Thoughts on choices, mine and others'

[mamagotcha]

An LJ friend posted a thought-provoking link earlier today; which was pretty gut-wrenchingly awful on its own, but the friend's follow-up dismissal of an individual's decision to stay home (with or without kids) really struck a chord within me. My initial response is in this post's comments (her post is f-locked, which I didn't notice earlier... sorry!); this is a longer reply that I felt was time to move over to my journal.

(Regarding my decision to stay home, to which she basically said "Good luck with that"): After 20+ years, it still feels like it was the right thing to do. Not necessarily the easy thing, nor always the happy thing, and rarely the comfortable thing... but for me and my family, definitely the right thing.

I'm not asking anyone to make the same choice that I did/do. In fact, I'd be horrified if someone did so based entirely upon my own experience. At the same time, I cannot apply my own choice to another's situation and make any kind of judgment whatsoever... I'm not in their skin, I don't know their values, and I cannot predict their needs or resources.

Hell, this applies not only to the decision to stay home with an infant or older kids. I feel this way about abortion, marijuana use, physician-assisted suicide, prostitution, pornography, joining the Hare Krishnas or Catholics, facial tattoos, burqas...

One of the hardest things I have to learn how do as a doula (a pregnancy, labor and postpartum support provider) is to advocate for a client who makes a choice that I disagree with, sometimes quite strongly. It is one thing to be a natural-birth advocate, or a breastfeeding advocate... and very much another to be an individual's advocate. Having to divorce those aspects of myself has been crazy hard... and very illuminating.

It has boiled down to finally recognizing that it's OK for other people to have different priorities than I do, and that when other people make different choices than mine, even under identical circumstances, that doesn't make their (or my) choice bad or wrong... it's just different.

The extreme defensiveness and hostility I come across (usually regarding homebirth or homeschooling) tells me that most people do not or cannot yet practice that particular distinction... that is, they assume that since I have made a different choice than theirs, then I must think their choice is wrong. Ten, twenty years ago, they were probably right... today, not so much.

(I don't usually let the judgment of others and condemnation of my own choices bother me... someone else's belief that *I'm* in the wrong doesn't faze me so much any more. Confidence? Compassion? Recognition that their intolerance is more an indicator of their own self-doubt than any actual error on my own part? Learned to tune it out? Or just plain tired of arguing? Not sure...)

I also needed to understand that I'm not a failure if they ask for and listen to my advice, and STILL make a different decision (that was a really hard lesson for me to learn, but parenting a couple of teens really drove it home).

At this point in my life, I don't spend much time trying to change a particular person's mind regarding their (or my) choice, unless they politely engage me out of curiosity or genuine concern, and are willing to be educated and to debate fairly. Rather, I support sensible legislation and access to education, and above all, depend upon the public display of the consequences of my own informed decisions to be the appropriate ambassador of the actions and beliefs I endorse (that whole actions-louder-than-words thang).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I totally grok hatin' on a culture that tolerates or encourages an unwise or unfair behavior or action, while simultaneously supporting the individual's right to consciously make an informed decision to engage in precisely that behavior or action (should I even have to say that this statement goes right out the window when the welfare and property of others are concerned)... and that it's not up to me (or anyone else except that particular individual) to judge whether they is informed enough. I'm not very good at that part yet, but I recognize it as a fault of mine, and I'm working on it. I do expect others to take a stab at it, though, and that's why I'm writing this post.

Comments

[3squares-a-day.livejournal.com]

I really like what you said. Thank you for sharing it!

[lorraine-inwa.livejournal.com]

I have not heard (read) anyone use "grok" in years.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

I think that post is locked. I'm getting a 403 error.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

Right you are. Edited the original post here, and below you'll find my comments to her regarding staying at home:

Do you really believe that a person's conscious choice to create a partnership based on trust with another person, to intentionally plan and share goals and resources to the betterment of both and possibly other generations of that partnership, is somehow a diminishment of whatever choice you make?

I'm hoping your statement was more flippant rather than a serious indictment of my choice to homeschool my kids and do freelance work from home. While I definitely spouted off such statements as a college student, spending time both as a working mother and at-home mom has definitely opened my eyes.

While it's true that most of society doesn't value the work of raising children and caring for a home, that there's no retirement fund or vacation pay... the rewards for me have been tremendous and I'm incredibly grateful I had the opportunity to try it.

To me, it's only a tragedy when the choice is obliterated, either being pressured to stay home OR work outside of it. It's probably really hard to see from your perspective, but from my shoes, being judged for my decision to stay home is just as bad as Rebecca's community pushing her into her choice.

Overcoming my preconceived notions about other women's choices in time to appreciate my kids was the big challenge. It didn't happen for me until a couple of years after my first kid arrived, and I don't know how to adequately express it to those who have chosen not to have kids.

