Women's Lib, Rights, Kids, Etc.

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@Chevalier: You wrote:

Why would it have been bad for your mother to have married and stayed home with you? Are you saying that a step-father would have been a "strange man"? And are you suggesting that child support paid by your father would have been somehow tainted? I'm not sure why you think it would be so terrible.

You also seem to indicate that having a life full of things you like to do is more fulfilling than spending time with children/parents. Is this what you mean to say? If so, I'm curious to hear whether anyone who has kids agrees with this (I myself do not).

 

You misunderstood completely, I'm sorry to say. Did you read the first post I made? I am supportive of the women's liberation movement. I went back and re-read my first post after comments I got from you and Artechoke, and the only thing I can say is after the review, I feel I took a very positive attitude towards the movement. While I admit that I feel it came up short in some regards, I say in the same breath that the shortcomings were due to unforeseen effects. I also said I never would expect my wife to leave the workforce if we had kids, so I don't know why you feel this "desired way of living" I have is somehow founded in fact. There's nothing I said that can be labelled as blantantly sexist. I never said women shouldn't have entered the workforce, I was commenting on the effects of their doing so.

Not if you read what I wrote. So it's just you (and maybe Art).

You are completely mischaracterizing my arguement if you feel that's all that it is about. For starters, that's not even a point I made in my initial post, so you're taking it out of context. Secondly, I went back and re-read my initial post once again, and I STILL feel that the arguement is about how a multi-income family has affected our choices on how to raise children, and the options we have. While I admit that the tone of my post may indicate that I felt the old way was EASIER, I clearly say at least twice in my first post (and I imply it on a 3rd occassion) that the old way was NOT better. For example:

and

and

And finally, you come up with this:

I haven't identified any problem, so this is further evidence that you didn't read to comprehend my initial post, and probably just skimmed it. I was talking exactly about the CULTURAL EFFECTS the women's liberation movement has had on our society, especially with raising children.

I could go on with some of the other things you said, but there is no point, as you obviously didn't even understand what I said in the first place, so I question if there's even a point to my refuting your statements, as you may not read this either.

 

@Bombur: My mother's husband is not my step-father, and has never been. I'm actually very happy not to depend on money from someone who's neither related nor a friend.

The support money from my father wouldn't be tainted. Just nowhere close to what I have now - and it's not like I have really much, anyway. As I've said, father chose sort of a spiritually fulfilling job and those don't pay. What he's spent on me is a fraction of what mother has (10% is an optimistic estimation). If mother hadn't got a job, poverty would have been my world. At least until she married her husband (who, as I've said, isn't my step-father). At that point who knows... He's quite out of touch with reality when it comes to spending, especially in the distribution of expenses area, so mother ends up paying more for their children even though she earns some 20% less than he does. I consider myself lucky not to know what it could have been like.

I agree it's an extreme situation, but I'm in no place to complain about women getting jobs even if I would like all children to be able to grow up with their mothers. Sadly, that isn't going to happen.

 

@Chevalier: Ah, that makes sense. I had wrongly imagined that you were speaking in broader terms rather than to your specific situation. I agree that there are circumstances in which the best solution is for a woman to work.

 

There's little that's more wonderful than passing your love of your activities and hobbies onto your children. My husband and I are big into bicycling, and now our son is, too. Being able to do something you enjoy with people you love is what families are all about.

 

That's cheating, Rallymama! No fair pointing out my false dichotomy! I certainly agree that fulfillment with kids trumps the rest.

 

This started off as a post, then went to a pm @Aldeth, then I changed my mind and went back to a post again... I have no idea how this one is going to look, I'm too addled.

I've reread your original post *many* times over, and you waffle on your stance on the women's lib thing, and in the end, I don't think you even really meant to bring it up as a subject. You think it sucks, you think its good, you give it some token support, but in the end you think it had a negative impact on families, single men (what?) and our economy.

What about single women? Do they count?

If "they" could have forseen where it would take us, they wouldn't have done it?

Was the whole thread meant to be a question on how to deal with raising kids in a two income family? Was it that simple? I can't tell.

In any case, I have to go take about an hour off from work, to pick up the kid, and drop her off at her piano lessons. Her *after school* piano lessons, where her piano instructor will undoubtedly treat her like a farm animal.

