Young husband acknowledges value of SAHM in an Oxbridge TEDTalk

Ben Young is a young husband and father of two daughters. His TEDTalk about the stigmatisation and marginalisation of the Stay-at-home mom made an impact on me as a Gen Xer. He showed how the number of women who opted to stay at home to take care of their children instead of going to work full-time, decreased steadily in the USA until 1999. That was the year I had my first baby and I kept working full-time while very confused as to how I had to pause being a mum while I worked a paid job.

From 1999 onwards, the number started increasing again. Maybe those mothers, like me, were confused and not too happy with the option to continue working a paid job full-time while having to deal with the also full-time job of being a mother.

Young highlights the three hyphened words that precede the condition of being a mother in the term SAHM.

You can watch the video at https://youtu.be/UTnosFGtQSM

What I like the most about Young's talk is his explanation as to how the extreme views, those that lead to judgement in a positive or negative way, dominate the dialogue, leaving the majority in silence. The extremes, he says, pull us apart.

Since women's gender role was defined for so many years until the first and second waves of feminism, it seems like the choice to stay at home to care for the children should not be an option anymore.

Freedom of choice, though, includes staying home as an option as valid as any of the other possibilities: part-time paid job, childless life, corporate career, full-time academia, etc. Choosing to quit a career for love should not be penalised by adding judgement to it.

Let’s not put the brave women who follow their instinct down. Respect. We are who we are because of the dedication of our grandmothers. They didn’t have the freedom there is today but they weren’t criticized for doing what was expected of them. In diversifying our options, women have forgotten that our ancestors' options can still be valid today.

I hope you enjoy young Young's talk as much as I did. A truly inspirational husband and father for the new generations to come. Let's hope that soon the mundane in being a SAHM will gain some fame and its inclusion in the dialogue will add more than glamour to the role of the house manager.

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