I'm Having A Baby. Should I Feel Guilty For WANTING To Stay Home？
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this video, I share my thoughts and feelings about motherhood and women in the workplace. I talk about how the experiences of losing my first pregnancy and trying to get pregnant again have impacted my perspective on motherhood, feminism, and what it means to be a homemaker.
Transcript
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hello classic crew and welcome to today's video where i'm going to be sharing my thoughts on
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motherhood and women in the workplace so before we get into today's video make sure you're
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subscribed to my channel and make sure to hit that notification bell so that you can get notified of
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all my new videos and if you aren't already subscribed to my substack newsletter go ahead
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and head to classicallyabby.substack.com where you'll get access to exclusive content not available
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anywhere else so today i want to work through some thoughts and feelings i've been having since
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having my miscarriage and since being pregnant again i have been really changed in the last year
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by the experiences that i've had in conceiving losing the baby and then conceiving again and it's really
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impacted the way i've thought about motherhood and the way that i've thought about women in the
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workplace and i want to share those thoughts and feelings with you guys because i think that this
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is a conversation that we could get started and i'd love to hear your viewpoints on things too so
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make sure to leave some comments down below because today i really want to share just how i've been
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feeling this isn't meant to be a diatribe this isn't even necessarily meant to change anyone's
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minds but i think these are some interesting topics that we don't necessarily allow ourselves to talk
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about all that often or all that frequently and so i like that my channel is a place where we can talk
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about motherhood talk about feminism talk about all of this stuff in a really open way and create a
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community of women where we feel like we can chat together and if we disagree we disagree and that is
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okay so i'm excited to get into today's video so let's get into it if you are new to my channel
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i had a miscarriage about six and a half months ago and when i got pregnant i remember feeling like
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the first trimester was so difficult and i could understand why women didn't like being pregnant i remember
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feeling that way i remember thinking to myself you know i understand why women don't like this it's
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uncomfortable i feel sick i don't love it either and then i lost my baby and when i lost my baby it put
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so many things into perspective for me and i would never wish miscarriage on anyone it is a horrible
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the feeling i had afterward going through this pregnancy where i'm just grateful that the baby is
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healthy and i'm just grateful to have any sort of morning sickness because it means the baby's growing
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well that's something unique i think to having had a miscarriage it's a perspective that you're not
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going to necessarily have if you didn't lose your child but after the miscarriage all i wanted in
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the world was to get pregnant again and it made me realize how much i wanted to be a mother when it
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was taken away from me of course i knew of course i knew i wanted to be a mother of course i knew how
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important that was to me but as soon as i had a miscarriage it was so clear that motherhood was what
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mattered to me more than anything else that if i had to give up having a career that if i had to give up
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everything else to be a mother i would 100 do it i would rather have morning sickness every pregnancy
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than not have a child this got me to thinking about motherhood in a lot of ways one of the things
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that it got me to think about is that we as women are taught in today's day and age to find our meaning
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through work and in the workplace you need to find a job that you are passionate about or that you're
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successful at and that's what's gonna make you special that's what's gonna make you important
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that's what's gonna give you purpose i feel like that's something i definitely felt growing up i felt like
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i needed to prove myself and prove my worth through work i think a lot of women feel this way i think
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feminism is a big reason for it now if you don't already know if you're new to my channel you should
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definitely watch some of my videos on feminism because i am not anti equity feminism i'm anti second
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and third wave depending on if you've heard of fourth wave fourth wave feminism i'm anti that stuff but
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i am not anti women having equal rights in the workplace for example but the idea that women's
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worth is outside of the home that is a concept that i have had to work through because ever since the
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miscarriage i care most importantly about being a mother if all i ever do is raise my children and be a
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homemaker that would be enough for me but i would still feel guilty i would feel like that was small
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or like i did something wrong in not embracing my full potential how sad is that how sad is that that
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i even as i know what would make me happy i feel like i would not have lived up to my true potential if
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i was just a stay-at-home mom i think that is such a horrible thing to put on women we've taken away
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the beauty of motherhood from women we've said that your worth is not it's not in the home that if you
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were to only be at home you'd be you'd be giving up on what we fought so hard for for women to be in
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the workplace and hey there are some women who want to be in the workplace and i do like my work what i'm
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looking at a mic right now i i do love my work i love filming i love editing i love sharing content
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with you guys i love creating a community of women who want to be classic i love educating and teaching
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and guiding women to be more classic in today's day and age but none of that would matter if i couldn't
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be a mother and the role of mother is so belittled in our society we treat motherhood in two ways we
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treat it like it's something only a superhero could accomplish right we call mothers heroes we call them
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superheroes which takes away how natural it is how how much a part of womanhood it is how it's just
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something that we do right when i've heard that women are superheroes for going through pregnancy and
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raising children it made it seem like well then why would i do something so hard as opposed to
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this is a natural part of your life that is going to endow your life with meaning you know we we view
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motherhood as something so hard and so almost unnatural because it must it must be if it's that
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difficult as opposed to this is what women do and this is what is a meant for you so we either view
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it as we either view motherhood as only superheroes can do it or we view motherhood as well why wouldn't
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you leave that to a daycare why wouldn't you leave that to a nanny while you work it puts it in a position
