General Thoughts on being a SAHM...

I am soon approaching the one year mark on my existence as a (more or less) full-time Stay-At-Home-Mom for my two year old son here in Luk Tei Tong Village, Mui Wo, Lantau, HK. I've been an expatriate here since April 2008. I'm a Korean American married to a Brit and we have one son, Keohi.

I have several opinions, which if taken apart, would cancel each other out, I'm sure, but I suppose that is the beauty of complex ideas. I seem to recall that a sign of genius, according to Einstein, was the ability to hold two opposing opinions. In my case, I would say it is perhaps a matter of confusion or indecisiveness, at best vacillating insecurities, as I am hardly a genius.

I must preface my personal experience by saying that my existence as a stay-at-home mom is not the same as the majority of American women who experience, what I deem to be a rather privileged existence. And I am not going to moan about anything in the way that I felt Naomi Wolf did in her book Misconception. While she made a few good points, overall, she sounded so out of touch with the average working woman I wanted to throw the book out the window when I read it. The woe-is-me-and-my-group-of-friends-we-all-own-expensive-homes-and-are-lonely was insulting. Hers was not a perfect world but she didn't seem to get that she had a much better situation than the burger slinging working person. Also her not-so-subtle dig at one of the few organizations that has helped thousands of women--La Leche League, I found offensive. I say my recent life is one of privilege having having experienced life as both a working and stay-at-home mother. Privilege is the choice of working or not working. Very few have that choice. The reality for middle Americans is that we are now a two income nation--a family that must have two incomes in order to survive. Add to this that many women who could financially afford to stay at home due to their husband's or partner's income continue to work due to their own career interest, and you have a modern family where both parents work full-time. In that sense, my choice, and our choice as a family to have one, the female partner, in this case (although briefly, it was my husband, Stephen) at home full time, no matter how progressive we are as parents and individuals, makes us a rather traditional family in stark economic and social terms.


To continue--my SAHM experience has been different from the majority of American women's for the primary reason that we employ a full-time 6 days-a-week helper. As a result of U.S. colonization of the Philippines (and prior Spanish, Japanese, well, take your pick, that nation has been in the dumps for a while) the country has a horrible economy and its primary source of income are remittances sent back by overseas workers. So due to our exploitation of this country's natural resources and our unlimited use of their land for our military operations, and their country's proximity to Hong Kong (HK), I have been able to join the legions of local and expat HK families and engage too in the exploitation of such labor and employ at a low cost a helper, for less than I paid for a daycare center in LA.

Helpers, or maids as they are called here in HK, are the reason that HK middle-class women are able to work full-time. There is no daycare system here. There are many grandparents who do the job, but at this stage in their economy, it's mostly domestic workers from the Philippines and Indonesia (another country that has robbed its own people with the help of our government) that have allowed the average HK family to become a two-income household, and thus fairly affluent by international standards. The only people in the US who employ a domestic helper in their homes have bucks. Serious bucks. And as far as I am concerned, they are absent from my discussion about this stay-at-home business because they just don't get the issues because they can buy their way out of them. When you are middle class, you don't have choices in the US and that's what this work or not work business is really about.

In the broad sense--how has my year as a SAHM been?

I would say that being a full-time stay-at-home mom beats the hell out of being a working full-time mother in almost every sense. I add to this, however, an odd caveat, that for some reason, I have found even less time to write and read than I did when working a crazy schedule. I suppose this is because if I happened to have a pocket of 10 minutes of time at work, I might, in defiance of my existence as an overworked and angry teacher, read for 10 minutes instead of grade essays. Had I adored every second of my job, I might not have had the defiance to pump twice a day at work. But work stress makes you realize what really matters. I was not going to let my job get in the way of doing what I had to do for my child--I refused to let a corporation do that. And I was not going to let a job get in the way of what I wanted to read for my own intellectual and emotional pleasure. (Had I loved my job, maybe it would have been different) Having thrown myself fully into this mothering mode has been more fulfilling, so in that sense, less enraged by my work situation and therefore, less likely to defy my condition by doing my own thing for my own intellectual pleasure. I freely acknowledge that my brain has probably been on hold for a while, but I intend on amping it up a bit. It can be done. I just need to get it together...it will happen...

