I Wanna Go Home, But I Don't Want To Stay There

There are times when I am completely over the heels excited to go home and see my lovely baby and husband. There are times when I am completely horrified. Today, I cannot get out of my seat fast enough. The thought of kissing that little face is branded in my brain like a Grade A stamp on a Bull's Fanny.

Throughout history women have and continue to fight for equal rights. There has always been a teetering balance between what we wanted and what we didn't want to lose. Do we want to have the possibility of being equal to our male counterparts? Yes. Do we also want the right to raise our children and be cared for by our husbands? Yes. Can we have both? Maybe. There was a time in our world where this question of "can I have it all" would have been a breaking point in our negociations with the changing of law.

"I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality." - Alice Paul, Women's Equal Rights activist and major mover in the Equal Rights Amendment.

To Alice it was all black and white. We want equality, bottom line. She didn't comprehend a country that called itself a democracy without ALL of it's people being equal. But all views have it's opponents.

“What I am defending is the real rights of women. A woman should have the right to be in the home as a wife and mother.” “Feminism is doomed to failure because it is based on an attempt to repeal and restructure human nature.” - Phyllis Schlafly

Women like Phyllis Schlafly, right-wing leader of the Eagle Forum/STOP ERA, played on the same fears that had generated female opposition to woman suffrage. Anti-ERA organizers claimed that the ERA would deny woman’s right to be supported by her husband, privacy rights would be overturned, women would be sent into combat, and abortion rights and homosexual marriages would be upheld. Well, yeah that all comes with it as we see later in history after the 70s when this amendment was being ratified across the states.

Today, we still have this debate. Does being a working mother searching for that equality to her male counterparts constitute giving up her RIGHT to be a proper wife and mother? Does this go so far as to say we are "restructuring human nature"?

I'll be honest...Somedays, I wish I had the option of staying home with the baby. Going on playdates and lunches in the park. But, I don't have that option. I'm not even sure if I could handle that option if it was one. It would be nice for a few days but I would slowly lose my mind. Believe me, at the end of the day, I am rushing to get home and see my family whom I have missed all day. But I enjoy my right to be where I am. I enjoy my right to help provide for my family. Because I don't know what ditch or cardboard box we would be living in if I couldn't.