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of you are not living up to who you could be this is something i've been thinking so much about because
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it's so upsetting to me i think that motherhood is the best most important thing any woman can do and
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it's part of what makes us women it's part of what of what defines us and it's it's natural
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and we belittle it or we hold it on such a high pedestal that it's it seems like a choice that some
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women make but it's not really part and parcel of womanhood it's the most natural thing in the world
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to want to be a mother and to want to raise children and we beat ourselves up for it
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i know i myself have felt guilty i shared that already i felt guilty for for saying if i'm not
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a career woman and i just am a mother what am i really doing and i know so many women who pursued
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their careers they pursued a degree and then they had children and realized i don't i want to be with
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my child i don't want to go back to work and they felt horrible they felt guilty they felt like they had failed
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how how crazy how silly is that that women feel like they have failed because they want to do the
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most natural thing in the world which is mother their children it makes me sad to think that so many women
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feel like it's wrong to want motherhood first and foremost in today's day and age that's really the
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fight that we're waging is for women to be able to take pride in their most natural role as mothers
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i think that it's a fundamental god-given purpose for women to have children and i think that being
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mothers being wives being homemakers this is a a fundamental this gives us this gives us meaning in a
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way that nothing else does now does that mean that every woman needs to stay at home no i don't think
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so i think you can pay somebody to clean your house no one else is gonna like think of you and think
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of how their mom always cleaned the house what they'll remember as my mom likes to say is who made
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dinner who spent time with them you know that kind of thing but i think that women when they are told
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that their most important role is outside of the home is in the workplace is as an employee
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that's when they feel anxious there's a disconnect between what we're made for and what you're being
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told you're made for i think women find their fundamental meaning being mothers and being wives
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and that doesn't exclude being in the workplace but it means putting that in its most important role
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and recognizing it and i'm i'm starting to recognize that now that as you know someone who's pregnant
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with my child this is what is giving me meaning this is what is bringing me purpose
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my work i love my work it's another thing that gives me meaning and purpose but without
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children without being a wife i would never feel totally fulfilled and i think that as we take
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away this fundamental purpose that women are meant to have we're doing a real disservice to women
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we're telling them that their worth is not in what they were meant to do it's in being in a workplace
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and again work can give you meaning but it can't be the only thing that gives you meaning
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i know that these are controversial thoughts and controversial topics but they're serious and i
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think we need to be having a conversation about them now the last thing i want to talk about is an
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actual problem i'm trying to solve which is before you get married how do you find meaning when you're not
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married when you don't have children yet when you're not a wife and you're not a mother yet
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is there a way to find purpose and fulfillment before those things happen in work in community
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in your faith without pigeonholing women into having to pursue that career that they pursued before
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they were married with children after they have children so what i mean is i know that for me
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the things that gave me purpose and meaning before i got married were my opera singing career and then
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when i got married it was being a wife and starting this channel and then now it's being a mother being
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a wife and doing this stuff doing my channel and doing classically abby but for the women who let's say
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pursue a high-powered law degree and put a lot of time and effort and money into that degree and then
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into pursuing a partnership because that's what's going to give them meaning before they get married
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and then they get married and then they have children how can we prevent women from beating
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themselves up for for finding more meaning in motherhood than they did in their work before
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is there a way i'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments about this because i think that women
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can and should pursue careers that will bring them meaning when they aren't married when they don't
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have children and if they can proceed with that career without it being detrimental to their life once
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they're married then go for it but being partner at a law firm as a mother never being around being a
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high-powered doctor never being around for your kids i don't think that those choices the choices
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that will have to lead you down the path of neglecting your family neglecting this thing that will bring
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you joy and that you theoretically would love to do is to stay home with your kids i don't think if that
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career is going to end up bringing you sorrow in the future when you decide that you want to be at home more
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is a good idea i think i think we need to find a way for women to to find jobs that bring them purpose
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and bring them meaning that will still slot into having a family and will allow them to have the
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flexibility to make the choice to stay at home if they want to that's what i think because for me
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choosing opera before i got married and before i i have children that was honestly not the wisest choice
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i i knew the kind of lifestyle i wanted and yet i still pursued a career that would not have been
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conducive to it and yes it brought me meaning and fulfillment while i was pursuing it but
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it wasn't going to end up being something that i could really pursue and it was something that i beat
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myself up about when i realized it wasn't going to be right for me
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so that's where i'm at these are the things i've been thinking about i'd love to know what your
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guys thoughts are on all this i know perhaps it came out in sort of a jumbled way but i think that
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there's something here and i think that this is a conversation i really want to have
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so let me know in the comments your thoughts thank you guys so much for watching today's video
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make sure to subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and hit that notification bell so you can get
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notified of all my new videos and if you haven't already subscribed to my sub stack make sure you
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do so the link is in the description box below thank you guys for watching and i'll see you guys in my next video