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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Escaping the home... but whereto?
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
In some conservative circles, but certainly in "traditional Catholic" circles, the 50s of the previous century are seen as a kind of lost golden age: Men went out to earn the livelihood of the family, women were home-makers and mothers. Then the sexual revolution happened and now we have men and women pursuing their careers equally, with family life and children being pushed to the margins of society (and of individual biological clocks), while we drown in a sea of porn. Of course, from the opposite world view, much the same story is being told. Except that here the values are reversed, with the 50s representing the last gasp of medieval suppression of women and the golden age of (female) liberty being in the making.
I don't really want to discuss who is wrong or right there (I think both sides are in different ways). That's just the backdrop for what I want to discuss. Namely this: women actually did want to escape, in large numbers. They did not want to remain "alone at home, stuck with the kids". This is no illusion and no hallucination brought on by the pill. The golden vision of the 50s is clearly wrong in this regard. Women, or at least many women, did have serious issues with this social setup. However, I find it less than clear that women therefore must have wanted precisely the "male career path" that was on offer back then. In the largely "binary" world of the 50s, there was of course no real other choice. If you were not going to be the housewife, then you had to become the livelihood earner. And the end point of that development are the DINKs of today, and lots of women desperately using medical technology to achieve pregnancy in their forties. That, perhaps we can agree, is not necessarily ideal either.
However, from a social and psychological perspective, I think it is important to note that the satisfaction we get from a job or profession is not merely in what has to be done. To a considerable degree, it is about the community that centres around this work. Your workplace is actually where you hang out with your peers. The people at work have largely replaced the "clan" in defining our core group of belonging. That does not mean that we must be happy at work and love everyone there, not at all. It merely means that this is where we tend to invest our emotional energies in people that are not our blood relatives.
From this perspective then, maybe a reappraisal of what happened after the 50s is due. Maybe the key problem was indeed literally that women were "alone at home, stuck with the kids". There was no real community of adult peers associated with this job of having and raising kids. At least not in the sense of this being a given simply by virtue of taking on this role. Clearly some women spent much of their time and energy creating and maintaining a "support network", but this was a personal effort. As every home has become a castle, making that home has principally become a solitary affair behind its walls.
This is not to deny that women may find it more interesting to become for example an electrical engineer than raising kids. This is to point out that as alternative to becoming said electrical engineer we still only offer the "solitary confinement" of the home. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that many women pass on that offer, at least until the (biologically speaking) last minute. Can we imagine something better?
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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AberVicar
Mornington Star
# 16451
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
In the largely "binary" world of the 50s, there was of course no real other choice. If you were not going to be the housewife, then you had to become the livelihood earner.
Regardless of the other issues you raise, this one is a lot of crap perpetuated because of the folk memory of a certain class in certain parts of the UK.
Most women here had to work to make up the family income, even if it was only cleaning jobs. Before WWII the common life path of those who didn't make teaching or university was Service for the women and the pit or the steelworks for the men. Once they married, women would find work in between children - clerical, cleaning, barmaid, bus conductress &c. After the War, the Service dropped out as the Upper Classes could no longer afford servants, but the other stuff stayed the same.
Maybe that's why, despite the generational unemployment and the considerable relative poverty hereabouts, we still have a real sense of community - and we still have that need for interdependence which makes community happen.
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Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.
Posts: 742 | From: Abertillery | Registered: May 2011
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
I'm sure AberVicar's points are based in fact, but for general application the timing is out I think - and my family offers a case study.
Maternal grandmother was in service, but married in 1919 when grandfather came out of the navy and was a housewife from thereon until death (early 50s). Husband an unskilled labourer - tied house to a rural aristocrat (Wiltshire), bought out (just) by combined family efforts on collapse of this estate after WW2.
Paternal grandmother - married mid 1920s to a nightwork baker. Housewife throughout. Own home - terrace, East London.
Wifes mother - obliged to leave work in Irish civil service on marriage - early 1960s. Housewife thereafter.
My mother - worked in shop until my birth (1970) - then a housewife thereafter. Father a machine operator in a factory.
