TEN THINGS NOT TO SAY TO A MOTHER WHO DOES NOT WORK TO CARE FOR HER CHILDREN (II)

Yesterday we started an issue in defense of mothers who decide to stop working to care for their children. It is not that no one in particular has attacked them so that they need a public defense, however, as some mothers explained in the comments of yesterday's entry, there is a social tendency to see the fact of not working negatively.

In Babies and more Everyone, publishers and readers, we try to respect the decisions of others and that is why, perhaps, it seems strange to publish an entry like this, defending something in a place where nobody has attacked. However, the information sometimes arrives at places where one does not wait and, if it does not arrive where it is most needed, it helps at least the closest readers who once made a decision as simple as dedicating all their time to their children , and as complicated as leaving your job for several months or years.

How the important thing is not what is decided, but to have the freedom to choose without anyone saying anything (We all deserve that respect), I leave you today with the five things that should not be said to a mother who has decided to stop working to take care of her children who were pending yesterday.

6. "What do you do all day, by the way?"

“Well, nothing, I put the child in the hammock and I lay down to watch TV or sunbathe… if it's bad weather or winter I leave the child with my grandmother and I go shopping or to the gym (don't fuck you) "

I guess you don't need to make a list of what a person does who takes care of their children, right? Let's say that, in a nutshell, a mother who stays with her children is trying to educate them in the best possible way, with the greatest affection she can give them, with the time the children need and with the most typical day-to-day activities so that children grow up educated, respectful, autonomous, communicative (one of the big problems in the parent-child relationship, lack of communication) and with self-confidence and a good dose of self-esteem.

On top of that, well, he does everything else, take the house forward, go shopping, make meals, put washing machines, etc. all in front of the child or with the child, who sees that life is not only play and play, but also keep the place where you live more or less clean, tidy and with food to feed.

That's what a mother does all day, by the way.

7. “And everything you studied? Your career, your job,…? ”

Knowledge does not take place and studying a career does not always have to involve working on something, although it is true that it is usual to choose the career that leads you to work from what you want to work.

In any case, I doubt that no woman decides not to study because “in a few years I will be a mother”, but that most women study to have an education, to have a profession they like and work on it if it can be, as We do all those who once decided to study, come on.

Once you are a mother, life revolves like an omelet (or not) and many women prefer to postpone their years of work to devote themselves to what is more important for them at that time, which are their children. The title is not going to be taken away from anyone, so the day you want to return to work you will continue to have the career in the curriculum.

Will you miss some opportunities and have trouble finding a job? It may be, that is why the decision to stay at home to take care of children and educate them is so complicated.

It's all a matter of choose the election that best suits all parties involved (within the family) and then it will be seen. There are also women who decided to continue working at the end of the maternity leave that now that their children are already autonomous they have lost their jobs. Looking back they might think that "I could have stayed with my children", but of course, going back, at that time, nobody told them how long they would work.

8. “That explains why your children have so much 'mamitis'”

“What is mastitis, the inflammation of a mother? If you mean that they are very attached to me, it is true, they are, but contrary to what people think is normal, it is logical and not bad. ”

We have commented this more than once. Children who have a close (close) and valid reference (which pays attention to them) often use it a lot. This is normal because the children are learning from us, with us and they alone too, just by observing or inventing.

When a child feels insecure with something, he has two options: call someone to help him or not at the risk of making a mistake. Sometimes making mistakes is fine, because it can be a starting point for learning something else, but sometimes, especially if a child is small, making mistakes can be dangerous, so it is usual for the first impulse to do the first thing, ask for help .

If when someone asks for it, the children learn that they can ask for it whenever necessary. Help does not have to be “I already do it to you”, but it can be “I do it to you, see how I do it and try it yourself too”. That way the children also learn and then, when they know how to do something, they will stop asking for help (for that specific thing).

As they grow up they are more able to solve problems, have more self-confidence and therefore ask less and less for help. That is to say, not for spending more time with the mother will be more dependent after, but rather the opposite, they will be more autonomous and independent because they have had a good teacher.

9. “How strange… I thought you would have a super clean house”

"I thought instead that you were more educated, but I see no."

In this sense I think there is not much to say. If a mother stays at home to take care of her children, the most logical thing is that the first are the children and the second is the house. When they are babies it is difficult, not impossible (because that's what couples are for), to have the house tidy.

Once the children are more autonomous and spend more time entertaining with a toy, the mothers can do more things while controlling the child, so that the house is more visible.

10. “More tired I am, that besides taking care of my children I work”

“Ok, you won me… you have the prize for the most suffered and most exhausted mother. I didn't know it was a competition, if I know today I don't sleep. ”

For some strange reason it seems that madrasa is the one who comes to bed dusted, physically and mentally exhausted, but who comes to everything, it is not well known how, and it seems that to know who has made the best decision one should see what mother he gets tired more ...

"All day with my children, it's beautiful, exhausting, but beautiful ... and I don't change it for anything," one mother could say.

"Well, I am tired, that I am also for my children and I also have to work," I could answer another.

At this point in the dialogue the competition appears, as if the former could not be tired or exhausted and the complaint could only be exclusive to working mothers.

Surely all mothers get tired, but no need to compete. There is no prize for "the best". There are days that I do not do too many things and I arrive at the bed surrendered, and others that I have not stopped instead and that when going to sleep I still have rope. Can I say "I'm tired" the day I'm tired? Or do I have to shut up because there are people around me who consider me more tired than me?

Summarizing

In short, so many words could have been summed up in "nobody should say anything to a mother who stops working", just as we could say "nobody should say anything to a mother who does not stop working", but occasionally it is worth expressing the words, the phrases that many mothers can hear, more than anything to reflect, to see the nonsense that people can say, to see how disrespectful it can be and to see that a problem for everyone, which is that children, at 16 weeks of birth, no longer have anyone who can caring, ends up dividing a society that "fights" with each other, when it should unite to complain about this.