The Comebacks Blog: Kathleen Kelley Reardon

In response to my Huffington Post blog yesterday, “Stay-At-Home Mom is a Political Misnomer,” the response below was posted.  It’s among the more reasoned responses I’ve read and so I thought I’d share it.  There are too many false and ludicrous assumptions being made about women who work for pay outside the home and those who work at home.  Men don’t have to go through this every five or so years.  A useful comeback to any put-down about whether we work outside the home for pay or not should be that most of us are doing the best we can with what life presents.  Choices with regard to raising children are often difficult.

From Huffington Post, April 16, blogger sierraseven:

One of the most frustrating and truly offensive lines of commentary that this issue has stirred up (again) is the smug assertion from both men and women that “we decided to forego luxuries so that we didn’t need a two-paycheck income”.

The assumption that the only reason to have both parents working is in order to afford a second car, a vacation home, a boat, or other luxuries is an insult to the millions of two-paycheck families who are barely making it even WITH two paychecks.

Not to mention the myriad of reasons why both must work: maybe one parent runs a small business or is self-employed, and the family needs the medical insurance provided by the other parent’s job. If they have a child who needs extra medical care, this could be a huge reason not to be able to quit working outside the home.

And of course single parents – but the conservatives just don’t like that idea in the first place, do they?

If you and your family have found a way to live on one paycheck, good for you. But stop implying that those who can’t are in it for “luxuries”.

And it’s also ridiculous to assume that women who decide not to work outside their homes are necessarily wealthy.  Life is complex.  There is room for many ways of living it.  And there are no guarantees that one way is superior to all the others.

As I wrote over at Huffington Post today, there is no such thing as a stay-at-home mom or dad. We all work one way or another whether for pay or not.  This label keeps rearing its ugly head every so many years when politicians run out of more intelligent ways to attract the female vote.  They essentially attempt to divide us.  And often a good many of us fall for it.

This brings us to what each of us says when we’re asked:  ”So what do you do?”  It’s a choice point, the kind I’ve written about in Comebacks and my other books.  You get to decide whether to emphasize your for-pay work or your not-for-pay work.  Both define you to some extent. Neither is necessarily more important or more reflective of who you are.  I’ve only been painting for six years but I’ve been a professor and author for much longer.  I have raised three children now in college and working and that job goes on for a while.  But who am I really?  Hmmm.

How we define ourselves is up to us.  At an art gallery show last week, my friend who is an extraordinary artist introduced me to other artists as one of them.  ”This is my friend, Kathleen.  She’s an artist.”  Well, to be honest, I’m still getting used to that word associated with me.  But I didn’t say, “Oh no.  I’m actually a professor.”  Why bother?  That would have been inconsiderate.

In fact, why can’t we be many things?  With some people we’re good friends.  With others we’re defined by our education or what we’re doing at the time — whether raising children, volunteering, working in the traditional sense, or taking a break from it all.

Labels are so easy to impose on people.  We should decide what we want others to learn about ourselves.  Then decide what to say.  Have some fun with it.  If they move on to meet other “more important” people, so be it.  You don’t need people like that as friends anyway!

This happens often in business.  And in politics.  It is also facilitated now in the media where phrases like “some people say” and a general disregard for the source of an idea is making it nearly impossible to judge its worth.  ”Some people” can say anything.  It’s not only lazy by any respectable journalistic standard to use this kind of phrase, it enables the lifting of ideas without having to give credit.  In short, we live in an era where connecting an idea to its source is a responsibility far too often bypassed.

If you let the stealing of your ideas pass, you invite people to do it whenever they please. There may be times when retrieving stolen ideas is not worth the effort.  But when big stakes are involved or letting it pass makes you look weak, it’s important to know what to say.  If, for example, you bring up an idea in a meeting and ten minutes later another person introduces it as if you never said a word, here are a few possible responses:

“Hey, Tom.  That was my idea.  What you added was good, but I’m taking it back to elaborate further.”

“When I proposed that plan, I had something different in mind.  So let me just say ….”

“I’m taking that idea back.  You guys are butchering it.”

“I’m delighted that you’re so enthused about that idea.  When I mentioned it ten minutes ago, I wasn’t of your view.  This is great.”

“Why does that idea seem so familiar?”

These responses are not making a scene or credit grabbing.  But if you can’t bring yourself to directly deal with the lifting of your idea you might say, “Credit grabbing aside, when I introduced that idea I was going in a somewhat different direction with it.  I’ll explain.”  Or, “Not to dismiss your obvious contribution, but that idea is exactly what I was talking about ten minutes ago.  So, obviously I’m sold.”

Play with these responses.  Consider which ones like them work best for you and in the culture of your office.  Don’t do this too often.  But do so when it counts.  It’s better to get someone’s back up a bit than to send the message that any good idea you have is up for grabs.