People Can Just be Jerks, No Matter Their Choices in

Posted by: Anne Tergesen on April 26

Guest blogger Lori Gilbert is a former museum curator and educator. She is currently working at home in suburban Baltimore, raising her two children while freelance writing and substitute teaching

I am (yet again) pondering the non-working and working mom divide. Previous posts have explored whether we really do hate each other, judge each other, or even understand each other. Because I somewhat straddle both worlds, I have a new insight. It may be that people, in this case moms or women, aren’t easily divisible into groups by their work status but rather by their personality types.

I came by this observation after a meeting of class moms at my children’s school. As I entered the meeting, two of the group were already there—one a doctor, the other a mom outfitted for the gym. As it became clear that the other moms were going to be late, guess who started to make pointed remarks that she had “someplace to be” and did not have a lot of time for “this”? If you guessed the woman carrying the beepers and hospital I.D., you would be wrong.

Non-working-exercise-mom was very irked at the disruption in her schedule. When the meeting did commence, she told people very directly what she thought was wrong with their opinions and generally directed the whole conversation. Afterwards, I called my best friend to complain as I did my shopping at Whole Foods. I was too steamed to wait until I got home. My friend, who commiserated from her office, pointed out that some of those women are just frustrated careerists who take out their anger at PTA meetings.

That’s when I realized it. When someone is off-the-charts annoying or rude or is just plain bugging you, it’s easy to focus on how they are different from you and how their traits must be because they are the “others” (yes, Lost finally starts this week again, thank goodness). If it had been the working mom throwing around the attitude, the stay-at-home moms would have, I’m sure, ascribed it to her need to boss others around—in short, to her need to be climbing the corporate ladder.

Instead, I would argue that people can just be jerks, no matter their choices in life. Childless people can be rude, a mother of four who never works may be absolutely delightful and interesting to talk to. Stay-at-home-moms who are pushy and selfish probably were like that when they worked. I’m sure everyone knows someone at work they cannot stand being around; people whose email they dread. Staying at home doesn’t cause personality flaws, nor does it bring them out. The same goes for working moms.

My closest friends are people who are like me, people who look at the world with humor and don’t take themselves too seriously, regardless of where or how often they work. Maybe if we can start looking past the categories and the stereotypes, we’ll all be a lot happier—at least those of us who were happy to begin with.

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