SFL 240 #9

Reaction Note #9 – Maternal Employment
I think that the question, "should a mother work," is really mind envocking. It seems like a big issue, and one that people feel really passionate and personal about. After considering the pros and the cons I came to the conclusion that it does not matter specifically if the mother or father has a job but the reason why they have that job and how much time with their children for that job.
The sentence that was running over and over in my head after class was to the effect that, "my child will be the same tomorrow, but this job opportunity will never come agian." I thought over my own life and could not help but wonder how especially a mother could feed herself this lie!
I am not even a mother and I recognize how valuable childhood moments are. On Sunday I was sitting on the pew with my nephew, he just got into first grade, and he sits quietly on the church pew now. Every sunday for the past two years my nephew would come over to me, sit on my lap, hand me a pen, and ask me to draw a train on his hands. I got really good at drawing tains, but I just noticed this week that he does not ask me to draw trains on his hands any more. In the few momments while I watched him pick up the hymn book and turn the pages all of those trains I had drawn seemed more valuable than my notes or textbook every could be worth. My nephew is not even my own child and I can recognize that there will never be another time in his or my life when I will draw a train on his cubby little hands. There must be an innumerable experiances like this one for a mother.
That is what really got me thinking about mothers who work. I know that growing up my mom worked a few hours, but she was always a mother first. She had few opertunities to get more hours and a heigher pay but she never took them. In my family I have sister-in-laws who work a few hours here, and sisters who do not have a job. There are women who are at-home-mothers who from what I can observe do not sacrafice as much time or energy for their children as women who work. Converstaionally there are women who work and do not sacrafice time or energy and sometimes not even money for their children. In short I think that if a mother goes to work or not should not be the real question to ask ourselves. The real question I think that we should ask ourselves is why the mother is going to work, and what the mother is willing to sacrafice for her children.
I would do not want to exclued fathers from this, because the truth is that I think the same truth applies to fathers as well. If a father is not willing to sacrafice his own pride, money, and a job title to spend ample time with his children to help them improve, feel supported, and know that they are loved then I believe that he should recieve the same judgement. I know that there needs to be an income coming into the home, but there also needs to be time and energy and love in the home and those are the things that make children develop into mature adults.