Everyone I knew as a kid (outer London) was like me (church and school), except for neighbours (woman on one side ran informal hairdressing from home when her kids were a bit older. Married teachers both worked on the other side.)
Ingo's post is interesting - all I can add is that women at home kept my corner of nonconformism alive, kicking and running untold coffee mornings, play groups etc etc etc. Since they're not available any more, most of that is dead.
But following Ingo's post - women may well be happier now. My wife certainly is much more career focussed than me, and wouldn't be happy making Jam and running a kids club. Sad thing is, nor would I - though I could imagine a happy life pottering around as a volunteer at a local science museum. That wouldn't add much to the life of the church, which IMV is one of the biggest losers in this social change.
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
“Solitary confinement of the home”?
One thing I learnt from observing the women of my family was that it was far from solitary or confinement. When the men had gone to work, you could get on with the housework, but there were plenty of opportunities for chat with other housewives, cups of tea, catching up and all the rest of it. To regard it as “solitary confinement” strikes me as barely considering the reality of the situation. Women have always had their social networks – how much you decided to participate was up to you. The WI and the Townswomens’ Guild are two more formal and visible faces of it, but still places where you could meet other like-minded women for social activities.
The informal social aspect of a housewife’s life is something that seems to have pretty much gone along with the housewife herself, and I can only say that in the 21st century after years of struggling to carve out a life as a single woman, independent and liberated and all the rest of it, I wish, and have wished for a long time, that the mechanisms were still in place for me to have got married early on and had a household to run and a family to look after. I’d have enjoyed trying to make a success of that, making the place comfortable for a husband and children, and all the rest of it, instead of having to constantly struggle to make a life for myself in a world full of much more ambitious people. We aren't all cut out for that.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s good that women have the opportunities they didn’t have before and that potential no longer has to be so restricted; but not everybody is career-focused (which seems to be the default expectation now) or wants to be and the world doesn't seem to have a great deal of regard for people who aren't.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Anyuta
Shipmate
# 14692
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Posted
I can certainly see the point you are making. Howeer, I can only speak for myself: a woman born right after the "golden age" of the 50s, raised in a family where both parents (and a grandparent) worked and shared household duties.
Staying at home was never seen as an option. I mean, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that some people did this, but as a general "what my future will look like" being a SAH never figured.
However, despite or perhaps because of this, I also never thought of my workplace as the center of my interaction with other adults. I have some friends at work. I always had. but the vast majority of my coworkers are just that.. coworkers, with whom I really don't socialize even at the proverbial water cooler. we may share the occasional joke in passing that has nothing to do with work, but the majority of my interactions at work have to do with work. I have a few friends with whom I socialize outside work as well, and with whom I would share the events of my life over coffee. but I just don't see my work life as providing me with a real outlet for my need to be part of a group.
I have and always had that with a certain group of friends--all of my same ethnic background, most of the same religious background (with whom, for the most part, I went to church growing up), and involved in the same scouting group (ethnic based). Those are my "family outside the home". I can't say that I'm friends with all of them. but that sense of community that we as a social species seem to require is provided by THAT group, whom I see much less frequently than my co workers, and whom I would almost certainly still see with the same or even greater frequency were I a SAHM.
so for me, personally, the desire to work has absolutely nothing to do with the need to fill that empty place. for me, personally, it's just what one does.. one goes to school as a youth, college if one can (intellectually and financially), and then one enters the workforce, hopefully in a career that brings some satisfaction (and with luck, a decent income). it's just what you do. to NOT do that, for me, would be a very conscious, deliberate choice.
while I know not everyone has the same type of social network that I have via the scouts and my ethnic roots, I know that most people do have some sort of group to which they belong outside of work (and to which they would still belong even if they did not work). Church or other place of worship is a common one. a common interest group is another.
and this is equally true of men and women, I think. men have always joined groups such as the "royal order of the water buffalo" or whatever, because the workplace just does NOT really, for most people, provide that social interaction in a way that satisfies the need.
So, I think that perhaps there ARE some women who felt that the only way to get that social interaction was to get out and go to work, I sincerely doubt that this was the primary motivation for most, because honestly, work just doesn't really meet that need.
