Someone Finally Admits That The ‘Mommy Wars’ Are All About Money

shutterstock_92423857I hate the term, “Mommy Wars.” My biggest problem with it is that being able to be judged about a decision you make as a mother – to stay home with your kids or to work – implies choice. You can’t judge someone’s decision if it isn’t a decision at all.

Finally – a magazine cuts through the b.s. and conducts a poll about the Mommy Wars that actually makes sense. MORE magazine conducted a survey about the infamous wars – and they only polled women with money. Lesley Jane Seymour, MORE’s editor-in-chief, told the Huff Post:

You have to start from the premise that ”this is a war of privilege,” Seymour says, because only women who have the means to forgo a salary and stay home are able to engage in the fighting. For that reason, The Polling Company, which conducted this survey, only included households with incomes of more than $75K, so as to compare the choices of women who could be considered to actually have a choice.

Exactly. I have adamantly insisted that the Mommy Wars don’t exist. Now I realize, they just don’t exist in my world. In my household, both of us have to work to support our family. I don’t have the luxury of contemplating whether I would like to solely focus on my family. I guess I could still have an opinion about which is better – but frankly, I have no idea. I’ve never been able to not worry about bills and constantly hustling up jobs – freelance and otherwise – to make a living. I really have no idea if I would enjoy solely focusing on my kids or continuing to work.

I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse that this is an argument that I can’t even participate in. When you struggle financially – there are so many parts of parenthood where you feel “less than.” I don’t want to speak for anyone else – I’ll just say that many times I feel like I’m failing this whole “mom” thing because of my financial situation. Now I know that my opinion about the “Mommy Wars” doesn’t even matter because of my shaky financial ground.

Great.

(photo: Everett Collection/ Shutterstock.com)

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