Affirmation

One of the many reasons I like Rob is that he never, ever introduced his aunt Lena or his friend Caroline to me as Not Working - he always said "Full-time Mum". It didn't occur to him to count this as "not work" or "not real work" or "a cushy option". So I know, every day, that he thinks what I do is important, and useful, and not as easy as it looks to someone who's never done it.

I had someone say to me this weekend that I might have stayed working if I'd ever found "what I wanted to do". It seems that some people find it very hard to believe that this is what I want to do. I want to have and raise children, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in as equal as possible a partnership with my co-parent, givnig them as rich a life as we can manage.

I also, in my spare time (hah! even that is regulated, scheduled, managed and made-the-most-of) like to do this and that to keep my brain alive, but honestly, stimulating and caring for an active, intelligent baby is quite brain-active, though obviously different parts of the brain than "real work".

It's hard when even feminists see traditional women's work as unimportant, low-status, easy, and for-the-stupid.

You're not like that, I know. But some people are. And I still don't want a degree, or any other qualification, unless I enjoy getting it. I don't want to be overqualified for the jobs I enjoy any more than I already am. With any luck, by the time I re-enter the workforce (another ridiculous phrase, based on denigrating my role now, and that of men who do the same thing I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE), people will have stopped telling me that they think I'm great but the job they're hiring for would bore me so they won't let me have it.

It is by far the most stimulating and rewarding work I have ever done, this baby thing. And now that I'm not in pain all the time, it's even better. lniamh's journal is there to tell you so.