3 ways to help each other out & avoid extra judgement we all want to escape
On the heels of a truly magical, Mom-com (not rom-com) Mother’s day, I’m reminded of the ways we define or are defined in our mothering. Today, I’m back to my suburban mom of tweens life. Just like all of the Moms I know, we catapult to engineer the weeks leading up to summer.
There’s an undercurrent I wish wasn’t washing across my mind today. The constant comparison and labeling of mothers across the world wide web.
The labels won’t stop. But what stopped me in my tracks at 49 is the one that I wish we’d stop using: “Working Mom”.
Since leaving my corporate chair, my role is hard to explain; part momager, volunteer, career coach and intuitive, wellness collaborator, yogi and mahjong player. I’m the Chief of Staff for my family and my own career.
Elise Loehnen’s article, Can We Stop Using This Phrase, she recounts a NYC trip where female awards winners labeled THEMSELVES ‘working women.’ “It’s only the women who continue to apologize for it, who perpetuate the idea that children suffer because of economic realities and this hardship is the fault of the women.”
As someone who has been using the tagline ‘living in the &’, I’m adamantinely opposed to having only two categories of women. Labels, often one dimensional, fail to capture the larger struggles & joy of women.
Working Mom or Stay at Home Mom Identities
We continue to define our mothering in black and white terms. PLEASE STOP.
On mother’s day, social media called out to single moms, adopted or foster moms, boy moms, girls moms. Do we need all of these or is it a construct of holding the community of women, a fabric unlike any other, back from what we are really entitled to…greatness and support.
One of my favorite Dr Suess books, gifted to my girls by Uncle Eric, is entitled Sneeches on the Beaches. There are two types of Sneeches—ones with stars on their bellies and those without stars . Suess’ marketing genius creates a buzz of labels, of never ending cycles where stars are popular, then unpopular. There he is on his pile of cash. The stars are removed and added until everyone is the same, on again, off again on repeat.
No one recalls if they had stars at the start. Aren’t we all just Sneeches on the Beaches, moving between labels?
Often asked, do you work outside of the home or do you stay at home with the children? The Have Nots and the Haves?
But no woman escapes judgment, only different flavors of it.
I’ve been the woman on corporate trips, taking calls at all hours, missing school drop offs or plays. I’ve been the woman with a corporate job and side hustle. I’ve been the solopreneur with odd hours and a student in an evening writing class. I’ve been sick and needing hep.
In baby music class, which I hated, whispers with working moms or the stay at home moms. On field trips, the bus divided into moms with 9-5s or not. The division is ours, ladies.
We all have battles of schedules, finances, health and schools. None of us immune to the battles of parenting ideals, helicopter moms, gentle parenting, type b moms, there is so much coming at us.
Some women work because they want to. Some because they have to. Some stay home because they want to. Some because childcare costs more than a paycheck. Some are caregiving for parents while raising children. Some are burned out. Some are building dreams. Some are lonely in both directions.
Most of us are somewhere in the &.
Maybe that is the real work now, instead of proving our choices to a neighbor on to a fellow mom, resisting the urge to turn women into categories we can rank, market or measure. Can we really aura-ring the architecture of our days.
Beneath all the labels, most mothers I know are asking the same quiet question: Am I doing enough for the people I love while still remaining someone to myself?
How women can avoid the binary labels of Stay At Home Mom or Working Mom AT each other.
1- Ask Great Questions—Don’t start with ‘what do you do?” or “Do you work?” Try: What would be your perfect day? What is your latest new hobby? What have you been reading? How was your week? What’s on your heart?
2- End Self Labeling - When we hold tight to an identity of any kind, without a deep self knowing, we risk attachments to labels that shift. I use “I’m holding down the fort.” or “I’m having a big week with clients or Nora’s starting her golf season”. Stop blubbering, overexplaining, just chat.
3- Take Credit, give credit - We all do so much, literally running our lives like a spacecraft lifting off daily, sometimes hourly. Women need to work, some women need to stay home, there can be room for all of it, we need each other to make the world go round. Let’s clap for each other. Say something NICE.
4-Stay Centered - We never know what goes on for families. Take notice of what is going on in your own home, your own priorities and family values.
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