Posts: 764 | From: USA | Registered: Mar 2009
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
It's been alluded to but we should also look at what happened before the Golden Age of the 1950's.
The 1940's, in Britain at any rate, were pretty nasty; for the first half women didn't know if they would be alive in the morning and still less whether their man would. Many women worked, our of personal and national necessity. The late 'forties were no better, indeed foods that weren't on ration in wartime were rationed at that time. It was cold, austere and miserable; Export or Die was the mantra.
After that anything other than famine, plague and pestilence would look like a Golden Age (we were used to war). Housing improved for a start and, with the Festival of Britain and a new Queen there was a feeling of optimism, probably for the first time in 30 years.
I'm sure too that many women wanted to work. I believe there were strikes in the motor industry in which the men demanded that women be 'laid off' so they could resume what was men's work. Naturally, the male management agreed. AberVicar is dead right that many women worked and that many had too. But most of the work then available to these women, may of whom were short of money because their husbands didn't earn much, or pissed it up against the wall on Friday and Saturday nights, was poorly paid casual work.
Ariel is right about the social life of housewives, but the WI and TG were definetly middle class and even the Mother's Union wasn't for all and sundry, so that doesn't apply for all.
I should add that my mother, and my m-i-l as women married to members of the RAF had a pretty good social network, even it it was as constrained by your husband's rank even more surely than class did outside the armed forces.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
So, I think that perhaps there ARE some women who felt that the only way to get that social interaction was to get out and go to work, I sincerely doubt that this was the primary motivation for most, because honestly, work just doesn't really meet that need.
Actually, it can do: there was one job years ago where I hung out with the other female clerical staff – secretaries, junior clerks and typists. We were all female, and a variety of ages, but it worked really well. There were sub-groups, but there were still always people to socialize with, and several of those friendships are still alive now 20 years later even though we’ve all moved on. But that again was a “women’s network”.
I haven’t had that in a job since, though I can see the same kind of thing flourishing amongst my much younger female colleagues, who've managed to get a lively social network going; some have indeed formed friendships that will stand the test of time.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, from a social and psychological perspective, I think it is important to note that the satisfaction we get from a job or profession is not merely in what has to be done. To a considerable degree, it is about the community that centres around this work.
Sorry, but I completely disagree. If I wanted a sense of community, I could get it from a whole range of different kinds of shared experiences, not just those that constitute 'work'. The particular satisfaction of a job has to do with getting something done, setting a goal and reaching it.
As others have said, it's not as if women lacked community before they had paid work.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
so for me, personally, the desire to work has absolutely nothing to do with the need to fill that empty place. for me, personally, it's just what one does.. one goes to school as a youth, college if one can (intellectually and financially), and then one enters the workforce, hopefully in a career that brings some satisfaction (and with luck, a decent income). it's just what you do. to NOT do that, for me, would be a very conscious, deliberate choice.
Until accepted for ordained ministry, this was the situation for me, too, as for most women of my class and generation. Most of my female peers left school at 16 and worked. And those that married later on, still needed their income, as well as the husband's to pay the bills. Some women had what was perceived as a posh middle-class idea that it was better to marry a high-earning husband and stay at home. A peculiar throw-back to modern Victorian 'values'. But IIRR even most of our middle-class neighbours had wives that worked at something - even part-time, being home for the kids after school. This was the pattern my own mum worked to most of the time.
It wasn't really an option to stay at home for most of the women I knew. And, of course, for the many, many unmarried/unpartnered women no choice at all, if you want to eat and put a roof over your head.
Housewife or househusband is a perfectly valid and valuable occupation, however. A stay-at-home parent or partner can do many creative and fulfilling things with the house as a focus for community and hospitality, whether for family or neighbourhood. And parents who want to be full-time with their kids - or at least who want work to come second place to the kids, in terms of priorities of time and presence - is fine in my book.* It's the people who don't find it an inspiring environment and have no choices, that are probably the unhappiest, not surprisingly.
*Of course, though that does raise the spectre of the huge reproductively successful families who live in paid-for council housing with enormous benefits, with no earned income coming into the house; much beloved of the gossip magazines 'We're having our ninth kid and none of us work!' - sort of thing ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) !