My prior existence was as a full-time teacher at a prep school where I was logging in about 55 (on a great week with no grading--maybe 3 weeks a year total) to 65 hours a week by the time I left. (Year one was 80 hours, year two was 70, year three was slightly better at 65) The school had a good maternity leave policy. So, due to unplanned timing, I was able to get a full salary and take a mat leave of around 5.5 months as it fell over summer holiday. I do commend that institution for its generosity. That said, it is an efficient business model as most women tend to stay at that place due to this situation. Businesses and yes, schools, are not about making people happy. They are about making money and cutting costs. Anyway, the institution also provided basic (not wholly private but they tried) facilities for women who wanted to breastfeed. However, the work schedule was not conducive to women with young infants, and extremely grueling. It was particularly difficult with kids who, like my son Keohi, did not and does not sleep uninterrupted through the night, and who was breastfed his entire first year of life. The schedule was roughly an out the door and in the office by 7-7:35 and then home by 3:00PM (I started to ditch the last period often as it was my free period; going against school policy of staying on campus until the last class was out) and up to 5PM if there were meetings. On Mondays and Fridays, due to my schedule and the fact that I was pumping twice a day, I had exactly eight minutes to eat my lunch standing in the copy room before running to class. It was a stressful situation. After I arrived home, it was Keohi-time until he slept, around 8PM, and then I graded and did lesson prep until 11, then got in bed and got ready for 2-3 feedings a night. Weekends were lesson prep and grading and trying to take one or two naps at tops. Repeat this same thing for the next X months until Thanksgiving, Xmas, and January exam break, after which I left this position, due to Stephen's employ here in HK. When Stephen left, the workload and responsibilities increased as I had to do more stuff like drop Keohi at daycare etc...anyway...I lived for the breaks. Then again, I did too when I wasn't pregnant, and wasn't a mother. Teachers live for breaks. It's the schedule, that's the good thing about teaching, really.

This above position was not easy for a working mom. And I wasn't working at McDonald's or in a situation like many American women who are really out on their own raising young children slugging it out with menial pay positions. I had it much better than most. But the experience almost made me conclude (again, as I have thought this for many years), that most American women who hold down full-time jobs and raise families are trying to function in a patriarchal system of corporate America that is absolutely anti-family in its work schedule, set-up, and general framework. In fact, I would say, very boldly, that unless you have a certain level of income, trying to raise a kid and work full-time and get ahead in the US as a middle class person is next to impossible. In this modern economy, staying above water is a huge challenge even if your husband is working. The average American woman isn't like me with a high school teacher income augmented by two master's degrees, family that has the financial ability to fly in from across the country to pitch in, and a husband that can clean and cook something other than chili, steak, and reheated pizza. The problem that U.S. women face is the economy and the second problem is that men are still in charge of the workforce and how it operates, or have appointed women who embrace a structure that is in denial of female biology and potential needs. It's a sexist set-up, this work thing. The majority of women (and men), it should be added, in senior positions in my previous school or employ, had or have much much older children, if any at all--the latter being the more obvious status. For a school that catered to adolescents, I found that rather peculiar in a multitude of ways.

As an industrialized nation we are leagues behind almost every modern developed nation. In 2003 I was working for Save the Children-Hong Kong and came across the U.N. report on women and children. The US ranked #11 in terms of offering a decent life for women and children. Sweden was well ahead of the game, as was Australia, Canada, and most European (northern European) countries. To give you an idea of what #11 means--China was #40. The 2007 report is here: www.unicef.org/sowc07/docs/sowc07.pdf