 

@ Art

I never said piano lessons were bad ideas. I had them myself when I was a kid! I think you are fixating a little too much on the aspect of children being under the supervision of others, good sir.

Perhaps I could have cleared everything up, by putting the "kids" first in the listing on the topic. As you point out, that is a big point in the opening topic, and it may take presidence over the topic of women's rights. Regardless, it HAS at this point morphed into a topic discussing how kids could and/or should be raised, which really wasn't my intent, but is fine by me all the same.

I will stress once again that my intent was not to criticize the women's liberation movement. I support its general purpose, and I pointed out some of the other effects in had, totally unforeseen, especially in regards on how one is to decide between a stay-at-home mom, and a very useful second income.

Additionally - and I admit I should have brought this up long, long ago - I never meant to cricize anyone's decision as to how they live their lives and what they do with their kids. If you have found a daycare center that works great for you, congratulations. You should take a great deal of self-pride that you are your girlfriend are able to juggle your careers and family so well. Your strength and resolve are a quality that many people lack, or find the prospect of, very unappealing.

Truth be told, I didn't have a set agenda on this thread. I wasn't pushing for a change, a reactionary movement back to the "good ol' days" or any other platform people think I may be pushing.

The only thing I find strange about your posts is that the great majority of people on this thread did not find anything offensive about my post. Granted, taking offense to something is a personal thing, and just because most people were "OK with it", doesn't mean you have to be "OK with it" as well. I respect your opinion, I just don't have to agree with it.

I am also through arguing about this with you. I stand by my statements and given that several people have PM'ed me and complimented me on starting an interesting topic (some of who have and some of who haven't posted directly), I feel comfortable that I delivered my message in an even-handed, competent way. If you feel otherwise, I apologize, and I would be more than happy to address any other issues with you in a PM.

 

Bombur - I know what you meant and will not hld you to task for your 'false dichotomoy'. I agree with you on this point and will happily give up many of the things that money can buy if it means spening quality time with my son. I don't believe that you need much money for your kids to have a fulfilling life and grow up to be great people. They don't need expensive toys, expensive schools, expensive clothes, expensive extra-mural activities, expensive holidays. Library books cost nothing. Throwing a ball around in the park costs nothing. Running along the beach costs nothing. Giving them a hug when they cry costs nothing. Going on a summer holiday and staying in a tent costs very little, is great fun, and teaches loads of practical self-reliance skills.

 

@ Art

MY BAD!

I meant you AND your girlfriend. Otherwise it was a completely sincere comment.

 

You’re flame suits seem to be not worth their money, better get yourself some new ones. While your anger is understandable it is nevertheless misplaced. Let’s have a look at where our difficulties which each other lie:

Your intro contains:

And

Obviously, the point you wanted to analyze is: “Is it possible for women to have children and a career without making some concessions to either?” Maybe what you wanted to say is “Is it possible for either of the parents to have children and a career?” but you haven’t.

This surely needs some explanation which you provide further on in your analysis:

Your starting point is the question what to do in case you want to have children while both parents have a job at this time. You point out the typical options:
1. use daycare,
2. have one of the parents stay home,
3. have a guardian – which is in principle the same as 1.

Out of these two basic options – either continuing to work at the expense of your child or staying at home at the expense of your career – you are not able to choose one, due to personal and financial reasons. The daycare thingy you reject categorically. Instead you focus on the financial problems the second solution inherits.

Next comes a good one:

How generous. So we have two options in case of financial feasibility, haven’t we: both parents working or the woman staying at home. The latter is out of the question, because you aren’t a chauvinist. That’s good to hear, but you’re only halfway there. Allowing the women to slip out of their obsolete role model is only the first step, the next important thing would be to actually expand your own role model and take over some of their responsibilities. Many other posts in this thread are showing that even in our enlightened western societies we are far from having achieved this.

This could have been a good opening to call the whole role model into question, but you chose to take it for granted and focus on the financial problems a one-income family has as opposed to a double-income family. Rather than accepting that a family has less money if their members work only 40 instead of 80 hours a week, you assert that 40 hours of work per week and family really should be enough to maintain the standard a family working 40 hours per week had some 30 years ago.

