Food for Thought

". . .it is very clear to me that the reason women think they have to "choose" between work and family is because (1) men don't; (2) employers expect employees to have no other major committments in their lives; (3) we've developed a nice healthy backlash culture against educated white women in which we now allow them the right to work, but hold them to ridiculous parenting standards that were heretofore unknown. . .[W]omen who stay home with kids are taking an enormous financial risk. . . Staying home means you earn less social security; it means you have no income of "your own"; it means that god forbid you end up divorced, or your husband drops dead, or even once your kids grow up and you're ready to move back into the work force, you. are. [screwed]. It means you likely have little or no retirement income--even though you are probably going to live longer than your husband. It means you have no "work history," no wage history, no "marketable skills." Now, this is [bull], of course, and there's good work out there (including Crittenden's own book If You've Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything) pointing out that running a home does indeed involve marketable skills, but basically, yes, you are going to have to overcome that issue in the minds of future employers, and you are going to be way, way behind on the life wages scale. Which means, again, less social security, less money to retire on. . . . I do wish that, as a culture, we could look beyond easy simple arguments like "choice" and talk about what the consequences and effects of different "choices" are."  [from: BPh.D.; changes in brackets are mine to make the language at least PG if not G-rated.]

I will just say that my Mom stayed home with me and my siblings and it was wonderful for us to have her there.  We're all grown up and on our own now.  Mom is facing a return to the working world in order to beef up her own Social Security earnings.  So, this is a real issue.

Comments

[Raquita]

(3) we've developed a nice healthy backlash culture against educated white women in which we now allow them the right to work, but hold them to ridiculous parenting standards that were heretofore unknown.

Not to nitpick- but women in general - be it poor, multi cultural, educated, uneducated have to fight through the same battle, probably more frequently than 'educated white women'. Honestly its statements like these than tend to hold back womens movements, in my experience at least. How many times have womens orgs forgotten to look into all sectors for support or thought our struggle is not like yours? Again not to nit pick, because sometimes my struggle is simply because I'm a black woman and I so do expect White women to understand or support my issue but more often than not, especially when it comes down to being a mom at work, its just a woman thing.

[Raquita]

correction "don't expect"...

[Laura]

Raquita,

I completely agree with you. The words "educated" and "white" could be removed from the text without affecting its truth one iota.

I was quoting from someone else's website and was trying to include the relevant pieces of her argument without making it complete ungrammatical.

Laura