To continue with this convoluted narrative: When Keohi had to go to daycare after Stephen left for HK the schedule became harder. Fortunately, for a period of time, I had family to help out and I had the financial ability to hire for the month (no longer, the month killed us financially) while we were transitioning and selling our worldly possessions in order to relocate, Marta, a lovely exclusively Spanish speaking (I speak no Spanish, but having spent so long with people who don't speak English I really didn't care) mother-of-four, cleaner and cook extraordinaire. Had I been able to afford Marta full-time, things might have been different all around. But, for teachers in the US, a full-time nanny is usually not affordable unless both parties are making a good amount. We were also in a situation that placed me as the primary breadwinner. Thanks to my family, Keohi was only in daycare for five weeks total. This was a good daycare, the best we could afford with a nice woman in charge, and my colleague's son loved this place. But every child is different. Keohi cried every day, for hours on end unless he was being carried, but given the number of kids there, this was not possible for the daycare owner to do very frequently. By the time we left LA, if I approached a door and rang a doorbell, he started to cry. So, the misery level was felt all around. (He has since rebounded and is perfectly fine these days). So the model of a working mom happily dropping off her kid at daycare was one that just did not work for our family. I wonder how many families it has also failed for. I was just lucky enough to be able to leave the US, a middle-class economic migrant, and figure out something else....

Before leaving the States, and while pregnant, I remember having a few conversations with women who were either pregnant and not working, or pregnant and had wealthy spouses. These were both older mothers like myself, and also younger mothers. One asked me how I was enjoying my pregnancy. First of all, who the hell would enjoy working over 70 hours a week while lugging around an extra 45 pounds in body weight? What a stupid question. You can enjoy pregnancy if you have a) lots of money in the bank b) you are at a job where you have a sofa to sit on during the day in private c) you are not working 70 hours a week. I read pregnancy magazines and most depicted an unrealistic and preposterous situation of a leisurely lovely pregnancy where the woman would sit in a field of flowers and knit a sweater. HAHAHAHA. The majority of American women are working a minimum (if they are incredibly lucky) 40 hour (plus) weeks. They can look forward to at the most 12 weeks of maternity leave. What a joke. Pregnancy with a serious job basically sucks. Make that pregnancy with any job. Like I said, the workforce is not set up for women, despite our obvious contribution to the economy and proven abilities.

I also figured out that the women who claim that they enjoyed their pregnancy were a) not in a stressful work situation b) enjoying for the first time in their relationship, any bit of leverage they had with their partner. I can think of more than one case where the relationship was clearly not equal. My observations were this: If you are in an unequal relationship to begin with, pregnancy is often one way of winning an argument. After all, both parties would agree that it is not good to release stressful chemicals and brain damage that baby, right? Better to have a calm environment. (Yeah, I read that crap about stress being good during pregnancy. That's ridiculous. That's just some corporate nonsense designed to make overworked full time working pregnant mothers-to-be feel better that they are exhausted). To continue: So if you are with a jerk, now that you are pregnant, the jerk will shut up. At least for some months. Now, if you are already in an equitable situation, where you don't have an oppressive spouse, pregnancy is not a big deal in this sense. You don't have to deal with power plays, so this I-am-a-fertile-goddess pose is not happening and a stupid waste of time. Had I been raised in a society that worshipped fertility (like Bali) and was allowed to sit around for 9 months and look at different types of baby socks, maybe I'd feel different about pregnancy? Hard to say. Meet a woman who announces that she loves being pregnant and I guarantee that woman is not working 70 hours a week. Yes, yes, all of that joy of a changing body aside, it's bloody hard work if you are working full-time. Period.