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
quote:
From this perspective then, maybe a reappraisal of what happened after the 50s is due. Maybe the key problem was indeed literally that women were "alone at home, stuck with the kids". There was no real community of adult peers associated with this job of having and raising kids. At least not in the sense of this being a given simply by virtue of taking on this role. Clearly some women spent much of their time and energy creating and maintaining a "support network", but this was a personal effort. As every home has become a castle, making that home has principally become a solitary affair behind its walls.
I'm four months in what will probably be about four years of life as a SAHM and no matter how much you get out and about it can be quite intense and isolating. At the moment mothers in the UK have the worst of both worlds IMO. The average mother will spend the first six to twelve months at home alone with a baby for eight to ten hours a day, except when they can get out to some baby-related activity or other. They will spend the next seventeen years away from their child for the same number of hours with meaningful contact confined to evenings and weekends. Neither model seems to work for a lot of women, but I don't know what the answer is.
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[ 11. April 2012, 23:21: Message edited by: John Holding ]
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
As others have said, it's not as if women lacked community before they had paid work.
It's only fair to observe that some women certainly did lack community if they stayed at home. Not all, of course. But I know of many women who felt trapped, isolated and deprived of ordinary adult socialization through their role of stay at home mother and housewife. Not all women were in the position to socialize with neighbours, or join clubs and groups. Or had the company of others to hang out with during the day. Whereas chatting with the girls at the office, or belonging to the crowd at work was a real life-saver.
Some women certainly got all they wanted from life from home, husband and, if present, kids, but for many women it could be quite lonely and deadening.
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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AberVicar
Mornington Star
# 16451
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, from a social and psychological perspective, I think it is important to note that the satisfaction we get from a job or profession is not merely in what has to be done. To a considerable degree, it is about the community that centres around this work.
Sorry, but I completely disagree. If I wanted a sense of community, I could get it from a whole range of different kinds of shared experiences, not just those that constitute 'work'. The particular satisfaction of a job has to do with getting something done, setting a goal and reaching it.
As others have said, it's not as if women lacked community before they had paid work.
To be fair to Ingo, I don't think he's advocating working in order to find community; he's suggesting that the community that may be found in a place of work is a source of satisfaction. This was certainly true for both my parents, and was true for me during my time teaching.
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Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.
Posts: 742 | From: Abertillery | Registered: May 2011
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
I think that any discussion of women working need to include the stunning theft by the upper classes in the last few decades. For middle class families to maintain the same basic lifestyle, it has become necessary for both the man and the woman to work outside the home in most cases. The transfer of wealth to the upper classes through such things as Reaganomics tax structures have forced women out of the house every bit as much as has the desire of some for fulfillment through a career.
--Tom Clune
[ 11. April 2012, 13:27: Message edited by: tclune ]
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
I'm four months in what will probably be about four years of life as a SAHM and no matter how much you get out and about it can be quite intense and isolating. At the moment mothers in the UK have the worst of both worlds IMO. The average mother will spend the first six to twelve months at home alone with a baby for eight to ten hours a day, except when they can get out to some baby-related activity or other. They will spend the next seventeen years away from their child for the same number of hours with meaningful contact confined to evenings and weekends. Neither model seems to work for a lot of women, but I don't know what the answer is.
This is the problem with the modern way of doing it – when you often don’t have family living nearby, your mother or some other female relations who can come and give a hand, moral support, etc., it can indeed be quite isolating for modern women, and while there are mother-and-baby groups you can tend to end up talking about nothing but children if you go to one (or so I'm told), which can feel a bit one-sided.
Not that having relatives available always makes for harmony either, as they can sometimes insist on doing things in a way you won’t necessarily want them to. But some kind of support is useful. Some women do indeed hate being stuck at home with only a child for company during the day (no matter how much they love them). If you’re used to being on your own for long periods it’s probably easier to handle this aspect in some ways, but there’s still no easy way round having to restructure your entire life, sleeping patterns, etc around a small child.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
IIRC my social history, the golden age of the 50's with women at home looking after the family, is indeed a myth, a large percentage of married women did work outside of the home. Though they were generally in menial/low paid /part time jobs,fitted in around family.