Although this assertion would certainly hold if we would base it on comparable standards (as has been pointed out by most of the following posts), your basis for the assertion is your standard today as compared to the standard of living 30 years ago. Naturally, you find that there’s a gap between now and then.

“Where does this gap stem from?” you ask yourself. And you provide yourself with the answer: “Enter the women’s liberation movement.” you say. While you concede the movement to be essentially a good thing, you claim that it has failed in achieving its goals and has had some side affects to the disadvantage of society.

Here would have been the second good opportunity to develop this thread into something special: has the women’s lib failed, and if it has: why? Is the women’s lib to blame? The patriarchic society? Is it god given or just bad luck? Did we do enough for the women’s lib? Etc.

Instead, you go on with:

Now, what I think is that society felt that women would be able to enjoy the same opportunities as men, but that by doing so they had to share some of their burden with their partners.

A truer sentence could not be found in your whole speech, taken that be “we” you mean “men”. So, women’s lib supposed to give women the possibility to have children and a career. We, however, have twisted the standard from “Man career - woman children” to the choice between “Man career - woman career” and “Man career - woman children”. I really am missing some additional options here, at least “Man children - woman career” should be included somewhere.

As a conclusion you summarize:

Which reads as: „the women’s liberation movement wanted to change things to the better for women but has failed and only achieved to make things harder for us all.“ I, at least, find this highly questionable.

You pity the women who had always had it relatively harder than men. You relate your observations to the women’s lib and you deny your observations the label “progress”. The conclusion I see implied in your arguments is: the women’s lib has brought many disadvantages to society and certainly nothing that deserves the label "progress". At this point you may correct me if I didn’t understand you the way you wanted to be understood. But on the whole, how your reasoning could be understood in a totally different way is beyond. Me.

For most people here on the board your stance seems to be sufficiently watered down by your claim not to be a chauvinist pig – and “because we all know what a good chap Aldeth really is.” I may be newly registered to this board, but I have lurked here for quite some time. I know that you’re not in with the likes of Chevalier and Grey Magistrate, as you felt necessary to point out at the very beginning.

My first comment on your views was too short, hence you felt that I was ripping you out of the context and had not read and/or understood your arguments. Now that I’ve provided you with this context, maybe my concerns have become more obvious and your next reply stands a chance of being somewhat more civilized. Because I really know what a good chap Darkthrone really is.

For those who have been bored by this long babble, here’s the quintessence:

Aldeth says:

Which I find highly disturbing. First of all, the “unforeseen side effects” have hardly been unforeseen neither have they been side effects but rather are they the main point of women’s liberation movement which Aldeth claims to support at the same time. Secondly, the imaginary options stay-at-home mom or second income that are being discussed show that Aldeth and others in this thread are rather reactionary as the option stay-at-home dad has not been addressed. It becomes strikingly clear in the first post of Bombur.

Oh, well, I’m on a mission, what more could I say?

Anybody lending me his flame suit? I’m terribly thin-skinned, I’m not sure I can stand another onslaught...

 

Darkthrone,

First of all, I'm not angry with you in the least. In your initial post, you seemed rather confused as to the points I was making, and I was trying to clear them up. As an example, my use of the word "we" as you cited in your last post, included men, but did not refer exclusively to them. I was using "we" as a general term. Substitute "society" if you like. That having been said, you were exactly right when you said:

Sorry you felt I was being uncivilized. To be honest, I was only somewhat annoyed by Art's initial post, but not yours. I just thought you needed clarification. Emotions do not always show appropriately through written medium though, so I can't fault you if you felt I was angry.

Now, just to make sure I'm reading your post correctly - it's quite long and it is going to be difficult to address everything, so I hope I'm getting the main point. I think you're making the arguement that there is another option for families that I have not explored at all - specifically that of the father staying home and mother going to work. To paraphrase, that I could challenge the stereotyped gender-specific roles, and explore this as an option as well? Is that the short of it? Hopefully, because that's what I'll be addressing.

Before I continue, I will admit that I am somewhat confused with your terminology, specifically "role model". To me, a role model is someone to look up to, and to model yourself after. Clearly, that is not your definition, since you're challenging those views, not looking at them as a model everyone should aspire to follow. That is why I used the term "stereotyped gender-specific roles", because that's what I'm assuming you mean.

