On Career Woman vs Home-maker
In many company situations, the Manager of the company will always be more respected than a Cleaner in the same company, even though a day without the cleaner, will probably affect staff members more than a day without the manager. This goes to show that some jobs seem to be far more valued than others.
In today’s world, people who go out and bring in an income are much more respected than those that don’t. House wives spend their time tending to important but unpaid domestic chores without bearing an income and, as a result, often become financially dependent on their husbands. So generally the tangible surpasses the intangible. Unfortunately, all their hard work cannot be quantified and so society may view them as unproductive or lazy when in actual fact, it is the often quite the opposite. While I don’t really agree with society’s unfair judgment on this, that is just the attitude multitudes have concerning this subject matter.
I went out of my way to gather random people’s views on this subject matter and most detested the idea of being a stay at home mom. “It’s shameful and quite embarrassing that women are still wasting their lives and education on menial tasks, mating and bearing more and more offspring at home because of all the spare time they have”, was the response from one lady. To her no educated woman should be doing that, save for the house help because it simply does not qualify as a job. My opinion is, anyone who presumes a stay-at-home parent (mother or father), doesn’t have a job clearly needs to babysit my niece for two days because they have no idea what they are talking about.
Unfortunately, most people have little respect for people who decide to stay home and raise their children. Housewives probably work more than most working women and If I choose not to be a housewife, it’s probably because I am too lazy to cook, clean and change diapers 24/7 (and I love traveling without restrictions); which makes me respect anyone who takes that road even more. None the less, the fact that they do not get a salary remains the reason why they are judged so lowly because we are brought up to rank people according to how much they earn, not necessarily how much work or other contributions they make. Our day to day lives are so expensive that most families need two working parents, such that one parent staying at home is seen as a luxury rather than real work. In some circumstances however, nannies and hired helps are so expensive some women have to stay in and handle things at home because the alternative is too expensive for them. And this remains a huge sacrifice. Putting the issue of our wallets aside, housewives deserve as much respect as working women because someone had to stay in and keep the house in order and they sacrificed themselves for their families to remain comfortable. To get a male perspective on this, please click link to read my colleague Mitchell’s views – http://goo.gl/QueHlf
