Bitchy January prompt: anti-feminist

Should You Leave Your Job and Country for the One You Love — and Become a Stay-At-Home Mom?

The least feminist thing I’ve ever (almost) done

I grew up in a very traditional household: my dad was the breadwinner, while my mom was a stay-at-home wife. It had been like that since my brother was born.

My mom was also a very critical and very controlling parent.

It is safe to say that throughout my childhood I quite disliked having her “breathing down my neck”. I was envious of children whose mothers were working outside the home.

Sure, it was handy to have someone ready to take me to the many extracurricular activities I was involved in over the years. Also, meals were always prepared from scratch, and her cooking was prime. Yet, I wasn’t sure all of this was worth the lack of freedom and uncontrolled time.

On top of that, it seemed inconceivable that she wouldn’t have ambitions outside the house. As a teenager, I realized that she also didn’t have any link to the outside “world” if not through her family, and that looked incredibly sad to me.

These were, of course, oversimplifications, but the mind of a young teenager is not a place for shades of gray.

So, I grew up knowing exactly what I didn’t want for myself in the future: being a stay-at-home mom.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and there I was: highly educated in STEM, residing in a big city abroad, doing research, and living completely alone for years.

Also, with time, I had come to not enjoy my job anymore.

Maybe I was burned out. Maybe I was part of the pandemic of quiet quitting happening at the time of that, other, famous pandemic.

Maybe it simply wasn’t my calling.

Also, while I still loved my independence, and the possibility of disposing of my own time, place, and money as I pleased, a part of me was starting to be concerned: I was over thirty and had never tried living with a romantic partner. What was wrong with me?

So, when I found myself in a long-distance relationship with a man from another European country, and even more so when I discovered I was pregnant, I decided it was time for me to move there and go live with him.

I planned to do so after the birth of our baby.

Not only that — I also wanted to take a considerable amount of time off for maternity, and use it to think about reinventing myself: which job might I want to do in the future?

We agreed that there was no hurry for me to find something.

We both liked the idea that our child could be taken care of by a parent until he was 2 or 3. It could be any of us, sure, being that stay-at-home parent, but he had a proper fixed job at the University there. It looked improbable that I would find something as solid immediately.

I didn’t mind.

I was burned out, remember? I appreciated the idea of breathing a bit. I also love children — my mind was already playing with the plural form of the word, so the time “at home” was potentially extending in my mind.

And if I didn’t find something full-time immediately, then even better: I would have time to write!

Such was the future that was waiting for us. Rosy! Simple! Full of joy!

We would live off his salary until I would find something. And I would be taking care of the flat and our children while studying the local language.

Maybe we would even manage to get a small house in the suburbs so that we could keep a dog and have some green space around us.

Our children would be outdoors as much as possible. And they would eat freshly cooked meals every day. Even better, they’d get to see their mother cooking it every day, which would turn into great memories of their early life.

Then, I’d go back to the job market: of course, I would.

After all, I was not my mother.

Fast forward again to today, one year later.

I never moved to his country. We didn’t even start living together.

The guy turned out quite abusive after all. Not that I didn’t have any clue before, but I made the mistake of thinking that being at times able to discuss the problem and the fact he started therapy meant that the issue was behind us.

False assumption: things precipitated again during the pregnancy.

However, the fact it all unraveled before I moved there and put myself completely in his hands means that I dodged a very big bullet.

What was I thinking?

I was about to do something very dangerous, besides very anti-feminist. But I didn’t realize it at the time.

I have been independent for so long. I have my own savings. I have some professional competencies and a PhD.

That is why, back then, I didn’t consider myself the “type of person” who would risk a lot by making such a decision.

I was not my mom (who, by the way, was always very much respected by my dad, as far as I know). I was not defaulting to staying at home in the lack of better alternatives.

Or, was I?

I was an independent woman exercising her free choice, a feminist taking an unconventional turn on her still-feminist path. I was in no way a cliché. I dared to be different.

How arrogant — I know.

However, I vastly underestimated how manipulative my ex was.

I also underestimated how limiting the birth of a baby is, or how expensive (emotionally and financially) it is to get out of a toxic situation with a child.

I am in a very difficult situation now, but it could have been a real disaster.

To be honest, I really don’t care if all the choices in my life can be labeled as “feminist” or not.

I don’t live by a rule book.

In a sense, it was amazing that I was ready to change my life all over for love (something some of my ex-partners in the past were too scared to do — leaving me with a strong impression of what love should actually look like).

And I do have bright examples of couples I know who supported each other in and out of jobs and careers/studies. I think this is great.

To be at home for a couple of years might even have been the perfect choice for me, given the adequate conditions.

But the conditions were not there, and I was naive to overlook that detail.

Maybe the only rule I want to live by from now on is: self-love.

Also, isn’t self-love the basis of feminism?

In particular, what I understood from all of this is that — by just being a woman — self-love requires you to always watch out carefully, before every choice, for your freedom not to be stolen.

Because the world will definitely try to steal it.

And it won’t be fun.