This was the case in my own family the age of service might have gone but the age of the 'daliy help' wasn't, so my grandmother cleaned houses. Shop work, school canteens, an aunt woked as a school cook. A lot of hopsital work was still done by women, another aunt worked as a domestic, on a hospital ward, she was trained nurse but the hours did not suit the family. My mother had an evening office job making up the factory wages. They were all jobs that allowed the mothers to be in when the children came in from school, it didn't mean they didn't work.
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
I was a child in the 1950's growing up in a working class area. My recollection is that women not only had a community for themselves but they were the foundation of community for everyone else. A lot of what we might now think of as 'pastoral ministry' was done by women and they were the main organisers of community events.
Most mothers were at home when their children needed them, very few that I can remember went to a paid childminder after school. Grandmothers, aunts, or married sisters were the usual childminders for anyone whose mother wasn't at home. Also, many mothers had paid work to fit around their children. Local mills and factories operated 4-hour shifts for women, 10am-2pm or the 'twilight shift' 6pm-10pm. My mother worked as a Social Services 'Home Help' and a neighbour worked as an Auxiliary Nurse. Plenty of mothers did an hour or two a day as a cleaner. There was no shortage of such work either so it really was a matter of choice.
The big difference between the 50's and now is in our attitude to children. It used to be accepted that children couldn't bring themselves up and needed a stable home base and a stable person in that home. Children are now marginalised. There may be non-stop rhetoric about them from politicians, constant 'concern' from various agencies, but in practice child-care is regarded as a service to be bought so that a mother can be 'freed' to join the workforce.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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AberVicar
Mornington Star
# 16451
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
I was a child in the 1950's growing up in a working class area. My recollection is that women not only had a community for themselves but they were the foundation of community for everyone else. A lot of what we might now think of as 'pastoral ministry' was done by women and they were the main organisers of community events.
Most mothers were at home when their children needed them, very few that I can remember went to a paid childminder after school. Grandmothers, aunts, or married sisters were the usual childminders for anyone whose mother wasn't at home. Also, many mothers had paid work to fit around their children. Local mills and factories operated 4-hour shifts for women, 10am-2pm or the 'twilight shift' 6pm-10pm. My mother worked as a Social Services 'Home Help' and a neighbour worked as an Auxiliary Nurse. Plenty of mothers did an hour or two a day as a cleaner. There was no shortage of such work either so it really was a matter of choice.
The big difference between the 50's and now is in our attitude to children. It used to be accepted that children couldn't bring themselves up and needed a stable home base and a stable person in that home. Children are now marginalised. There may be non-stop rhetoric about them from politicians, constant 'concern' from various agencies, but in practice child-care is regarded as a service to be bought so that a mother can be 'freed' to join the workforce.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.
Posts: 742 | From: Abertillery | Registered: May 2011
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, I find it less than clear that women therefore must have wanted precisely the "male career path" that was on offer back then. In the largely "binary" world of the 50s, there was of course no real other choice.
I find it more than slightly unclear that men must have wanted precisely the "male career path" that was on offer back then. It was just better than what was available to women - especially when the "female career path" was firstly one of extreme dependence (both physically and financially - for this sort of conversation it's worth remembering that in Britain, Marital Rape wasn't criminalised until 1991), and secondly the "female career path" wasn't as available as people wanted to think or pretend. First working class women had always worked. Second, more middle class women worked than would admit it. And third, in the war, women had been on the male path and were being thrown off it. One of the core problems with the female career path therefore was that it was a mirage.
quote:
This is not to deny that women may find it more interesting to become for example an electrical engineer than raising kids. This is to point out that as alternative to becoming said electrical engineer we still only offer the "solitary confinement" of the home. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that many women pass on that offer, at least until the (biologically speaking) last minute. Can we imagine something better?
