assorted thoughts on feminism and motherhood

[flea]

Well, the New York Times has been pretty quiet on the issue lately, but then Betty Friedan died. Plus Jesse's post from yesterday about needing to be reminded how recently racial segregation was enforced by public school got me thinking about these issues, again. I'm too stupid lately to claim any coherence to the comments below; I just want to get them out at the moment.

1. Aren't you glad you can't be fired for getting pregnant in most jobs now? Do you realize how recently that was made law? I'm remembering vaguely from a talk I attended over a year ago, but I think it was 1979. It's only since 1993 that you've been allowed to take 12 weeks unpaid leave to have a baby (or a do a variety of other family/medical stuff) and still have a job when you get back, and that's only if you work in a large firm. If your employer employs fewer than 50 people, you have absolutely no legal right to take any leave at all if you have a baby. Betty Friedan was fired when she asked for a leave of absence to have her second child, 5 years after having the first. Job advertisements used to specify that they would only hire a man. And people say feminism never did anything for them.

2. I think too much has been made in the media about the extent to which the choice of stay-at-home parenthood is only available for the wealthy. Yes, if you are a single mother, you cannot stay home with your child unless you have a trust fund. Yes, low-income couples often both have to work to be able to live. Yes, a large percentage of American mothers are either single or low-income or both. But you don't have to be an investment banker making million-dollar annual bonuses to support a stay-at-home spouse, either. Especially if you don't live in a major coastal metropolitan area. You *do* have to make some financial sacrifies as a family, sacrifies I think many middle-class people in the New York Times demographic are loath to make.

3. However, I personally have a strong opinion, based on my life experience, that no able adult should sacrifice her financial independence for the sake of family. Divorce is common. Death, happily less so, but it does occur. In divorce, a woman's standard of living generally (still, even a working woman) declines until/unless she remarries. A man's standard of living stays the same or rises, even if he pays child support, even if he remarries. (Yes, you can probably think of exceptions. I can too. They're exceptions.) I don't want to ever be in the position of being unable to support myself and my children at a basic civilized level all by myself if I have to.

4. Would I stay at home with my child(ren) if I could? Maybe. Part time. Some of this is temperament. I like small children, but I don't find herding them all day to be the most fulfilling thing I have ever done. It's harder work than most jobs I have held, and the fact that nobody hands me a check at the end of the day is grating. (I know, in an agreed-upon partnership, all money being earned belongs to the family as a whole. Emotionally, for me, if I'm working that hard I want cash in my hand.) On the other hand I do wish I had more time with my daughter, and I feel it would be better for her not to be in full-time group day care.

5. Would my husband stay home with his child(ren) if he could? Yes, if. He likes the work of taking care of children much more than I do (even though, to my critical eye, he is less conscientious. Okay, he does make sure Casper's teeth get brushed; I can't even brush my own regularly enough. We are differently conscientious. I certainly clean the house more than he does, though. I digress.) He'd have some obstacles, I think, in the social adjustment to being a full-time stay at home father. He's come a long way since we discovered I was pregnant with Casper and his first reaction was, "Well, I'l leave school and get a job and support you," but what would his father say? Would he really be willing to leave his career and face the incredible hurdles of getting back into it in 5 years if he wanted to go back?

Clearly, I should have been the engineer, and mr. flea should have dabbled in the humanities PhD ocean and then changed to the oh-so-lucrative field of library work. Whoops.

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

You *do* have to make some financial sacrifies as a family, sacrifies I think many middle-class people in the New York Times demographic are loath to make.

Such as, in my experience, living in a community that thinks God hates Harry Potter, or in a neighborhood whose schools are deplorable. I'm sorry, that "sacrifices" line always makes me come out in hives. Anybody can be put down with "Well, if you're unwilling to SACRIFICE" -- after all, health insurance, (I know several couples only one of whom is insured), Social Security for the spouse, life insurance can all be considered luxuries if the speaker doesn't need them.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Surely there are communities other than the SF area that don't think God hates Harry Potter! We could have lived well on mr flea's then salary alone in Thomaston CT (where we did live for two years), a small town with middling to average (but neither horrible nor dangerous) public schools, a decent percentage of blue-collar workers, somewhat depressed financially, but not particularly small-minded. The public library, where I volunteered, was big on Harry Potter. The sacrifices would have been things like a 45-minute drive to thai food, no public transportation at all, distance from cities and cultural events more scintillating than local community theater. But it had two Dunkin' Donuts!