But to finally address your points, I do have to mention that there are several times in my initial post that I state that it is "usually the woman" who stays home. So I haven't completely left out the possibility of the man staying home, but you are right in that I do assume that it is the woman, and I'm sure statistics would back up my assumption.

So why do I make the assumption? Well, it's a logical conclusion given the pay difference between men and women. If you are going to have one parent stay at home, and one parent work, does it not make the most sense to have the person earning the most money be the one who coninues working, and the one who earns less be the one who stays at home? And since women only earn 60%-80% of what their male counterparts earn (it varies by profession, which is why I provided a range and not a mean) it is usually the woman who is earning less, and the woman who therefore stays at home.

This trend holds true for my wife and I as well. My earnings are more than my wife's earnings (I did a quick calculation, and it turns out that my wife's salary is 82% of mine). In this case it's not a fair comparison, because we don't have similar careers, but the point is if we were to drop to a single income, we would logically want to keep the higher of the two incomes, which is mine. So you're right, I do assume if one of us were to stay home it would be my wife, but that's because the option of my staying at home doesn't make any sense given the difference in our salaries.

I believe there are two posters, both of which are men, who mention they work, while their spouses stay at home with their child(ren). You mention bombur, and I believe the other one was Harbourboy. While they did not state so directly, I'm willing to bet that the reason they went to work and their wife stayed home is that they were the ones earning more money. While I agree that the stereotyped roles are for the man to work and woman to stay at home, the financial realities serve to reinforce those roles. So I don't think people are being reactionary when they have the woman stay at home, in the majority of cases they are being practical.

However, there is a much more basic reason for this assumption. I was comparing today's society to that of 30 years ago. Thirty years ago, the man hardly ever stayed at home. It just didn't happen very often at all. I was trying to make a direct comparison i.e., what a woman gave up (in terms of potential earnings) by staying home with kids 30 year ago (which probably wasn't very much) compared to today (which is most likely a significant portion (generally around 40%) of the household income).

There are a few other practical measures to a woman staying at home as well. First of all, giving birth is a very traumatic experience on the woman's body. Most doctors recommend a minimum of 6 weeks after giving birth to recover. So it's likely that the woman is home during this time anyway, but it is unlikely that the man will take that much time off from work. Additionally, many women breast feed their babies. The only way a man can help with that is if a woman purchases a breast pump, and they look awfully uncomfortable to use. Granted, this is a small point compared to the other two, but basically, in order of importance the stereotyped gender-specific roles are assumped because:

1. Financial (the man tends to earn more than the woman)
2. Accuracy of Comparison (stay-at-home dads 30 years ago represented an insignificant percentage of the population)
3. Biology (it's the woman who actually has to go through the process of giving birth.
4. This actually happens. (I'm not even sure we should call it stereotypical. Many more women do stay home than men. This isn't something that many people simply think. It's fact.)

I'll be first to admit that the first one is without doubt the biggest factor. Unless you can somehow refute that most women don't make less than men, or show a logical reason why a couple having a baby wouldn't elect to keep the larger of the two incomes, I feel justified in assuming it is the woman who stays home.

Hope it helped, feel free to respond.

[ June 24, 2004, 15:54: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

Splunge wrote somewhere far above:

That sounds strange to me. First, I am used to get the oil-crisis as event that ended the golden age of economical miracles after WWII characterised. Secondly, I do not think that women ever "joined" the workforce. To join, you have not to be there. Yet in traditional societey, the actual main part of the workd is done by women. The more traditional, the more do women work. The same with children. While a sign of modernisation is, that children do cost money, earlier, they earned money. The more children, the richer is the traditional family, as children can are a necessary and needed increase of the family income, as they can watch the sheeps, work the fields or sent to the factories. The same goes for women of course. In tradional societies and the 19th and before versions of our own, women always were working. Or have ever seen a depiction of a farmer-wife not engaged in hard daily labour ? Interestingly, there seemed always and in developing countries still is a separation of jobs, those are for women, those are for men. That strict separation seems to have changed. Or in other words, if you suggested to the average pater familias of the 19th century, that his woman shouldn't work, but stay home, he'd be quite astonished by that suggestion. It surely is modern and not traditional that women and children don't work. Next question is then, if there was recently a time, 40 years ago, that some people could afford the luxury of letting their women stay home, how many families really were able to do so ? 40%, 60%, 30%... ?

