Desperate housewives? Not today's homemakers
For many modern mothers, it's hip to be home.
No longer molded in the image of a dowdy June Cleaverette, today's homemakers often are career women who put their jobs on hold to stay home -- and they also might be sexy to boot. Some women who choose to stay home say that they don't feel the pressure to hold down a career and raise a family, that the job of "homemaker" is more respected today.
"We're not barefoot, pregnant and chained to the stove anymore," says Jenna Noker, 33, of McCandless. The former catering director began to stay home soon after getting married in 1998, and now cares for her son, Dylan, 21 months.
"I don't sit around and eat bonbons; I'm not 100 pounds overweight."
The change has been popularized by movies such as the updated "Stepford Wives" and hit television shows such as "Desperate Housewives"; Martha Stewart also elevated domesticity to an art form and romanticized life at home. Former "Sex and the City" star Kristin Davis this fall has a lead role in the NBC pilot "Soccer Moms," about two suburban homemakers who moonlight as private investigators. Playboy is even planning a housewife spread this spring.
Despite its satire, "Desperate Housewives" does, in some ways, take a real-world view of stay-at-home moms.
"You have these gorgeous women who are housewives, and there's some nastiness going on -- they're competitive about kids, homes and keeping up with the Joneses," says Jennifer Mager, 36, who stays at home in Cranberry, Butler County, with sons Samuel, 4, and Luke, 1.
Even if the women of Wisteria Lane are more caricature than character, they have sparked greater interest in what it means to be a homemaker -- a role that some baby boomers devalued in the past three decades.
But that seems to be changing. According to the most recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, 5.4 million mothers stayed home with their children last year -- about 850,000 more than the number who did so 10 years ago. Of those who stayed home in 2004, 88 percent said they made the choice primarily to care for children.
Mothers of young children today, many of whom have moms who tried to balance career and children, say they have nothing to prove.
"I think most people our age ... recognize that it was a decision (mothers) made, and not just a given," says Anne Mlecko, 35, a former information technology professional. She stays in her Franklin Park home with daughters Alexis, 4, Maura, 1, and Jenna, 2.
"They realize it's a choice. ... Twenty years ago, it wasn't as much of a choice."
Mlecko, Mager and Noker -- members of their local chapters of International MOMS Club, a group for stay-at-home moms -- say that most or all of their friends in the club gave up careers to stay home.
Some homemakers -- faced with the stigma that career women are smart and fashionable and housewives checked their brains at the door -- call themselves "domestic engineers." Some prefer the term "stay-at-home mom."
"When I think of 'housewife,' I think of Mrs. Cleaver bringing the slippers to her husband," says Mager, a former assistant buyer for Kaufmann's Department stores. "'Housewife' makes me think of that person walking around with a feather duster. Nowadays, even though you earn no income, you are an equal partner."
Now, the "domesticity part" of being a housewife has lost its charm, says Miriam Peskowitz, author of "The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother," to be released in April.
"Most stay-at-home mothers define themselves as mothers who are choosing to be with their kids, and they see housewives as an old-fashioned term, taking care of their husband and their house," Peskowitz says.
So with the focus on sexy wives in popular culture, is feminism taking a back seat to femininity?
"I see a return to the glorification of home and family," says Deborah Siegel, director of special projects at the National Council for Research on Women in New York. "But I think if you look statistically at the sociological trends, women are working and wanting to work just as much as ever."
A study just released on women's attitudes and aspirations for power, conducted in 2003 and 2004 by the Simmons College School of Management, supports Siegel's assertion. The survey of almost 1,000 women managers found that 47 percent want top leadership positions.
Another Simmons study, of about 4,000 teenagers, found that 6 percent of girls say they will stop working once they have children. But 86 percent of the girls plan to take a break for kids and then return to work.
During the college years, when career-minded coeds seldom have diapers on their radar screens, female students have mixed reactions when asked about possible housewife-hood.
"It's that time in my life where I would not see myself in the situation of having a child," says Maren Lantzy, 22, who will graduate from the University of Pittsburgh in May with a communications degree.
"But once I've been in the job for a while and I see what the working world is like," she continues, "I would like to take a break and have a family -- if I met the right person at the right time."
Kristin Strannigan, 21, a Pitt biology major, can't envision staying at home beyond taking a temporary break after having a baby.
"I can never see myself just leaving (medicine) and being a full-time mom," says Strannigan, who is discussing marriage with her boyfriend, Vito. "I've always wanted to be a doctor; I don't think I could do that."
Gannett News Service contributed to this report.
