Friday, September 08, 2006

La Vie Active

When I tell people here I'm going back to work, the most common response I get is about how nice it will be for me to get back into la vie active. Which makes me smirk because how is taking care of two kids not an active life? You might think I willfully misunderstand the remark. Which is possible.

I read a study once that quanitified total work hours (including childcare, food prep, errands, cleaning, chauffering, in addition to 'real' work) of women who fell into one of three categories. Worked outside the home part-time, worked outside the home full-time, had no job other than child and house care. The results showed that the worst possible situation for a woman to be in is part-time work.

As of this week, I am able to confirm this information.

When you work full-time, everyone says, oh you work full-time, let's help you out around the house, let's get a cleaning service, let's order dinner out tonight. When you are a stay-at-home-mom, you have a lot of work, it's true, and it's never-ending (at least that's what it seemed like to me), but your focus is in one spot. But when you work part-time, you really get the shaft. Everyone says, oh yeah, but you have time, you only work part-time. So you do everything you did when you weren't working outside the home and you do it in addition to the work you're now doing outside the home. And you can't even complain because you have the priviledge of not having to work full-time.

Active, schmative.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have already apologized to all my friends who had children before me - I assumed the job of a stay at home mom was easy, afterall, you were at home. . .now that I've been a stay at home mom for almost 3 years. . .I was so wrong. I work harder and longer now than I ever did outside the home! Hang in there Nicole!

Anonymous said...

p.s. - Even though my "job" is harder and has longer hours, I really do love my job!

Lorraine said...

Yeah, part-time work really cuts into the bonbon eating. I hate when that happens.

Nicole said...

Charlie - Me too. But no one wanted to pay me to do it. Go figure.

Beth - I'm hanging.

Lorraine - Please, let's keep all the bonbon eating we do when we stay at home a secret. I wouldn't want anyone to realize how lazy I really am.

Grish said...

Hmm Bonbons...