Part of the reason for passing is economic. As for something better, why not? Much more open life structures allowing for career breaks, a much more Swedish-socialist style society with a strong economic safety net. Both help.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Most mothers were at home when their children needed them, very few that I can remember went to a paid childminder after school. Grandmothers, aunts, or married sisters were the usual childminders for anyone whose mother wasn't at home.
Three big differences about how we mostly live now and how we mostly lived then that make these problems worse.
First population density. From the Industrial Revolution to the mid-twentieth century most people in this country lived in either small towns or the inner suburbs of large towns and cities - all that terraced housing we have from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, those walk-up five-story council flats from between the wars - so even if their home conditions were cramped and inadequate indoors they were near to neighbours and to shops and schools and churches and pubs and doctor's surgeries and all the rest of it. And they were usually near to public transport to take them further.
But now maybe half of us in Britain live in low-density outer suburbs or dispersed exurbia. More than that in the USA - I can't remember the figures but I think its about 80%. That's fine if you like staying indoors and watching TV, or pottering about in the garden. Even if you don't its probably OK if you have a car and enough money for petrol. But if you can't drive or don't have a car that's no good to you. And even if you have a car maybe you can't afford to use it. Or perhaps the man drives it to work leaving the woman at home with the kids.
The most unpleasant places to live in Britain are not, on the whole in the inner cities, they are large out-of-town council estates - though people call them loosely "inner city" they are often low-density and far from anywhere. And these are often the places the very poorest end up living. Largely because no-one who can afford not to wants to.
Second, those cars. Great if you have one and can afford to use it. But as more and more people have a car, shops and other facilities more and more cater for those with cars. Especially as people with cars tend on the whole to be better off than those without so they dominate the market. So the more people have a car, the harder it gets to live without one.
About 75% of the adult population of the UK have a driving licence. And women are over-represented among those who don't, as are the poor (obviously) and younger adults. And of course the very old, and the disabled. So single mothers on welfare living in out-of-town council estates - or even ordinary owner-occupied suburbs, are likelier than most to not have a driving licence. So many of them are stuck.
And cars have gutted many town centres. Not so much in the big cities, at least in Britain. What the Americans would call "downtowns" are still flourishing in most of our larger towns and cities. And we still have corner shops and street markets. But in many small towns and suburban centres the high-street shops ("main street" in America?) have all but vanished, and the corner-shops are sad relicts with bars on their windows selling cigarettes and soft porn and cheap booze and over-priced low-quality food to dwindling numbers of customers. And the big nerw estates ("schemes" in Scotland, "projects" in the US) never had much better than that to start with and sometimes even they have gone. Much of the cheap shopping has moved to outer suburban centres next to main roads, much of the higher-quality shopping to regional shopping malls designed around the car. What hit the US in the 40s, 50s, and 60s and destroyed small-town down-towns hit Britain in the 60s and 70s and 80s. And its still going on.
(Slightly off-topic, and I've said it before, but the group in society most disadvantaged by our car culture are older children and younger teenagers. Say 8-16s. Once upon a time, not that long ago, within my memory, they - we - moved around far more freely than now. My parents generation had much more freedom than mine did. Because there was decent public transport in most places and because most of the places you wanted to go to were in town, or an easy walk or bike ride from a town or a station. And in my teens we lived in a town so I could walk to the parks or to a beach or to the library and the museum. Or to slot machine arcades and pubs of course. That's not how it is now for most people so more and more these kids are dependent on being ferried around by adults with cars to go to social events and see their friends and even go to school. Maybe that's alright in a two-car family if your Mum is always at home in time to make you your tea. Though even then its huge pressure on parents. But as it is for many people - well no wonder so many kids hang around on street corners.)
Third, family size. Think about it.
If the average family size is four, as it was in many places at the end of the 19th century the typical young married woman has a grandmother, a mother, one or two sisters, three aunts (and another three by marriage), twelve female cousins, one or two sisters-in law. As does her husband. And they all have relatives to and so on and so on and so on for more distant relatives. Literally hundreds of them. (My Dad actually had about two hundred cousins of one sort or another. Hardly knew any of them from Adam. He once met up with seventeen relatives, quite by chance, on a business trip to Sunderland. Or rather he met one of them, they got chatting (probably in a bar), they worked out they were cousins and the other bloke got on the phone to his family. Yes, they were mostly Irish Catholics, some cliches are true.)