So, I don't think that it really caused inflation. Two options, either women wanted a bigger share of the pie. In this case, people are still rich, they just have to share more fairly. Or, what I think is more likely, economical growth lost steam, forcing women back into their tradional role of being working. With the only change now, that the economical structural change from agricultural society to post-industrial service society hasn't only completly changed life for men, but for women too.

 

dmc brings up another good point. While it may not be rewarded in the form of a paycheck, stay-at-home moms do a lot more than just raise the kids. It is quite easy to argue that the services the wife provides around the house have real monetary value to the husband, in that they directly save money or that they save him time from having to do them himself.

Also dmc brings up another good point. Most decent daycares cost around $10,000 per year around here. (My friends with children report costs of around $200 per week.) So basically, you can immediately subtract about $10,000 from the second wage-earners after-tax salary (before you include things like gas driving them to and from the daycare). After that, when you consider what you can save by having one parent stay home, it can make staying home be the most logical choice.

For dmc it was an easy choice, because whether or not his wife worked, because all of her earnings would have went to daycare, they would have received no additional net income from her working.

I have read a few articles on the costs of daycare, and the savings of stay at home parents confer, and generally speaking, you shouldn't even consider going back to work unless you have an annual salary of a minimum of $30,000.

 

@ Iago - You seem to be getting a bit hung up on the phrase "joining the workforce"; maybe it's a poor choice of words, but I think it's more a matter of semantics than anything. I think the increase in the number of women earning income in the workforce during the 1970's is pretty well established, so I won't comment further on that.

The question is therefore whether this had an effect on inflation. Again, as I said, it certainly wasn't the only (or even main) reason, but it was definitely a contributing factor, and for the reasons I outlined.

Here is one article I found which supports this.

The article also notes that GDP growth and inflation (and interest rates) go hand in hand

 

To ratify Aldeth's assumption and provide a little more data for Darkthrone's role-model mission, the reasons why I go to work while my wife stays home are as follows:
1) I am currently in a job that earns more than what she was earning. (1 point to Aldeth).
2) My wife is studying for a psychology degree via correspondence so this is easier to do whilst at home than at work.
3) She hated her job.
4) She is a better cook than I am (I know that may be a stereotype but i can't avoid the facts).

I would actually much rather reverse the roles and stay at home but it wouldn't make much sense so I am stuck having to trudge off to work every day. So Darkthrone, whilst I appreciate the spirit of your mission, in this case, one COULD argue that I am the one making the "sacrifice" whereas my wife is making no "sacrifice" at all because she would much rather be at home than at work.

 

@ Harbourboy: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to again raise my voice in the name of the oppressed.

@ Aldeth: Thanks for providing the correct term. “role model” was badly translated from my native language.

Gentlemen, please. Don’t ridicule my intentions or my intellect by stating the obvious. Neither do I claim that stay-at-home dads are the norm, nor do I propose that every single man should stay with their children whereas all women have to work.

My points are:

1. Leave the women’s lib out of this. Don’t belittle something of utmost importance to our society, something our parents achieved with their sweat and tears for the better of all our lives. Hearing someone saying that it “de-feminized” women and aimed at creating a genderless society – geez, better survey your attitude; hopefully, it’s not necessary to dig deeper into that one.
2. If we talk about how to raise a child within the framework of all of today’s benefits and restrictions, then please let’s take all available options into consideration.

I think that I can stick now to the second point as I feel that this is what Aldeth’s original post is all about.

You’re decision whether to have one parent staying at home or whether to use daycare is totally yours, there’s nothing much anyone can say to help you as you said that there’s no way that the first solution is financially feasible.

However, there are plenty of us who opt for the one-stays-home solution. Well, all I’m saying is: I’m baffled by all responses here. And by all statistics available on this topic. Less than 10 per cent of all leading positions are occupied by women. 77% of those women never bear a child. Only 40% of all graduated working women bear a child. Of all parents going for the stay-home solution only 26.5% chose the male to do the child raising. Still talking about equality when it comes to children and career? This is a German statistic focused on graduates, sure enough. Provide me with something different from your home Country – if you can.

