"A generation of women bred to work"

Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2010-03-18 20:41

Article here. Excerpt:

'Our careers were proof that generations of oppression were over, the revolution complete and women were finally “free”. As Lady Gaga, the icon of striving and ambition, said this month: “Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you any more.” Her comments caused a blog storm, as recession-weary women asserted that you can most certainly wake up and find that your career doesn’t love you any more, and to put career ahead of love and family can be a dangerous mistake.
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Our mothers wanted to go out to work for many reasons — independence, freedom, fulfilment — but mainly, they wanted to do it because men did it and their work was more valued. So we set a new rule, saying we’ll go out to work, too (if you do 50% of the house and kids’ stuff — okay, do 30% and I’ll pretend it’s 50%). And in one generation we have reversed the situation, so that a man who earns enough for his wife to stay at home is doing her a favour. Economically, the woman who has time to stay at home and cook her children a dinner from scratch is not downtrodden, but privileged.
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Yet the drudgery of cleaning and cook­ing and child-rearing, it has now transpired, was important skilled labour. So skilled, in fact, that we now need television programmes to show us how to clean our lavatories, rear our children and cook our dinners. The most basic housekeeping skills — such as working out a weekly budget and sticking to it — seem to have eluded us. Debt? Our grandmothers did not know what that meant. Could they have imagined their granddaughters would spend half a month’s wages on a handbag and the other on Marks & Spencer’s ready meals? Or throw out a perfectly good blouse because of a missing button, or not know how to bake a batch of buns without looking up a recipe in a lavishly illustrated cookbook?'

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Comments

As some of you may be able to tell from my posts, I have a bit of the mad scientist in me. :) What this means is that I am fine with asking questions and digging into places others would just prefer not to dig into.

Socio-anthropologists (of which I can't claim to be one - unless only as an amateur) rarely get a chance to see what happens in The Great Laboratory of Society when a large portion of some assigned set of life-roles get changed wholesale. Feminism over the past several decades has yielded a rare opportunity to see that in action.

There may be times when such events work out, overall, for the better. For example, many people who shifted from agricultural to non-agricultural labor in the last century in the US and Europe reported a greater sense of independence from the demands of living by the seasons, but also reported feeling a sense of loss over living "close to the Earth" and living in a more "honest lifestyle" - work yields its fruits usually in proportion. Usually, the harder you work, the more that is yielded, barring a bad season (and then, you have crop insurance to carry you over 'til next year - well, nowadays, anyway). Simple and direct. But as with all things, there are trade-offs.

Today's women must feel the same way, only in their cases, many were raised without any real chance to make a decision about whether or not they were going to be Betty Crocker or Rosy the Riveter (or Rosy the Stockbroker, for that matter). As this author points out, the decision was made for them by their mothers: Work or be scorned, at least by dear old mum.

But if the author of this article can in fact claim to speak for an entire generation of women (in the UK at least), then she is indeed an advertisement not for a return to a "traditional arrangement" but actually for a full and complete termination thereof. Let me explain:

1. If she were to live at home with a husband and she did not work but instead raised kids, the following would be true: She would eventually become as miserable as her mother claimed to become and want a "sea-change in society", thereby perpetuating a redux of the last 40-50 years. (And I want to point out that for her "choice", some man would need to finance it. I note that feminists and other commentators rarely ask us men if we are down with the idea of financing some woman's "choice" to stay at home and raise kids.)

2. If she were to continue on the life as she has discussed herein, she will certainly remain disenchanted with it UNLESS she can find a mate to assume full-time childcare duties. (Her missive herein is well-peppered with anti-father/male gripes, and that has by no means escaped my notice. But it is to be expected in such an article and MANN regulars need no editorials on them; we spot them for what they are.)

3. So leading from (2), were she to have a flipped script scenario and had a husband who did FT childcare, tell me, how well would that work for her? How happy would she really end up being? Some people can make this work but most times, it does not. When women are asked what they really want from men, the average one does not honestly reply "A man to stay home and take care of kids." Maybe there is 2-5% of the human female population that would reply this way but the other 98-98% says they would prefer to be the ones at home taking care of the wee wains.

Now of course in either case 1 or 3, if there should be a divorce, the non-working parent has a superior position over the working one, as we know, and especially so if the non-working parent is female. Nonetheless, most women do not go into a "traditional marriage" waiting for some number of years to pass only to file for divorce and cash in. Indeed while the goal may become that as the drama unfolds based on events (or suspected events), the typical new blushing traditionally-minded bride is not out to do that.

Bearing in mind that both parties' interests should be taken into account, tell me: Are any of the above scenarios attractive enough to draw anyone, generally speaking, into a marriage/cohabitative arrangement? Unless there is an unusually high level of trust and love, a rare thing indeed, and a great deal of flexibility and shared values for what the two people want, I will say I cannot see that as being the case.