Interesting discussion; it's been fun reading others' perspectives on this. I really enjoyed the mother/parenting panels at WisCon this year, and I hope by continuing the conversations, we can eliminate knee-jerk demonization of the Unfamiliar and promote some empathy and compassion in its place.

She replied with the Good-luck-with-that comment, then I responded:

What would you define the "failure mode" as? Lack of social and familial support? Living in a cheap rental, driving a beater car (when we had a car at all), thrifting for clothes, and scrimping for years? Fighting depression when things got of balance? Being left high and dry after a divorce? Dealing with medical issues without health insurance? A foreclosure? Because I've been hit with all of those, and survived, and still don't regret a thing. I knew I would be fully accountable for my decisions. I did the research and interviewed people, then identified my goals and found the path that would most support them. That path happened to be staying home.

(People who work full-time outside the home are not guaranteed freedom from those failures, either. But that's not my experience or my truth, so I won't go into that here.)

I had a lot more to say, not so much on being a stay-at-home mom, but rather the way I've come to regard the choices of others. I made it a post over on my own LJ, please do come on over and jump in if you are so inclined.

And I sincerely hope your choice brings you joy and contentment, and that you are not one of the people who experiences one of the many pitfalls that led me to stay at home. I completely trust that you know yourself and your situation better than anyone else possibly could, and recognize that you have made the best decisions possible for your and your family based on your own values, goals, priorities and resources... and that you feel supported and confident enough to safely revisit those choices should any of those elements change.

If you can grant me the same trust and respect, then perhaps we can find a bit of agreement between us?

[via-lens.livejournal.com]

Recognition that their intolerance is more an indicator of their own self-doubt than any actual error on my own part?

Sometimes they just believe their point of view as strongly as you believe yours. ;) I could not help but gently point out the irony of the way this statement was phrased, because I agree with, and applaud, the larger sentiment of your comment and post.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

I must admit to a slightly snarky tone there. I should have either pushed it to all-the-way snark, or just gone to "Compensating for self-doubt?" by itself. Oh well.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

See, to me, the issues is that I can believe that someone is making a bad choice, or a wrong choice, and that doesn't mean I think less of them or that their judgment in general is bad. I believe people make mistakes. And I don't understand why I should have to believe that someone never makes a mistake in order to respect them.

(And this is a general issue. I don't think the choice to stay home is always the wrong one.)

[mh75.livejournal.com]

I think the astounding thing about the original post is how much it presents the end result as NOT a choice. It is one of the things that would make me nervous about supporting that individual's action of staying home - because the lack of it being a choice also rules out flexibility to modify the circumstances later on.

Now that i got that off my chest...
(* i think something i'm struggling with right now is the reminder that my decision come January does not necessarily commit me to a life long path. It needs to be a choice that can be re-evaluated as time and circumstances change.)

I think one of the challenges is how to feel like you are okay with allowing different choices than your own, as well as doing your job as a friend to help people recognize what their own choices are. I have a much easier time letting people choose to do stupid things when they aren't someone i care about.

I often feel like i don't do a good job balancing my rhetoric, at the very least, to show that while i can forcefully argue in one direction or the other, i don't actually think less of a person if they don't listen to me. Sometimes i'm relieved, actually.

YMMV

[uncanny-npl.livejournal.com]

First off, I looked at that link your friend referred you to, and it turned my stomach. I mean that *literally,* more or less--there was some actual rotating motion going on down there--which I find so weird, and kind of fascinating, because I wouldn't have thought my stomach was all that turnable these days. (I guess I like to think of myself as inured to everyday horror.) (And it *is* a serious website, right? I mean, there's no chance these bloggers are engaging in some really dark satire? 'Cause that's what it seemed like as I read it, though it wasn't *quite* over-the-top enough to be funny, and all the commenters seemed to be taking it very seriously... Maybe somebody could clarify this for me? --I always feel so stupid when I'm not in on a joke.)

Second, I don't see any logical or practical or even metaphorical relationship between the world-view presented by the aforementioned website and anything that actually takes place in the world I live in. (Perhaps if I'd spent some time living in a cult, I could relate better.) So I can't really figure what your friend was trying to suggest by sending it to you. Maybe I'm missing something, but it just seems like a complete non sequitur to me.

Lastly, as for the choices people make about the sort of lives and work they find most fulfilling, I can think of very few things that are less anybody else's business. (...Unless, of course, they choose to become serial killers or something. I mean, really, you have to draw the line somewhere.)

And on a completely unrelated note: I personally can't think of anything else I've ever done that's challenged me more, that's taught me more, or that I'm better at, than the 21 years (so far) I've spent raising my children.