I was trying to get at the mindset of people who can't live without their annual caribbean vacation, couldn't fathom only owning one car, have to have at least one bathroom per household member. I think that there are more people who feel this way than are willing to admit it. Or if there aren't a lot, they all do seem to show up on the pages of the New York Times, like the woman in an article about home decor who said, "If my child wants a toy that doesn't look good in our apartment, he can't have it."

Forgoing health or life insurance is not a sacrifice; it's a hardship. The Social Security issue for the spouse is an issue that hits me in point 3.

[minim_calibre]

With our particular fields, we're pretty much limited to major metro areas just to be able to work, and I don't think there's a single one that pays just one of us enough for me to stay home. P's job pays just barely above the self-sufficiency threshold for a family in the area. With no emergencies, we could have scraped by until June, and as it was, we had to raid the 401k to make it that far.

(While it might have been slightly different were we not homeowners, rents are high enough that when I was contemplating a sell-and-rent strategy last year at the height of my money panic, I realized and took comfort from the fact that, really, that wouldn't save our rears. We did look at living outside the city way back when, but as we're a single-car family, and the surrounding communities aren't hugely cheap, commuting costs would have eaten up any mortgage savings.)

I can't remember: did you read The Two Income Trap?

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Yes, but well before I was a parent, so it didn't have the same impact it might now.

For us, if mr. flea got a basic job in his field tomorrow, one he'd be way overqualified for, he'd instantly be making more than we're living on right now and have been living on quite well (despite my grumbling) for 3 years. The CT situation I hypothesized above, he was making what to us (after years of academic stipends) was riches, but was actually about 2/3 of the median income for the state of CT at the time. And a charming house down the street where we lived sold for $130K while we were there (needing a lot of work, but hand-built stone fireplace, original built-in hardwood cabinets and shelves, etc.)

I'm not exactly sure what P's doing now (I know what he used to do), but I imagine one if not both of you would be employable in my area, between the tech and academic industries. Your house (what I know of it, in terms of size & condition) in the nice (some crime but also lots of gentrification)urban neighborhoods of my city would probably go for less than $200K, depending on location. (Not that you would ever move here, just as an example that where you live is insane, for housing. My short list of insane includes: anywhere within 2-3 hours of LA or SF, Portland, Seattle, anywhere within 1-2 hours of Boston or New York or Washington. There is scattered insanity elsewhere on the coasts, and I don't know enough about Chicago.)

[(Anonymous)]

"My short list of insane includes: anywhere within 2-3 hours of LA or SF, Portland, Seattle, anywhere within 1-2 hours of Boston or New York or Washington."

Which, in my profession (software internals writer), covers ANYPLACE I could work. When I lived in Charlotte I had to telecommute. Just being a programmer doesn't mean you're portable; if you're any sort of specialist, it takes a sophisticated local industry to use your skills. Similarly, NoiseDesign and CreepyTurtle have to live in NYLA to have any hope of supporting themselves in their professions.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Frelling LJ logged me out again. That was me.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Sure, and mr. flea is a specialist (hmm, fingers typed "socialist"!) and getting more so. But we've talked about making the lifestyle choice for him to take a job with, for example, a water utility in a small or medium-sized city, rather than his ideal job of being a researcher for the EPA, which almost certainly means residence in Cincinnati OH or perhaps 3 other places nationwide, one of which is in Texas. You love what you do and where you live, and so do the others you mention, but if you wanted to do something else and longed for the prairie, you are also well-qualified to switch careers. I mean, I'd love to live in Boston, but we couldn't do it on one income. We could do it here. Whether or not we'd want to or it would be healthy for us is another question.

[minim_calibre]

He does the same basic thing. He's still a broadcast tech, and pay for them is pretty low no matter the area, though slightly lower at the university than in the private sector. It's a weird niche position, and there are more techs than jobs. Part of the reason he took the job at the U is that there's potential advancement there--it's a dead-end position, otherwise.

(Me, I just have a weird, hard to place skill set, and wish I'd gone into something more flexible, like editing.)

