Another media attack on Stay-at-Home-Moms

From the Scotsman...

BEING a busy working mother is actually good for you, research has revealed. Holding down a job, juggling childcare and housework and keeping your husband happy is a major source of stress for many women.

But in the long run it appears women stay in better shape if they pursue a career, become a mother and have a healthy relationship, stopping them becoming obese, according to a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

In comparison, housewives are much more likely to become overweight and have poorer health. Single mothers and childless women also come off worse, say the researchers.

The bias of the author of the piece is as obvious as the grand canyon. The unwillingness to scratch beneath the shallowest part of the surface is also painfully obvious.

The SAHM is around food all day...duh! But another factor exists that few people think about. The woman who works has her work packaged up into a nice, tidy 8-hour lump. So when she's through with that she can spend time doing something like exercise, with the calm satisfaction that she deserves a little "me" time. The SAHM doesn't have that luxury. Her day isn't packaged up nicely. Her work continues throughout the day, and because of societies constant attitude that all Stay-at-Home-Parents are really just bums who've found a convenient way to goof off, she carries the guilt of that with her throughout that day, adding to the desire to eat, the food she's around all day long, but also making exercise seem like selfish indulgence that she dare not waste time on.

First society create the guilt trap that weighs SAHMs down, now some writer (my bet is a working mom trying to rationalize her own decision to put her career above her children) gloats about the damage done to those women who've make a sacrifice for their children. The irony is that working mothers will complain more about what I've written because they hate it when people attempt to point out the noble sacrifice SAHMs are making, because it inevitably reflects back on them. Better to just make the SAHMs feel like losers, right?

Posted by Danny Carlton at May 15, 2006 8:02 AM