<\/p>\n
I always remember a friend of mine, who will remain nameless, giving her husband one of the most sexual, romantic traffic-stopping kisses in the world. It was on a sparkling summer day years ago as she bade him goodbye for work. My friend, a stunning woman with charcoal black hair and smoky blue eyes, was deep in the embrace of her reporter husband, a former hockey player, oblivious to the rest of us gaping across the street at such straightforward lust. I have never forgotten that kiss and it has long caused me to wonder about something. My friend was a stay-at-home mom. I had a job downtown. Assuming that kiss was indicative of the rest of her life, I couldn\u2019t help ask who has better sex lives \u2013 go-to-work moms or women who stay home.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been both. I stayed home with my kids for five years and endured the label of \u201cnot working\u201d with my grouchy comeback, \u201cnot working for money anyway.\u201d Then for another half decade, I was a \u201cwork mom\u201d as my daughter called it. I know what it\u2019s like to expand my swear-word vocabulary as I careen through rush-hour traffic to make it in time for the day-care pickup. (I say this so that the stay-at-home moms won\u2019t make an effigy of me during crafts-with-their-kids time and bring it to the schoolyard for the work moms to bash with their briefcases before they join together and burn it.) In any case, I can\u2019t actually remember my sex life in great detail except it must have happened at least twice because I have two children and I don\u2019t remember buying them anywhere.<\/p>\n
But everybody likes to speculate about other people\u2019s love lives. If you\u2019re lucky, you think yours is the best and feel sorry for everyone else. This happens mostly at the beginning of a relationship. Or never. So, when Chatelaine asked me to find out whose sex lives were better, women who stayed at home or women who worked outside the home, I figured everyone would think the other woman was getting it more often.<\/p>\n
However, there\u2019s one thing that they all \u2013 MITHs (Moms Inside the Home) and MOTHs (Moms Outside the Home) \u2013 have in common, and that\u2019s kids. No one\u2019s sex life ever improves after children come along. It\u2019s just a matter of how steep that downward spiral is. Linda, a Toronto financial analyst, stayed at home for years, worked part time and eventually full time. \u201cI think I completely lost interest once I had my first child.\u201d Linda says that lack of interest was pretty constant during the stay-at-home and back-to-work years. A scary thought for those couples em-barking on parenthood, so maybe hide this magazine from them.<\/p>\n
Still, somebody must be doing it. And some more than others. But getting more doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that it is better. You could be going at it daily and it\u2019s still crummy or you could be making out just three times a year, but when it happens, it\u2019s great. (Actually, if it\u2019s only three times a year, anything would be considered great.) So, when I spoke to women across the country (whose names have been changed) about their sex lives, we looked at how often it happened, how good it was and technique, which everyone puzzled over (some people weren\u2019t even sure what technique was). We also discussed the things that went into creating a good sex life; things such as how much time you had available in your life to actually do it, how stressed out you were and how good you felt about yourself.<\/p>\n
I tried hard to be fair to both groups and talked to moms working inside the home, moms working outside the home, their husbands, their sex therapists and my hairdresser. I have to confess. I went into this figuring that the MOTHs would have it over the MITHs. But I found precisely the opposite. The who\u2019s-getting-it-more-award goes to the MITHs.<\/p>\n
The biggest factor is time. We only have 24 hours in a day. Say we need eight hours sleep. That leaves 16 for everything else, and if you spend nine hours a day at work, that means, well, you have to fit the laundry in some- e where.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s when it seems to cross over into your sex life. Stay-at-home moms definitely have a leg up (or sometimes two) in the time-for-play department. Elina, from Stratford, Ont., has two kids, two jobs and one husband and tries to fit a sex life into all of that. \u201cAfter the dishes are done, children in bed, laundry in ruins, the last thing in the world on my mind is a sex life. I just want to sleep undisturbed.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you are exhausted, it affects quality as well. She confides, \u201cOne night my husband caught me counting ceiling tiles. We were in bed, and he said, \u2018Are you counting something?\u2019 What could I do? I said, \u2018Ceiling tiles. We\u2019re missing one.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Sally Breen, a Vancouver sexuality counsellor, says a mother working outside of the home has some pretty big time commitments. \u201cEven the amount of time she gets on her own is limited and she can start to pile up a little bit of resentment about that, so that when her husband makes an approach, she\u2019s more likely to think, \u2018I just want to be on my own.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