One source of this obvious imbalance is the asymmetrical nature of males and females, that goes without saying. Still, we’re talking an interval of at least 3 years, not only the 6 month after the woman giving birth. In Germany there exists the option to share the “parent’s time” between mom and dad arbitrarily. Hardly anyone uses this, though.

Most of the people I know follow your path of reasoning: if dad works and mom doesn’t the monthly budget is higher than vice versa. That’s a fact. It doesn’t mean, however, that we have to take this for granted and say nothing more about this. You put your finger onto the most obvious discrimination of women in our times and just pass over it.

Please, I know that for some of us it is harder to abandon this additional budget than for others, for some it may even be impossible. And I certainly don’t assert that all of you take this lightly. But nowhere in this thread have I read “sad but true”, “I wished it was differently” or something in that tone and with that emphasis.

Why hasn’t anyone the guts to do anything about this? Campaigns for Equal Rights are not en vogue anymore, obviously. We have grown comfortable. It all works somehow. As a matter of fact, most women are actually convinced that it is better for the family and more fulfilling for their lives to stay at home. Don’t scream at me, it might not be true in your case, but it is hard to believe that the majority of women hates their jobs whereas most men seem to love what they are doing.

I’d really like to hear some more girls on this topic. But, alas, fruitless discussion really belongs to the male domain. We like to argue (rationally, of course) and show all others that we are the alpha male arounda here. Women tend to smile at their boys and get on with more important things...

One more thing – to provide a little more data for my mission :
My fiancée is earning 86% of my salary (after deductions). She has plenty of time as she is a singer (classical) and works 22 hours a week on average. Yes, she’s a bastard as I have to work 38.5 hours for just a few bucks more. Our first child is due on 22nd of December. I am prepared to stay at home, even though our monthly budget will be smaller by some 300$ because of this. We feel that the huge amount of time we can spend together is well worth it. In addition, my girl has worked long and hard to achieve her career. So have I. Someone has to give something up, in our case it is me. It may well be the woman in other cases, there’s nothing wrong with that as such...

 

Splunge wrote:

And you are right there. I made a mistake (I point at my slugginess at excuse). As I go on and say that this caused a more fair distribution of resources. The critera for earning something becoming more again performance and not longer gender. Inflation/deflation are also sign of distribution of resources inside a society.

1. To the part with joining. In my view, it should be "re-joining". I'd say that something happened that started the retreat from women from the work-force in some countries at about 1900 and that stopped about 1950, as they re-entered. So, I think the "house-wife" was only something that existed a short time between 1900 and 1950, in a "dynamic" number, i.e. percentage of housewives growing after 1900 and decreasing after 1950. But that is hard to quantify. Because the world was turned upside down through the huge structural changes that happened in the last centuries and quite fast in the last one.

2. Growth of economy through letting formerly not involved segments of society participate seems to me only logical. Wasting the resources like the abilites, skills and the potential of a person just because of gender or colour is stopping economical progress. This market restrictions have to disappear to make a market society work.

3. The worth of a housewife is approx. 6000.- CHF That's very roughly approx. 3000 USD. That is the work a housewife does, if those seperate tasks would have been made by paid people to market prices. That is, for cleaning a cleaning company hired, for laundry a laundry service (English ??), for making the meals a cattering-service or a restaurant, for raising the kids a nanny and so on...
Now, a housewife doesn't get paid for that, so that money doesn't statistically exist, so the GPD doesn't show it. If a woman now quits being a house-wife, she gets paid money for the time she puts into work. Her work suddenly exits statistically and suddenly shows up in the GPD and voila... growth (and of course growth as she now proprably has a more productive job. "Productivity" not in ethical worth but more in the kind of more quantity out for the same quantity of input).

4. And of course, there is a choice made and that choice showed up in the European birth rates a while ago. When women chose to have none or only one or two children because they have a career to follow, population declines. On the other hand, having children belongs to the economical work of a farmer in the 19th. It is generating new workers for the fields.