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Mothers as Breadwinner

© Jody Hart Lehrer

I am aggressively pushing for classes in our community to be offered on weekends and in the evenings, breaking the "Mother's Hours" mold. Afterall, mother's hours really never end, do they?

My career, which is extremely important to me, and for which I make NO apologies ALLOWS me the luxury of offering my daugher a plethora of interesting and educational activities that she would otherwise NOT be able to take advantage of, were it not for the fact that the HOURS during which such courses are offered are DECADES behind the developments of the homefront (good, bad or indifferent): WOMAN HAVE SUCCESSFUL, THRIVING, CAREERS (and this includes, Oh-my-God, MOTHERS!!!).

These activities are the VERY SAME ONES that, in general, FATHERS pay for and that stay-at-home-wives are able to enjoy with their children. The working single moms, and working married ones, should get the same privelage.

Certainly, the fact that a woman works outside the home, be it by choice or by necessity, should in no way mean that such a woman should be punished by quietly enduring the inequities of the "mother's hours" course schedules.

Ever since my daugher was just months old, she has been involved in classes and activity groups. However, locating ones that operated during weekends has been difficult.

She has been in gym and parent-child activity groups, play groups, gymnastics, and drama classes. However, the choices available to me and her are far more limited (due to outmoded concepts of what mothers are now doing from nine to five) than to stay-at-home moms.

I would love to hear from my readers on this topic. I say that the discrimination against the mother who works outside the home has got to STOP!

I am fiercely proud of both my career and professional accomplishments AND of my beautiful daughter who, like her mother, will be strong, independent and able to take care of herself. While she grows into such a person, I will continue to introduce her to new things, places, and experiences, and to teach her what I know. In the interim, I promise also to blast open the doors improperly closed to our thriving, loving, and full mother-daughter relationship.