My hairdresser agrees. Not only is he married to a stay-at-home mom, he\u2019s a natural source for this sort of cutting-edge info. As he\u2019s trimming and coiffing these women, he gets the impression that stay-at-home moms seem to be more active between the sheets. \u201cThe opportunity is certainly there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laureen, a MITH in Saskatchewan, married for 18 years, says not only does she have the time, but she puts it to good use. \u201cIt can be morning, afternoon, evening.\u201d Her husband is\u00a0 a farmer and never really too far from the house. \u201cIt could be anytime,\u201d she laughs. And if the children are around when they\u2019re in the mood? \u201cWe usually just say we\u2019re very tired and we are going for a nap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lily, a full-time homemaker in Chatham, Ont., with two kids, initially worked outside the home for several months, then quit to stay home. When she was working it was, \u201cWham-bam, thank you, ma\u2019am. You didn\u2019t have anything extra to put into it.\u201d She says once she established herself as a stay-at-home, the quality improved. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t that great, because we did have kids, but it was better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Self-esteem is another thing that comes up when you\u2019re talking to women about their sex lives, but it\u2019s kind of a grey area. While moms working outside the home generally feel pretty good about themselves, so do the women at home. The funny thing is, the work moms I spoke to think they feel better about themselves than the stay-at-homes. The truth is that while many of our own mothers may have wanted to be out in the workforce when they were pushing strollers, today\u2019s stay-at-home moms have braved the poor salary, sticky working conditions and lack of status to do something they truly want to do.<\/p>\n
These women are at home by choice \u2013 and exhibit the same sense of drive and professionalism as their going-out-to-work counterparts. In fact, there are probably more women in the\u00a0 workforce who would like to be at home than vice versa, but their money situation just doesn\u2019t allow it.<\/p>\n
As well, Breen says how you feel about your job probably doesn\u2019t affect your sexual self-image. Just because you\u2019re CEO doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re any randier than the temp with the pierced eyebrow.<\/p>\n
Joyce, married for 30 years and working in a law firm in Chilliwack, B.C., disagrees. \u201cI think you feel better about yourself when you are out working and helping out with the family income.\u201d But she does acknowledge that you’re only have a limited amount of time to play with. \u201cI think it\u2019s just a matter of working women juggling their time. I don\u2019t think that they are more exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n
She jokes that stay-at-home moms can get the laundry done in the daytime, but women working outside of the home have to multi-task at night. \u201cSo, they have to be, like, it\u2019s on the rinse cycle, let\u2019s get at it here.\u201d<\/p>\n
But whoa, watch out. When sex becomes a chore, it can be easier to ignore than the laundry, and maybe with more serious long-term consequences (although I never tried ignoring the laundry for a month). The thought of having to try to fit sex in between the darks and the delicates is nothing but an added stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen don\u2019t like to have sex on a schedule,\u201d says Breen. \u201cIt makes the sex more important than the person. They [men] want some frequency and they\u2019re caught up a little more in numbers and getting it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, if you have the time, you\u2019ll probably be doing it more. But will it affect how good you are at it? Of course. No one ever made a gourmet dinner in five<\/p>\n
minutes. (If they did, could they pass along the recipe to me?) A meal is always better when you\u2019ve spent time making it lovingly and put it in the oven, rather than just looking at the package and throwing it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Offers Breen, \u201cIf you are getting some sexual activity but very little couple nurturing activity, over a period of time, your batteries will get low and sex will become less enjoyable for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
My hairdresser put the whole technique issue a bit more bluntly. \u201cHow many positions used to be more important 15 or 20 years ago. Right now it\u2019s almost like if it happens it\u2019s good \u2013 any position is fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The best of all possible scenarios stars Catherine in Winnipeg, who is self-employed with an office in the house. Her husband also works out of their house and these folks are having a wonderful time. \u201cWe never have to wait until it\u2019s dark. There\u2019s always the chance for a nooner. Or a before-nooner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Technique is better because they get to talk about it more. \u201cMy husband is my co-worker. We talk about our relationship all the time.\u201d That\u2019s when they\u2019re not doing it.<\/p>\n
So, what about my friend and those shameless mouth-watering kisses on the street with her husband? Was that embrace a sign of what went on behind her closed door? While I never got up enough nerve to ask her, I know there\u2019s no reason to be jealous. Shortly after that kiss, her husband got a job as a foreign correspondent and she didn\u2019t see him for weeks at a time. It goes to show you that one way or another, you\u2019re gonna get screwed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I always remember a friend of mine, who will remain nameless, giving her husband one of the most sexual, romantic traffic-stopping kisses in the world. It was on a sparkling summer day years ago as she bade him goodbye for work. My friend, a stunning woman with charcoal black hair and smoky blue eyes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":182,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-369","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/369\/revisions\/371"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiebinks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}