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Viral Post Says Mothers Shouldn’t Have Careers: “Her Life Is Falling Apart”

Every several months or so, some nonsense from the interwebs makes its way into my peripheral, and I can’t just ignore it. Such is the case with this handwritten graphic from The Transformed Wife that posits mothers shouldn’t have careers because a mom who does suffers from a life that “is falling apart. She doesn’t feel like she’s a good wife and mother.”

Conversely, according to this woman, a mother who is “home all day long” has a life that “is fulfilling. Her husband and children rise up and call her blessed.”

FB / The Transformed Wife

As someone who has done both — the working mom and stay-at-home mom gig — let me just say I want whatever this woman is smoking because it sounds like some grade A, hypnotic, transcend-yourself-from-actual-reality level shit.

Because there’s about as great a chance of there being a mom out there, regardless of what she does with her days, who feels like she’s got this whole thing figured out as there is of a flying unicorn coming into my bedroom tonight and dropping off a pot of gold.

And I won’t even start with the inaccuracies in her assumptions about working mothers.

I’m also not here to get into a debate about which is harder or “righter” — working motherhood or stay-at-home motherhood — but I AM here to say STFU with this train wreck line of thinking.

I mean, what is the point of her post? I’m going to be generous and say it’s perhaps to share and encourage others to adopt a similar life philosophy, one deeply rooted in Christianity. And that’s fine. But what is the ultimate effect of her post? To shame mothers who choose, or HAVE, to work outside the home.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. This is the same woman who claims men prefer debt-free virgins without tattoos (as in those who don’t waste money on an education and live a chaste lifestyle). I’m sure you can guess what this indebted, tatted, hardly virginesque woman with an education thinks about that.

But it’s not simply that I disagree with her. (And I do. MY GOD, I SO DO.) Rather, the thing that really chaps my ass about all this is how it might be making some women, who already have it hard enough and already question their choices in this motherhood game, feel about themselves.

It pisses me off to no end that potentially, in a time when she needs support and validation and camaraderie, there is a mom out there who has come across this message and sunk deeper into a well of despair, or worse, decided to give up altogether.

So listen up, mamas, and listen carefully because this is important: WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE OR HAVE TO DO IS ACCEPTABLE, AND YOUR BABIES WILL BE OK.

You are doing a great job, whether you work or stay at home. Your kids know you love them, your significant other knows you love them, and if it feels like there’s turbulence in these areas of your life, that’s not abnormal. We all go through ups and downs as parents and in our relationships.

You are not alone, there is nothing wrong with you, and there will be another peak for every valley you may wander into.

In short, you’re doing good, kid, no matter what anyone else may think. I see you. And you’re — WE’RE — gonna make it.