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Attachment Parenting
anna7602
member
I feel like having a feminist debate
anna7602
member
Except I'm too tired to articulate everything that's in my head. I just finished reading a book called, roughly translated, "How to Survive Motherhood in a Man's World" by a Chilean author (Francisca Fuenzalida, in case you read Spanish and feel like checking it out). The author makes some well-founded points about employment discrimination against women, mostly in Latin America, but I think some of the stuff holds true here as well (except for mandatory pregnancy tests, thank goodness!). However, near the end of the book, she ends up going totally batsh*t crazy on some friends who choose to exit the career treadmill and be SAHMs. She gives them the "things will never change until YOU ask your workplace to change and you're letting down the rest of us by voluntarily exiting the workplace" speech.
I really thought about this for a few days, then realized I know just as many SAH and freelance Dads as I do Moms, so it doesn't really feel like sexism to me, just that the sad reality is that it's freaking hard to do it all and have a family. Most people I know who aren't willing to work a billion hours/week and juggle a family don't work for big corporations or work in the field they have a master's in or have turned down promotions or jobs that require more than they're willing to give at the expense of their families. And the few "power couples" that I know, where both partners work ten gajillion hours and travel a ton for their jobs, live a kind of life where they either have close family around to help with the kids or they have full-time nannies. I don't envy the trade-offs that they have to make and I don't complain that they make more money than I do because the truth is that they work a heck of a lot more than I do.
Nonethelss, I can't help wondering if all of us freelance and stay-at-home and working-in-a-position-well-below-our-experience-level-because-the-hours-are-better types are letting down working families as a whole? What in the heck could we possibly do to make most U.S. workplaces more family friendly (offering subsidized daycare like some European countries or longer maternity/paternity leave, for example)? By making our own creative solutions to balance everything, are we just "giving up" on the larger problem?
Discuss. Please.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: I feel like having a feminist debate
I have to be quick as I should be working so my response may come across as over simplified...But, my answer is "No".
I think the "creative solutions" you are referring to are the kind of entrepreneurial ideals that this country was founded on. I think the risks that people like you are taking are much needed in these economic times. I hope that as employers see a shift of qualified workers moving to freelance/WAH work that they will have to rethink their policies in order to create more attractive work places. I know one company that will have to reconsider their policies when their senior employee decides to expand their family...
Very interesting. I used to work in a cut-throat industry. I worked my a$$ off for 70+ hours a week and I was damn good at it. I won awards, was in an internationally recognized magazine, and was the best at my company. And I left about 8 years ago because my job was my life, and I didn't want to live that way. I did freelance for a while, and then drifted around for a few years, finally starting my own business doing something totally different (as well as working a job for a few years).
I think some people thrive on working that much (my coworkers back then loved it) and some don't.
I think some people thrive on having a career and family, and some don't. I know I love being home with LO and not having her in daycare, but I have close friends who would hate it.
Do the SAHM's hurt the career mom's? I don't know. I do know I got flack when I quit my most recent job (not the 70+ hour one) for "letting the working moms down."
I also think that some dad's are in the same boat. My DH is not a traditional work type person - he would die behind a desk. So he gets a lot of flack for "not supporting his family" because we have our own business, which is risky.
That said, I do think it is HARD to do things like breastfeed and work full time. I think working moms have a rough time of it because, at least in my old line of work, you are at the whim of the client - as far as work hours. And if you didn't stay to get the job done, someone else would and you would be left behind in the dust.
Also, I think the work environment in the US just kind of sucks anyway.
sorry for being so rambling...
This. I honestly think the "system" is too far entrenched right now to change much.
As someone who recently left a high stress thankless job to SAH, I've had a hard time explaining myself when ppl ask what I'm doing now (as in ppl I haven't seen in awhile). I probably came across as miserable & trapped last week when I ran into an old friend, but I'm honestly way happier as a SAHM than I ever thought I would be. I'm pretty feminist & very liberal & not afraid to say so, but I'm almost afraid to say I'm staying home now. What used to be a noble thing to do now means you're being lazy. Of course you're judged if you work too, since you're leaving your child to be "raised by strangers" or whatever.
So to sum up my rambling, I would love to change the system, but I'm not going to stay working when I'm miserable to do so. And as I stated before, I think that the American workplace is just not going to be family friendly any time soon. We can't even get not-for-profit healthcare in this country. If everything & anything has to make a profit in this country, how can the workplace possibly get any better?
You are looking at two extremes. Plenty of people work full-time, have their kids in daycare and are able to make it work. They have happy, well-adjusted kids who are nurtured and thrive. If you want a different kind of life than that - no big deal. It is your life. Live it. But being a working mother or father isn't a death sentence. Expand your horizons a bit.
