There’s so many stay-at-home Moms in my neighborhood
November 16, 2006So yesterday I came home earlier than normal. Wasn’t feeling that well, in fact I stayed home from work today as a result.
Anyway back to yesterday. I am driving home earlier than I usually do, early enough in fact that I end up trapped behind a school bus as it winds thru the road leading up to my house. I have to watch and wait as it makes several stops, each time dumping out a small flock of kids who look maybe seven or eight years old. Must be the elementary school bus.
And at each stop, there’s invariably a woman or two waiting to meet the kids as they disembark. She either then walks them home or they get into her minivan and she drives them somewhere. Home I assume but maybe it’s off to after-school music lessons or something.
It was just remarkable to see how many of these kids were met by their Mom at the bus stop. It was definitely the majority, only in a few cases were the kids left to trudge home by themselves.
Now I was a latchkey kid, both my parents worked pretty much since I was born. So me and my brother were used to having to entertain ourselves after school, which usually meant flopping in front of the TV until Mom and Dad got home. And I know I was not alone–most of the kids where I was growing up were not met by their Moms at the bus stop.
It’s kindof an interesting socio-economic thing that so many Moms around here can afford to not be working, so they’re home to meet the kids in the afternoon. This is not a neighborhood of cheap homes, I’m rather surprised that so many of these families can afford to be single-bread-winner households rather than both parents working.
Definitely was not the case in our house–we would have been pretty poor if it was only Dad who went to work. It was only because both of them worked that we had a middle-class upbringing.