Home Economists

I have been home with my son for nearly 2 years now. Some time in August - Lord Willing- we will have a new bundle. With another child comes a potentially tighter budget and I am glad that over the last 2 years, I have learned how to stretch dollars and seek out the good deals. In this ever struggling economy, dollars may need to be stretched even more.

I have learned a lot following the blog Money Saving Mom : Helping You Become a Better Home Economist   I like the term "home economist". As moms, specifically stay at home moms we sometimes have our finger on the pulse of the economy better than anyone else. We know the cost of food, electric, kids clothes, and gas. We also know that the prices are all going up or are much too high for many of our one salary budgets. We also know that our work is never done. If our baby wakes up in the middle of night we get up, if we have to cut costs we make another sacrifice or have a yardsale. We work hard and it is often overlooked by just about all walks of life -even Democratic strategists like Hilary Rosen. She said in April, creating a small firestorm, that Ann Romney, (potential 1st Lady) who raised five sons, had "never worked a day in her life."

What a slap in the face of most moms. As if being a mom, in this case a stay at home mom, is not work.. Ann Romney has worked hard anyone who has a son or has seen boys play knows that! Hilary's statement is ignorant and assumptive as well as offensive to the women working at home. She assumes that the Romneys have always had money and never struggled, assumes that being a stay at home mom is not real work, assumes that being a working mom or a woman in the workforce is real work. She assumes that real work is the only way a woman has the credibility to have any kind of say about economics.

Hilary said this because Mitt Romney talks to his wife and she tells him what she is hearing from women these days about the economy. Hilary assumes that a rich stay at home mom has no room to talk on such issues. I wonder if Hilary Rosen would have the nerve to say it to me? What does this stay at home mom know about the economy, probably just as much as Ann Romney! One only has to over hear a conversation in passing, read a blog, talk to a neighbor, watch a youtube video or listen to talk radio and you get a good reading on the state of the economy and how families are struggling.

Sure Hilary apologized to Ann but I still can't help but think that Hilary and people like her think that when you leave the work force to raise your children you leave your brain, background knowledge and opinions behind. Life as a Stay at Home Mom isn't just dishes and singing the Wheels on Bus. No one is living in the trenches more than the home economist. We are the ones clipping coupons, scouring grocery circulars, carrying calculators in our purse/diaper bags, following blogs that highlight the best deals. We go without cable. We buy our kids clothes are resales and yardsales, We drive old cars. We drive less because gas is so high. We make sacrifices because our kids are worth it. I dare say some of us talk to politicians and their wives about how tough things are!

This burgeoning home economist has learned more about the economy, frugality and budgeting in my 2 years working at home than in all my years in the workforce. Besides reading blogs, I've watched youtube videos of Milton Friedman (the economist) with my husband, I listen to talk radio all afternoon, and I read. All very good reasons for me to be offended when a woman like Hilary Rosen implies that stay at home moms aren't really working and that we don't have any credible experience or opinions to speak on economy.