Hmmm. I don't think I am living a sheltered life at all. Lots of the people I am including in my "we're not challenging the system enough" thinking actually are working mothers and fathers, but mothers and fathers who are working at jobs way below their potential because not every workplace out there is family-friendly or are working the hours and schedules demanded of them because they are terrified that if they jump off the track while their kids are young they will be committing career-suicide. That seems to be the reality in the US, not an extreme.
Maybe you and your friends and your spouses have a found a way to balance it all, but this is an ongoing debate with a lot of people I know. Furthermore, it is next to impossible to find any daycare out there open the kinds of hours some of the people I know work. The only way they can do it is having lots of help from extended family or having a spouse who does not work the same kinds of hours. That's what it came down to in our family. We don't have extended family very close by. I had a job where I had to travel internationally periodically before DD was born. DH has a job where he regularly works very late. One of us had to scale back on our hours or find a more flexible schedule if we didn't want to go find live-in help (which is an option, I know, but just not one I wanted to use).
I'm not even talking about whether children are happy and well-adjusted. I'm talking about whether we, their parents, are happy and well-adjusted.
I think the issue is the lack of genuine choice.
Once upon a time an employed man could support a family. Sure a lower paid man would live a more modest lifestyle, but it was achievable for most families to live on one income..
Now we have the working poor. The families who rely on two incomes, or incomes from multiple jobs. These families to not have a genuine choice for one partner to stay at home because of their financial situation.
Now if you choose to have two working partners because you value overseas holidays, or a giant house or three fancy cars then good for you. But that is different than the families who NEED two incomes to put food on the table and shoes on their kids feet.
There is also a lack of choice in terms of social pressure. There are many who think you should work, or you shouldn't work and feel free to share their opinion.
So to my mind you should be able to freely choose to be a SAHP or work as best fits your family's needs and wants, but the reality is that inflation, low incomes, social pressure, situations such as solo parenting rob many of a genuine choice.
I'm fortunate that the maternity terms in my contract give me options for two years maternity leave. There is also a clause where if I quit to care for a preschool child then if I apply for the same or lower position within five years they have to give it to me.
So I so have some very real flexibility with my job.
What I have never understood is why people get so upset about women moving in and out of the workforce to be SAHMs when people move in and out of jobs all the time for all sorts of reasons, from travelling, to study, to starting a business, to trying a new field of work. Yet it's women who get the side-eye for taking maternity leave or quitting altogether.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
I think that the author of that book is doing women a genuine disservice by claiming SAHM's are "letting down the rest of us by voluntarily exiting the workplace". What exactly is wrong with wanting to be a SAHM? Making the choice and deciding that it's the better option. I was offered a pretty decent, flexible option with my job after I found out I was pregnant, but decided to leave because that's what I wanted to do. Not because I was forced to, but because I wanted to be a SAHM and ONLY a SAHM. Dh was in full support and we swung our finances so that it could work. It has it's challenges, but I'm genuinely happy.
Some women who don't work or who work part-time or less demanding jobs are perfectly happy with it. I don't want to work outside of the home. I realize that it's a luxury that I'm able to make that happen, but I don't see that as "giving up" or letting anyone down.
I'm a huge fan of making the workplace a better place for parents, absolutely, but even if there were incredibly ideal working conditions, I still wouldn't be interested at this point in my life. I don't see anything wrong with that and I really abhor the idea that I'm staying at home because I couldn't find a job to suit my life with a child. Being a homemaker and full time mom is my "job" because that's a choice I've made. What's the matter with wanting that?
I remember reading in a book (Our Babies Ourselves, maybe?) how some feminists at the turn of the century were all up in arms about breastfeeding. They viewed bottle feeding with formula as promoting women's independence and breastfeeding as being hurtful to women's rights. The same with natural birth. Choosing to take drugs to ease the pain of childbirth was seen as empowering, while natural birth was ridiculed for not allowing women to have control over their pain. Ridiculous.
I am going to draw the 'it is culture' card on this one (as I love to do). In the US it is fairly normal to be SAH, hence it is rarely looked down upon, in fact to me it is seen as a 'wealthy' thing since the other parent has to make enough money to stay at home. One of the key problems is not maternity leave length or work conditions but the tragic lack of good quality, affordable childcare. The countries that have good conditions for women start with high quality subsidized daycare. I am about to move to Sweden and apart from them having a guarantee, it is cheap. I couldn't believe my own eyes when I saw the price: 250$ per month! For full time daycare with well-educated teachers (all daycare teachers in Scandinavia has a 4 year degree in preschool education). The reason why so many people here SAH or have to make up creative solutions is that the alternative is so crappy: expensive childcare, often with teachers that do not have degrees in preschool education.
What I am trying to say is that it is nice to think that this is about feminism. But most of this system is politically based, based on the tradition of non-government interference. Ironically, this leads to more polarized groups of women where some have taken the consequences and become power-workers, others power-moms. I think that in the US you have to work harder, but you also get further, where in a more 'equal' society, the middle becomes the norm and people who stick their neck out are ridiculed.