This dovetails nicely into the discussion that some have about how tough it is to be a stay-at-home mom. With one kid, it's not easy, and the more you have the harder it gets, and while it varies, it is often dependent (again) on your economic situation and your personal tolerance level of cleanliness and what you can deal with in terms of eating and mess. However, it's not the drudgery of it that sucks. (And let's face it, a lot of stuff that goes along with parenting full-time is sheer drudgery--mop floors, dishes, laundry, the list goes on...parenting is only part of the package. People rarely say a "great mother" is one who has a floor with food stuck all over it for 3 weeks. When people comment on parenting, they are often commenting on how well someone CLEANS. You could be screaming and beating your kid, but if your house looks clean, people will probably label you a good mother.) The most difficult aspect about being a full-time mom is having a partner who is absent due to the crazy work schedule that allows you to be a SAHM. After all, one of you must go down into the salt mines and do the 70-80 hours a weekr. Misery. This makes for all kinds of complications unless your partner happens to be so enthralled with his work and a traditional role that he eschews almost all aspects of childrearing. But if you are married to a 21st century kind of man, it makes the SAHM set-up very difficult. The traditional role of working father and stay-at-home mother is incredibly stressful to people who have never embraced the idea that boys wear blue and girls wear pink, or males are rectangle figures and females are triangle figures. Traditional job hats make for the imposition, without intent, of behavior that is also at odds with progressive people. To me, the most stressful part of being a SAHM, is watching your spouse work himself into the ground and nearly collapse from exhaustion.

As a SAHM, I also became restless. Part of it is isolation to where we live, no doubt (a village of a few hundred, in a town of a few thousand). While at first I was relieved to have the luxury of parenting as my sole priority after my crazy work schedule, I soon found I became in this small village, and so in the fall, began lecturing once a week at the community college. I took in some freelance work. We got a helper. Now I didn't have to cycle to the store 3 times a day to fill my front basket in order to get enough groceries for one day. Someone else helped out with hanging up the laundry. So life got better all around--for me. Not for my spouse.

I hear quite a few stories about women who are bored and eager to work and get away from their small kids. I understand this. Small children can be exhausting. Every person is different. There is nothing worse than doing what you don't want to do. But I tell you this--when faced with 65 hours a week versus staying at home, the choice is fairly clear for me. Part-time work is the ideal, but that ideal is hard to come by and is not a real solution for the majority of American women. Workplaces don't offer that flexibility. So even if part of the population might be able to squeeze by on one income and a part-time income, they couldn't because it's difficult to get a part-time situation. For most women in today's world, it's the 65 hour week and then another 20 once they get home of the drudgery stuff of parenting and running the household. They can't just do 20 hours a week out of the house. The only women who can do that have enough money to rely on one income. Again, I know that I speak from privilege as our household is not relying on the small amount of money that I bring in. This situation is main reason we are here in Hong Kong, both of us continents away from our family. Here, only one of us descends into the salt mines. If I was back in the U.S., we'd both be down in the salt mines and Keohi would be in daycare full time.

So a year later, where does this leave me?

Mixed feelings about it all. Concluding everything and nothing. I do think the following needs to be implemented on a national level in the US, if not every country.

a) one to two year guaranteed mat leave policy and full health insurance coverage for all costs relating to childbirth and childcare. This does not include in-vitro fertilization. That should come out of the individual's pocket. Until there are subsidies for adoption, I do not support any subsidies for fertility treatments. I also support paternity leave and think men who do not take it are losers buying into the sexist system. If you don't take it as a man, you will not pave the way for more progressive family policies. Shame on you.

b) onsite daycare facilities available at all businesses/heavily subsidized daycare available for families. I might have felt different about my job if I had been able to pop in and see my child during the day for even a few minutes. Maybe he would have survived daycare too.

c)cooking instruction and cleaning instruction for men who refuse or don't know how to when their wives are working full time. (haha) If both parties are working full-time, men need to step up to the plate more. (I add this for women who don't have a partner who participates in this kind of stuff; fortunately, Stephen always liked to cook and was a lot cleaner than I was)

d) adjustment of the general picture of families in the US. Wealthy women and men need to wake-up and recognize the reality of what is going on in the average American household and make some decent policies for their employees.

e) more family friendly policies in general need to be enacted on the federal and state level. I read about a big exam given at the university in Norway--lactating women were allowed to leave to take short breaks to nurse their children. I doubt a single U.S. institution of any sort would allow this. Let's face it, American institutions and businesses are not family friendly. And that's putting it politely.

f) passing of a federal law, punishable by some horrible cruel means, which forbids working more than 40 hours a week.