“For too long, we have been talking about “stay-at-home parents” and “working parents” as if staying at home and working were fixed, unchanging states. Additionally, there’s the persistent cultural myth that working parents and stay-at-home parents are locked in a perpetual grudge match (colloquially referred to by that cringeworthy, retrograde term “the mommy wars”). But according to researchers, the mommy wars are, at most, a skirmish between extremists on either side.”

-Jessica Grose, New York Times, May 2019 

Can I ask you a personal question?

🤰 The “mommy wars”

We’ve talked about society’s obsession with pitting women against each other in past issues, but nowhere do we see it more than when it comes to the working mom vs. stay-at-home mom debate. If you choose to work, you can preserve a sense of your pre-kids self, get a break from domestic work, and enjoy the sense of fulfillment that comes with pursuing a professional calling. But you’re often made to feel guilty about missing the precious moments of baby- and toddlerhood. And oftentimes, working moms feel like they’re failing at home and at work because they simply can’t give either the undivided attention they deserve, leading to depression and anxiety for 42% of working moms. 

On the other hand, if you’re a stay-at-home mom, you get to do what many call the most important job in the world - raising the next generation of humans. You’re able to fully lean into your maternal instincts and never have to miss the precious, and fleeting, moments of your kids’ childhood. But with that, your identity often gets reduced to being a mom and nothing else as you face the same thankless, mundane tasks every day. And worse, you might fall into “stay-at-home mom depression” as a result of the neverending cabin fever. Healthline reports that one recent study comparing 200 working moms and 200 stay-at-home moms found that stay-at-home moms were 2.43 times more likely to live with depression than their working mom counterparts.  No matter which route you choose, it feels like you just can’t win.

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the debate regarding whether or not to have kids. This week’s post is first and foremost for those of us who have or plan to have kids but aren’t sure what that means for our careers. But whether or not you want kids yourself, we also hope this helps us all give more grace to moms regardless of their lifestyle choices.

The state of moms and careers

According to Pew Research, 26% of U.S. moms are stay-at-home moms (down from 28% in 1989 and up from 23% - an all-time low - in 1999). This compares to only 7% of dads. During COVID, things got worse for women’s labor participation rate as an estimated 2.3M women left the workforce, reducing it down to 56.2% - the lowest it had been since 1987. To be clear, these are not women who were simply laid off or in between jobs - these are women who were not working or looking for work. While women’s employment has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels (77%), the pandemic showed us just how broken the American childcare system is and just how much the burden falls on moms. The Mom Project - a digital platform that helps moms stay active in the workforce - estimates that 43% of women leave the workforce after having a child. So while about a quarter of all moms are stay-at-home moms, that number jumps dramatically for moms of young children. Why? Mostly due to a lack of childcare, career support, and flexibility. In other words, many moms feel that they have to leave their careers. And when to work or not to work stops being a choice, we have a problem. Because it’s one thing if women want to stay home, but it’s an entirely different situation if they can’t work. Because leaving work has financial consequences. First, it typically results in being financially dependent on your partner. Further, when women who have left the workforce re-enter, they’re often faced with the “wage penalty” which can amount to making 40% less in earned income over time. And there are also greater economic impacts beyond the household. The Center for American Progress estimates that women leaving the labor force and/or reducing working hours to assume caretaking responsibilities amounts to $64.5B in lost wages and economic output every year. 

But that estimate is based on our existing way of valuing unpaid housework (also known as “invisible labor”). In 2019, the New York Times estimated that if women were paid minimum wage for their caretaking and domestic responsibilities, they’d have earned $1.5T. What’s interesting is that when you hire a nanny, cleaning lady, or chef to do your household work, it counts toward the economy and is considered work. But when you do it yourself, it doesn’t. So what we’re inadvertently saying is that when moms do it, it doesn’t count, but if anyone else does it, it does. So what does that say about how we value and view moms in our society? 

OK, but what about the outcomes?