From an idealistic perspective I agree with the author's opinion that women exiting the work force are copping out, leaving where they should fight. But only to the extent that it makes sense for the woman. One problem is that a majority of high-level jobs are still minded at a man's world. Just to mention my own field of academia: After your PhD at around 30 (if you are good), you have 6-7 years to make tenure, 6 really tough years, that hit women right in the middle of the prime baby-making age. If you don't make tenure you are basically out of the game, at least in terms of good universities. There are very few 'back doors' into the system, which was constructed before any women were allowed to be professors. Many work areas like this need a significant number of women to stay and show that their way of 'doing it' can lead to a significant career and by dropping out of the workforce, they are giving up, leaving the rest of us to 'fend for ourselves'. So ideally, yes they are letting down the rest of us. Reality is of course that each woman need to do what is best for her and her family, not what is best for all the greater good.
Yeah you pretty much missed my whole point.
I never said that there aren't plenty of people who choose to work for their own personal fulfillment. Nor was I commenting on the social issue of whether or not women used to be able to work. I simply said a man used to be able to support his family on one wage because let's face it men worked and women stayed home. It was just the way it was.
I was looking at how financial constraints have put a real choice out of range for many. The implication being that many choose to work for all sorts of reasons but some are unable to choose.
I think that it is this that is at the crux at a lot of people's resentment and bitterness.
In the same way some people will blame migrants for stealing everyone's jobs, some people will blame women for stealing other people's jobs.
I think SOME women who have to go back to work for financial reasons get resentful and bitter which then feeds into the, "I'm a working Mum my life is so much harder than yours vs but I'm a SAHM you have no idea how hard it is" ongoing hostility, which in turn turns women against each other.
If people had genuine choice through financial freedom,supportive bosses and non judgemental colleagues and society then the women who wanted to be a SAHM until her kids go to college for her own fulfillment could do so without being made to feel lazy, and the woman who wants to return to work when her baby is 12 weeks old for her own fulfillment could do so without being made to feel bad for prioritizing her own needs.
I don't know why you think I am judging people who could live on one income but choose to have both partners work. I was simply trying to differentiate out the financial issues of genuine need vs want.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
ITA. Employers have way too much sway over people's lives and the economy is such a clusterfvck right now that the "change from within" of sticking it out in the employer-employee model isn't particularly meaningful. It's not limited to parents or women either. People are realizing that corporate ladder-climbing, company loyalty, a single career for life, etc are things of the past. I don't know what's next exactly, but I believe it will become clearer once health insurance is untied from employment.
ExACTLY.
Whoa! I never said I wasn't thankful for or grateful to the women who came before me, who have allowed me to have the opportunities and choices I have today. What I was trying to say is that after it was all said and done, I made the choice to stay home with my son because I felt it was in his best interest and I could afford to do it. At the same time, I'm not going to feel guilty for putting my son before the greater cause of advancing women's rights, pay, opportunity, etc. I no longer feel the need I once had to be the one changing the world. I'm not going to apologize for feeling like I needed to make my son my priority in life. I'm not saying that women who work don't make their children their priority, but I wasn't good at balancing work and motherhood. So, for me I had to choose one or the other.
I think that Definitely, workplaces could be more family-friendly. But at the same time, short of having kids at work WITH you in the "office," there's only SO MUCH one person can do in one day and something's gotta give. Either you find something to do that's not so demanding, or you get help at home so that's not as demanding.
Ironically, I am dealing with this issue in a roundabout way... There is a 16yo girl that I was essentially the "other mom" for;0) Recently, her Mom quit her AMAZING job to spend more time with her, only to discover that a 16yo doesn't want to hang with Mom all the time! LOL Now they are having massive fights, etc, and I think what her Mom is most angry about is that she missed the opportunity. Now. She had no choice, but to work. She was supporting the family and I know she'd never change that. I suppose she could have done a lesser job and been home more... But that's just not in her DNA.
I guess I just feel like- I TOTALLY lucked out and have been blessed to BE ABLE to stay home. And I'm good at it. I was a daycare teacher for 13 years, and I helped raise thousands of children. I want to be the one my kids remember teaching them ABC's and 123's and being there when they lose their 1st tooth or when they crawl for the 1st time and just doing fun stuff with. I think the Point of feminism is that we HAVE THE CHOICE, no matter if it's running a Forbes 100 company or staying home with your child. Shouldn't get flack for what you choose. We all live with the choices we make, and they're ours to make.
My "surrogate daughter" is who she is bc of the time she spent with me AND the example of her Mother. Her Mom taught her to work HARD at whatever you do and strive to be the best and don't let anyone hold you back or down. I taught her how to sing and have fun and about Jesus and how to care for babies and the silly girly part of being a girl. It has made her an amazing person. Not too shabby;0)