What Does This Generation of Moms Want?

Kelly Mills — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:39:00 GMT

There's about a thousand headlines trying to define what moms of this generation want. Do we hope to return to the domestic spheres of the 1950's housewives (as has been reported), or are we career-minded? Do we care about our jobs or our kids? And one writer says we don't know what we want. When she works fulltime she can't wait to be home with family, but when she is on maternity leave she finds she hates staying at home. She gets a work-from-home freelance career but misses office action, and when she goes back to the office she chafes at the set hours that make her miss her kids. In short, women of this day and age have no idea what they want. What they really, really want.

I actually know what women want. Every woman really wants...A pony. Can I have a pony? A nice Shetland?

Sigh. If I had to hazard a crazy guess, I'd venture that women really want to feel fulfilled and satisfied at whatever they do whenever they are doing it, be it time with kids or the office grind or the freelance life. They'd also like financial security and crap like that. And that it's hard to balance many priorities, and the balance probably looks different for different people, making it impossible to (gasp) find one way to define an entire group of women, except with very broad strokes. I don't mean to Myspace the party here, but I'd also guess men want the same damn thing. It's a generation of people wanting to feel like they are engaged in meaningful things, which of course makes us sooooo very different from previous generations. It's just that our choices were more limited in the past, but I'd be surprised to find we have become suddenly impossible to please.

Working at Home and Making It Work

Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:32:00 GMT

Last month, I decided I was done with the heavy lifting. I was done moving my laptop from the dining room table to the bedroom to wherever I could...ummm, borrow wireless. I decided it was time to chuck the fantasy of having a chicly designed apartment or house with a remote office in the attic and just claim a corner as my own. After that decision came the radical act of turning my desk around, sacrificing my view of the $1.5 mil home with the peek-friendly windows for an "office space" that's much more defined.

Don't get me wrong, it ain't pretty. My desk juts out nearly halfway into the entrance of the dining room and I have to wedge myself into my chair to sidle up to the computer. It's my own little insta-nook and I couldn't be happier.

First of all, the small space behind the desk means it's harder for the hubs to squeeze back here/dump bills on my highly organized piles of stuff/steal my favorite pen. Second, I think it is the first time in the nine years we've lived together I've had a space other than my bra drawer that's been all mine (no touching!). Third, for some reason, even though I face the mayhem, I can better focus back here. Hmmm...Maybe all that turning around see what Lil E's using his plastic saw to ~~anhialate~~ fix was yanking me out of the zone. Now I don't have to stop typing when I start yelling, which feels like genius to me. Finally, when Lil E needs to be close to me while watching Barney, he can stand behind me on my chair, hold on to my neck and still see creepy dinosaur all at the same time. Ta-da!

Cafemama's also found a way to making working from home with kids work, which includes a little bit of chaos, a well-stocked project drawer and the possibility of some part-time babysitting help. Now she wants to know how other WAHPs are doing it. How are you handling the in-home gig these days? What are your tricks of the trade?

[via: UrbanMamas]

Strollerderby : WAHD

What Does This Generation of Moms Want?

Working at Home and Making It Work