Not enough options
Holly and Roni are having some discussion on their blogs about the crisis of home vs. work as a feminist mother and I wanted to take my comments here.
I think the problem is, well, that grizzled old nuisance: patriarchy. We’ve modeled our world on the industrial idea that there is work and there is home and never the twain shall meet. What’s that thing that Lloyd Dobbler says? “I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.”
Even most jobs that don’t repair, sell, buy or process follow a schedule and organization based on jobs that do repair, sell, buy and process. As a social worker, I had similar hours to someone selling insurance (I got paid a lot less). Our work lives are based on the premises that jobs and home must remain separate and that we all have wives at home to tend the hearth.
Despite the fact that hearths do need tending (not to mention that children need raising and some of our older folks need to be cared for), that work isn’t seen as work. Well, at least not important work — not real work. And those of us who do it are basically told that we should do it out of the goodness of our hearts without any payment or formal acknowledgement. Sure we get Hallmark cards if we stay and guilt if we don’t, but we don’t get social security or insurance and our staying at home is dependent on our partnership with a “productive” worker.
What’s the other option? What if your not partnered or your partner doesn’t make enough money or you don’t want to be segregated into that separate “at home” society? Then you go to a job based on a patriarchal, capitalist definition of what work is and you find other people to act as “wives.” You hire people to care for the kids or the old folks, you depend more (as I do — thank goodness for Trader Joe’s) on other people to make your food, and you keep your home life compartmentalized as the work/home dichotomy dictates.
The burden for finding a way to survive this dichotomy falls squarely in the laps of women who are trying to keep their sanity and their solvency.
I would venture to say that most mothers would like to have a life outside of their kids. Sure there are at-home moms out there who embrace their role as homemaker and shine at it, fulfilled in every way just as there are working moms who are able to focus on their careers without guilt or contention. Great, good for them. Now for the rest of us. Most of us, I’d say, want to be able to make our choices according to our hearts without the barriers of budgets and professional realities. I would say that if women could create their own worlds, most of us would find ways to have careers that afford us much more control over how much time and energy that we give to them.
I think that in many ways I have the perfect situation: at-home mom by day, telecommuting writer/editor by night. It’s not perfect — I feel like I’m losing my mind a lot — but it works most of the time. I’m grateful that my career of choice is not surgeon or astronaut or restaurant manager because it would be hard to convince someone to let me do those at home. I’m also grateful that I live in a city/state where we can live on less so that if this job dries up, we can still feed and clothe everyone. I wish everyone had the options that I do.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could start a massive movement to change things? Wouldn’t that be swell? The problem is that most of us are so damn busy just trying to keep our heads above water that we really don’t have time to go out there and convince everyone to value mothering enough that they want to create work systems around raising kids instead of around selling widgets. Our hands are kinda full here what with rocking the cradle and running the factory and waitressing at the diner and staffing the hospitals. And then They (you know, keepers of the social mores with which we live) keep us so busy arguing over what makes a good mom — does she live for herself or for her family? — that we’re too guilt-ridden and defensive to band together and support each other.
Those of us who find work fulfilling need to be able to do it without sacrificing our family-life. Those of us who find home fulfilling need to be able to do it without sacrificing our family’s budget. Those of us (the majority I’d say) who want both work and home should be able to manage that, too. Jobshare, flex time, maternity leave are sorry consolations; I think we need to jettison the 9 to 5 mind-set and start over from scratch.
I have more to say about this but I think that’s a good start and I have work to do tonight.
Can’t wait to read more.
Dawn, I always find your comments on balancing work and family life so insightful. I especially appreciate that you don’t play “mommy wars,” pitting stay at home vs. work outside the home, and that you realize it’s much more complex than that.
Your blog does what the best personal writing shoud do - it gives me a window into your life, while also casting light on my own world. Thank you.
ditto on both comments. If Dawn promises to write my speeches, I’ll lead the charge.
I absolutely agree. What we need are more options. I think the 9-to-5 model of work is just really outdated and not applicable to most families. I was reading one of the issues of The Sun that you sent and there was a statistic that Americans spend more hours at work than people of any other country, even ones like Japan that are often thought to be as advanced as or moreso than ours. As long as our society functions that way, I don’t see things getting easier for mothers any time soon.
I like this part: “Most of us, I’d say, want to be able to make our choices according to our hearts without the barriers of budgets and professional realities.” So true.
I have to say that I hate these arguments. To me, there is no true ‘feminism’ without humanism. What always gets lost in the shuffle is that the raising of children is tantamount, everywhere, every time. If not, what’s the point? What are we here for, if we can’t first assure the successful survival of our species? Tons of studies have been done on work v. home issues, and they always round up to this: what makes the primary caregiver happy ends up making a happy child, regardless of what the caregiver has chosen. It’s that option to choose that’s key.
End of rant.
Oh…duh! Forgot to mention that there’s a new initiative at NOW. Dawn, I’d esp love to hear your views on it.
http://www.familyinitiative.org/
It’s a small step, but it’s a step.
just wanted to say RIGHT ON! Excellent post! I totally agree!
JenMarie
Great post, Dawn!
Loved the post. I totally agree that there needs to be more said about this. It needs to become a political issue. I’m starting to talk about this more on my new blog - Apt. 11D (www.apartment11d.blogspot.com). I’m going to link to your site. Go girl. Laura