Often when I meet someone among the first questions they ask are "What do you do" ? or "where do you work " ? Normally I simply answer .. I am a Mother. I do on occasion get the reply of " oh... so am I , but what do you do for a living " ? At times I find myself searching for a response that really states what it is that I do without sounding too schmaltzy, or worse .... self righteous . ( I have been blessed with what my much beloved husband has dubbed "a dominant personality" , so this is harder than one might otherwise assume . ) Although through out an average day I may cook , clean , bake and chauffeur, I may play nurse , counselor , referee , teacher and secretary, none of these things truly define what I do for a living . After going down a long, annoying list of possibles , I eliminated the following titles ...
Stay-At-Home-Mom ... A little to "fluffy" and politically correct for my taste, chances are, it would be a cold day in Atlanta before the more "liberated" females of the world would stand for being called Stay- At- Work -Moms , even though they probably spend more time staying at work than I do staying at home . (there goes that dominant personality thing again)
House-mom .... umm , well , I'm Mom where ever I go , not just at home , so that doesn't really fit .
Unemployed ... not really , that generally implies that I had a job and lost it somehow . I am not un-employed so much as I am not-employed .
Having eliminated the above monikers and not finding any suitable alternatives, I invented one of my one . I am a Militant Housewife !! Why militant you ask ? Because dedicated didn't have the positive implication that I was looking for . I am dedicated to doing the laundry , not because I particularly enjoy it , but because we need clean clothes in order to avoid charges of indecent exposure . So dedicated housewife didn't quite get it . Adamant housewife almost made the cut , however, it seemed to lack enough power to convey how strongly I feel about what it is that I do . I am adamantly opposed to cats living in the house , however , not one , but two demonic feline furballs call my sofa home . So adamant wasn't really enough . The only adjective that seemed to really fit was militant . Being a mom and wife is so much more than what I do , it is who I am . There is nothing more important to me than my family . I cannot think that any amount of extra money or the prestige of an official title could possibly be more "fulfilling" than seeing that my husband and children are well cared for.. . BY ME ... BECAUSE NO BABY SITTER , DAYCARE , AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM , MAID OR COOK CAN TAKE CARE OF MY FAMILY AS GOOD AS I CAN . I will never , under any circumstance , retreat in the face of any popular opinion that says other wise . There for , I am now , and will always be ... THE MILITANT HOUSEWIFE .