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

It's not like you're 2000 years old! Now is not an opportune time for career-changing, but you sometimes sound like you plan to be doing what you're doing forever. And you don't have to, especially since you don't seem very happy doing it.

[minim_calibre]

Oh, I don't plan on doing it forever! I just have no clue how to escape it! I am, sadly, good at very few things that pay bills and worse at figuring out what those few things are. From time to time, I consider going back to school, but figuring out how do it and make ends meet leaves me frustrated, so it goes back to the back-burner.

P, meantime, has it in his head that, due to family proximity, we should consider ourselves rooted here. Insert eyeroll, as I'd love to relocate.

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

With our family, I honestly believe we might be able to make it with one of us working *if* he took a night job and *if* we had the car paid off and *if* we gave up a LOT of stuff, some of which is fluffy -- digital cable, internet cable, both cell phones -- and if he had all his debt paid off. I really do think we could get by mathematically if we had just the mortgage, the heat and electric, water, and one phone. It'd be tight as HELL, but it could be done.

Unfortunately, he's not done paying off his debt, and we just got the car five months ago (used, but payments for another year or so!), and all our favorite shows are on cable -- which may or may not be cheaper than trying to find entertainment outside the house.

As it is, he'll spend most of his summer with K, and I'll probably take a vacation with her sometime in the next year, giving him a vacation from running home to get her for his two hours of childcare every day after work.

In our family, he cleans more prettily, but I believe I clean more thoroughly more regularly. And I'm the one more likely to get stuff fixed around the house. And while he has health insurance from his employer, our dental is through mine.

It's not ideal, but it works. I just kind of wish I were part time.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

When I lived in DC, I knew a woman who had her child and then went directly back to work while her husband quit to be a stay-at-home dad. She was the head of HR for a biggish firm; I don't remember what he did but I believe it was something English-major-y.

The most salient fact about the whole thing was when, at the end-of-fiscal-year party (can you tell this is DC??), he came in with the sprog, who was by then a 9 month old, and all the admin staff (all women) fell all over themselves cooing -- over him. The mom wasn't particularly denigrated for her choice to work, but the dad was considered (by the women) to be the coolest creature in the galaxy.

Come to think, when people get that shrieky, vaguely-condescending love thing that in fandom is called "woobification"? That guy surrounded by 15 secretaries is what pops into my head.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I don't think mr. flea would mind the woobification (on occasion) - it's what the guys at Jiffy Lube are thinking while he plays with the baby as they change the oil that freaks him out.

[orthoepy.livejournal.com]

Since DH and I both work from home, and DH was a stay-at-home-dad for about two years, it's weird to think about trying to decide about "staying home". Of course it helps that we have strange & telecommuting jobs.

I think more people than we know are working for health insurance. If we had universal health insurance I bet we'd see folks quitting right and left--not just to stay home with kids but to start their own businesses. Even now, although I have pretty decent health insurance, I worry about what would happen if I lost my job -- DH is a consultant with no health insurance at all.

DH likes being a SAHD, but he doesn't really care what folks think about him, ever. He did feel sad that he got shut out of some playgroup stuff, but now there are more SAHDs that I don't think that would be an issue.

As for sacrifices, if we never went out to dinner again (and I mean no takeout pizza, even), didn't save ANYTHING for retirement, didn't send LB to any enrichment programs (like summer art camp), and bought one pair of shoes each every 6 months, DH wouldn't have to work at all. But the retirement saving is a kicker.

I wish I knew what's going to happen when the boomers retire. There's going to be a big hole! Think of all the people in their late fifties where you work now. Now picture them gone, or lobbying for part-time work, or whatever. We may all have to work just because the jobs have to be done! But then who is going to watch the kids? I guess if grandma retires and picks up light childcare it will work out, but who knows ...

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Especially in my field, which is absolutely packed with older women; librarianship is a real growth industry, especially as it used to be a pink profession and then there was a lull with few new librarians (as women had much more extensive career options) and now it's rebounding, partly because of the options for combining a technology career with librarianship. At my job, there's a dearth of librarians between 40 and 60, and most of those in their 40s are career-changers who switched in the last 10 years.

Since we've always been (one or both) with a university, and future jobs for both us as are likely either academic or public sector, the idea of jobs without health insurance is kind of alien to me.

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Completely & totally agree with you on #3.

[zonewombat.livejournal.com]

Awesome post.