Society Still Needs Family Women

A writer by the name of Amy Glass, right here on Thought Catalog, published a piece entitled “I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I Am Not Sorry”. In this piece, the author, who I do not know, tried to make the case that a woman who goes out into the world and makes something of herself outside of the household is worth more than the woman who decides to get married and start a family.

While Ms. Glass may have the best of intentions, she is making a mockery of all women, all over the world. I implore all of you to read her piece in its entirety and then read mine. Then, and only then, will you be able to understand both sides of this argument.

Finding that person that you want to spend the rest of your life with is a moment that those who have experienced it will never forget. Both man and woman will remember where they were when they finally realized that one person was the one they knew they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with. From that moment on, things change. The couple may date for many years and never get married and decide to only live together, decide to get married and start a family, or at some point down the road decide to start a family but believe it is better to adopt rather than have their own children. No matter what the choice is, these two souls are now connected in a way only they truly understand. This is why you may look at a couple and wonder how they could be together, but when they look at each other they wonder how they ever lived apart.

At some point in this relationship, children may come into the picture. In more traditional homes like the one I grew up in, the woman stays at home while the man goes out to earn a paycheck. In the times we live in today, that is not so simple. Many women, with or without children, decide to go to work for one reason or another. The reasoning behind their decision is really not important to this aspect of women in the home. But what is important are those women who decide to stay at home and take care of that home. At some point children could come into the picture, and the couple must ask themselves if one of the parents are going to stay at home to raise this child or will they go an alternate route.

Many mothers today have a career, and there is nothing wrong with that. A strong woman will be able to balance taking their child to soccer practice with all of the other aspects of life that are thrown at her on a daily basis. My mother, the wife of a truck driver, stayed home with my brother and I until we got to the age that we could take care of ourselves at home, and then she decided she wanted to get back out into the workforce. My father did not find anything wrong with that, so she went. She was still able to make our lunches for school, show up for the baseball games, and be there to help with the homework that we might have needed help with. My mother was there for our family no matter what was going on, and she juggled all of that plus working outside the home. Yes, she was there all the time when I was young, but as I grew she had to grow outside of what she had known for years, and I understand much better today than I did back then.

A woman who decides to stay at home to take care of the home, to take care of the children, and to take care of everyone’s needs is stronger than any CEO of any large company in this world. That woman may have a job outside the home as well that she must juggle with her parenting responsibilities, and when times get tough she pushes through and makes sure everything gets done. That is the definition of a strong woman. A woman who is not afraid to stay at home to raise her kids right just because a radical faction of modern-day feminism says it is wrong makes the point every single day that not only can she be the tough woman in the board room, but she can be the tough woman at home making sure the rooms are clean and the homework is done.

The women who have raised children know what I am talking about. They have witnessed and experienced life in ways that men cannot even dream. Men are conditioned to get a job, take care of the family, come home, and do it against the next day. They are the protectors of the family from outside forces that may be too much for the women and children to handle on their own. This is what society sees the male in a relationship as. That has not really changed much with time, but the role of the woman has and has grown to be the person who stays at home to cook and clean to the person who cooks, cleans, buys clothes, buys food, works for her own money, and helps when the bills come in the mail. While this has changed over time, the modern woman is not just the woman who refuses to have a family and believes it is a waste of time. The modern woman, the real feminist in her own right, is the woman who knows what she wants, is willing to take it, and at the end of the day go home to read the children a bedtime story.

The woman who can juggle work outside the home with everything else in the home may just be the true master of the castle, so to speak. The woman who puts down other women for wanting a family does not see the joy that those women get because that woman has yet to experience it. She has not experienced the love of someone else, the joy of giving birth to a child, or raising a family like many women today still do. A woman that disregards the advancements in society made by women like this only shorts those women on what they have done and what they continue to do to this day. There is nothing wrong with going out and working, staying home with the family, no matter what you decide to do. What is important is to remember that having a family is not a bad thing, and that in some ways may actually make you feel a little better about yourself and what you have been able to accomplish.

One day those women who have raised their child right will be able to stand there as their child walks across a stage to receive his or her high school diploma. Just think of the joy that mother will have to know she had a hand in making all of that happen. The life of a mother and a wife is more than cooking, cleaning, and using the vacuum. The life of a mother is about love for her husband, children, and what she does on a daily basis. Mothers are much more than just maids who run around after children all day. Those children grow up to be parents themselves, and who is the first person they think back to when they are trying to figure out how to raise their own child or how to juggle all of life’s responsibilities at one time?

Their mother!