Putting aside the economics, we wanted to know what the research says about working vs. stay-at-home moms when it comes to outcomes. But of course, there’s no clear answer. Some studies say when mothers stay home for at least the first few years of their sons’ lives, they have higher test scores later in life and are more likely to go to college. Yet a 2015 Harvard study says daughters of working moms are more likely to complete higher levels of education and earn 23% more than those of stay-at-home parents. Some sources say that working moms are happier, and others say that there’s no difference between the happiness levels of working vs. stay-at-home moms. 

But here’s the thing. Emily Oster, a renowned economist who researches data-driven pregnancy and parenting, says it best in her book Cribsheet: you can’t rely on social science research to tell you what’s best for you. What you decide is best for your family is what’s best. End of story. 

Let us know what you think by voting in our poll and leaving an anonymous comment.

 💭 Our two cents

As someone who has always wanted a career and wanted kids (and was raised by a working mom), I’ve always considered being a working mom to be the default. As a fierce feminist, I’ve never even let myself fathom being a stay-at-home mom because I thought it went against everything I believed in. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized it’s a lot more nuanced than I once thought. 

The definition of feminism is the belief in economic, political, and social equality of men and women. And in a capitalist society where our worth is often tied to our earning potential, it can seem counterintuitive to claim that a woman can both be a feminist - believing in women’s equal rights in the workforce - yet also choose to not enjoy those rights and stay at home. But once again, the key here is choice. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you will or even have to. For example, not everyone who is pro-choice would have an abortion themselves when faced with the option. But they’re pro-choice because they believe that it’s up to the individual, and no one else, to make that decision. Society loves to tell women what they should and should not do, and even more so, has a deep-seated fixation with devaluing us and our positions in the world. Our conclusion: being a feminist and a stay-at-home mom are not at all mutually exclusive. 

And as I’ve been more exposed to what motherhood entails and read more about invisible labor, I’ve had to unlearn this idea that caretaking and housework aren’t real work and reframe it as simply a different, but equally respectable, type of work. A big breakthrough for me personally has been seeing some of my friends and mentors become moms and watch their priorities shift. I would say that they are more hardworking and ambitious than ever before, but they don’t necessarily see working 60-80 hours a week as the sole definition of success (and for some, professional work in general no longer aligns with their personal goals).

I’ve also come to realize that it doesn’t have to be so black and white. Our careers and our motherhood journeys are long. We can take a few years off, then come back. We can choose to work full-time, but take a remote job so we’re home more often. We can work part-time. We can start our own businesses that allow us to have the flexibility we need. We can choose whatever is best for us and our families. But what we have to stop doing is passing judgment on each other. So what if I want to be a full-time working mom and you don’t? That’s okay. We are different people and can have different wants, needs, and perspectives. 

 ✅ You should also know…

➕ Calculate Your Worth: Check out this Unpaid Work Calculator based on 2018 research from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that will tell you how much your household work is worth in hard dollars. The UN has a similar interactive tool that will tell you how many years of your life will be spent doing unpaid household work. 

👩‍💻The Mom Project: Looking for a job as a mom? Join 1.5M women and 20,000 companies on the platform focused on keeping moms in the workforce. 

💃 The girls have spoken

Last week’s NTP was a cheat sheet of (almost) everything you need to know about IUDs: their upsides, their downsides, how they work, and all things in between. In fact, about a third of you who answered our poll have already been using and loving your IUD, while others are happy with other forms of contraception and many of you aren’t currently using birth control at this point in your life. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, we hope our IUD deep dive left you feeling more confident in the knowledge you have about your reproductive health and the options that are available to you. :)

💌 Up Next

That’s all for today! If you liked this edition of Not That Personal, we think one of your friends probably will too – refer one (or two or three) below. ;)

Have something to say? We’d love to hear it – reply to this email or leave an anonymous comment here :) 

Up next: So… is your attachment style affecting your relationships?

💖 S & J