With a tacit rejection of scenarios 1 and 3 by society at large (and her, it seems), scenario 2 is the only one left. But the author rejects it in her criticism. So there is nothing left for the typical person but to remain unmarried/uncohabitative and also probably non-reproductive -- unless they don't want to be free from the kind of misery and confusion the author claims to suffer.

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Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2010-03-18 21:15

I hate in when a woman feels the need to speak for a whole generation.

There will always be some women that value career and others that value the time staying home with kids.

However, those that do choose demanding careers should either stay childless or be satisfied with a husband that takes on the domestic role, as I don't believe anyone can "have it all".

I don't care what others choose, but I do have a problem with people relying on others to raise their kids as in daycares or nannies. That's why I suggest career women stay childless. Although I have seen some families do a really good job of staggering their work hours or have willing grandparents to provide care, but it is rare.

I personally believe that the lack of family time, placing new-born babies in daycares and all that goes along with being a dual career family has a negative effect on children and families (think of all the ADD and lack of morals and out of control behavior we see in kids). I am not sure what the stats are but I think dual career couples (with kids) are more apt to divorce.

I realize many people cannot afford to have a stay home parent, but I think as a society we should look for other solutions to childcare like co-opping with other family members, or call in grandparents, or instead of a high demand job across town, choose part-time close to home, or scale back on material things..

Of course when it comes to careers and childcare all this should be in agreement and discussed before marriage.

Here are some of my pet-peeves in regards to this topic:

>Women that think they can "have it all". They can't. Just like that post from "Saira" in another thread that said mothers tend to work less hours, take more time off, etc. They do this because their children need additional care that daycares cannot provide.****

>Women that think stay at home moms are oppressed, suffer low self esteem, etc. or describe our days as boring (my day was exciting as we are making a tadpole cage so we can raise frogs for a biology lesson, of course I also did laundry, packed up and shipped an item for my husband, homeschooled, made dinner, etc. but the time spent searching for tadpole eggs was priceless).

>Men that think stay at home moms are taking advantage of their husbands by lounging around all day while husband's slave away. My message to them: Mind your own business!!! If you want your wife to work while your kids spend 10 hours a day in daycare, that's your choice. Who cares what the arrangment is as long as everyone is happy.

>Men and women who think less of MEN if they choose to stay home or make career sacrifices for the family. Fathers deserve the same respect in this matter that mothers receive. (I have one stay at home dad in my homeschooling group. He's great.)

Footnote:
*** The one feminist in my family (my aunt) brags about how she has "done it all" as she has a high earning career (she's a judge) as well as raised two college educated kids.

Reality: Starting at ages 9 and 13 her kids were no longer in daycare and were "latchkey kids" (she calls them "independent at a young age") . Well, growing up they lived down the street from us and everyday after school, my cousins always came to our house to play as their house was empty. They must of had thousands of meals, conversations, etc. as my mom practically raised them. My aunt has no clue.

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Submitted by Kris on Sat, 2010-03-20 02:30

I think most people would agree that, as part of a recent trend, parents do not spend enough time with there kids and that this has to do with the increasing role of women in the workplace. However I think it would be a mistake to value the work at home as we once did in the past.

Without delving deeply into the subject of family roles and what it takes to support a family, consider the roles of the father and mother from 60 years ago to 500 years ago or more. During that time period there has been relative continuity, at least for the west, in the basic family model. It essentially consists of the father bringing home the money/resources and the mother taking care of the house, cooking, and the kids. Because of the similar basic family structure it is relatively easy to compare the role of the stay at home mom throughout the time span.

Now consider how the roles of the stay at home mom is affected by technology and our modern society. No longer does cooking involve the skinning or plucking an animal. No longer do we need to start a fire to heat the oven, instead we simply push a button. Because of the fridge we can now use as little of something as we want and no longer need to collect/buy the food every day. Nearly all our home cooked meals are made from processed foods. We no longer make things from scratch such as buying bread, broth, yogurt, spices, butter, and so on. The dishwmasher also reduces the time we need to spend in the kitchen.

In regards to watching the kids, modern society now expects the kids to go to school for most of their pre adult life. Also, in modern times both working moms and stay at home moms put their kids in programs such as camps, sports, and clubs. Altogether the time stay at home moms are watching their kids is less.

Technology has also effected work towards upkeep of the house. This includes the washing machine, dryer, and the vacuum; all of which are basic to housekeeping. Note that one could spend hours cleaning the house to keep the house perfectly clean, but that would be pretty useless and not really help anyone else.

The workload for fathers has been relatively stable compared to the dramatic changes in the workload for the average stay at home mom. For this reason I sometimes cringe at the idea of women going back to the home. It just does not equate in value to what it did many years ago and in my opinion would not fairly share the workload. A part time parent or having both parents work less hours would be a reasonable solution to the problem I first mentioned.

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Submitted by fondueguy on Sat, 2010-03-20 05:20