That's a lot of relatives amongst whom a new mother might find a community of women. Even if many of them move away from their home town, the chances are that someone will be available to help when needed. And what's more your next-door neighbour might have that many relatives, and so does hers, and so does everyone else, so even if you have a small family, or your family is far away, you have a chance of plugging in to a ready-made, pre-existing community of women, at least some of who may be able to look after you. So when you are sick there will be an aunt or a sister to come to your home and take some of your work on. When the children need a holiday, or you need a break from them, or you are afraid for their health because of disease or bad air, maybe there is a cousin in the country they can go to stay with for a few weeks, even though you can't afford to pay for a holiday. When your teenage daughter needs a bit of spare cash, and a better-off aunt or a neighbour needs some help around the house, she can go and do their cooking and cleaning for a while. That's pretty much how almost everyone in the world lives, or used to until a few decades ago.,
Say the average family size falls to two, as it was back in the sixties and seventies and eighties in parts of England. Now the typical young married woman has a grandmother (if she is lucky, because although lifespan has gone up people marry later and have kids later), a mother, half a sister (i.e. either one or none, but you know what I mean) and half a sister-in law, one aunt (and one by marriage), three female cousins, and so on and so on.
A much smaller set of family connections. So pretty much just at random it is far less likely that they will be living near you.
And when it falls to one - as in most of China, large parts of central and southern Europe, and as we might be approaching here - I think its below two at the moment, the typical young married woman has a grandmother (because lifespan has gone up even more - though as we are having our first kids even later on average the chances are gran is eighty-something and as likely to be net consumer of family care as a provider of it), a mother (who by the same reasoning is in her late fifties or sixties already), no sisters (or brothers) because she is an only child, no aunts (or uncles) because her parents are too, no cousins, and so no son and so on.
If anyone who survived to the end of that spiel still able to read knows about statistics or graph theory or network theory or probability and so on they will point out that however small the family sizes are, even down to one, as there is considerable variation in size (When I got married my then wife only had about six living relatives to consider inviting to the wedding. I had over a hundred, but we were a different and in some ways perhaps more old-fashioned kind of family) then those families that are larger will contribute more relations to their relations (sort of like super-nodes IYSWIM). And also that the older generation will (at least under current conditions) have more siblings than the present one, and so there will be more cousins and aunts around. so the chances are that the real numbers, once you get out to cousins and beyond, are going to be larger than those crude ones assuming that all families are identical inside. But if you are so clever than you do the maths - I probably got my simple sums wrong anyway...
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
The big difference between the 50's and now is in our attitude to children. It used to be accepted that children couldn't bring themselves up and needed a stable home base and a stable person in that home. Children are now marginalised. There may be non-stop rhetoric about them from politicians, constant 'concern' from various agencies, but in practice child-care is regarded as a service to be bought so that a mother can be 'freed' to join the workforce.
I disagree. I think the big difference now is not our attitude to children, but our attitude to relationships and marriage. It is still accepted that children can't bring themselves up, and that a "stable home base" is essential. What is not accepted is that it is the mother's job alone to provide this.
In a marriage or relationship that is understood in modern terms as an equal partnership, both the mother and father take equal responsibility for the care of the children. Thus the mother can no longer rightly be designated as the default principal carer, even if that is how it usually works out in practice. Now it is perfectly possible for the father to be "the stable person at home" - something that was unthinkable in the 1950s. How to share out the child care is something for each couple to work out for themselves, ideally with the help of their extended family. But there should be no automatic assumption that this is the "mother's role".
Of course, in many or most cases both parents will be obliged to go out to work. The availability of government-supported child-care is therefore not simply so that the mother can be "freed" to join the workforce, but also so that the father can be likewise "freed".
[ 11. April 2012, 16:34: Message edited by: Cottontail ]
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
As for something better, why not? Much more open life structures allowing for career breaks, a much more Swedish-socialist style society with a strong economic safety net. Both help.
Well, I'm all for social safety nets and financial help for families and/or children. But that is not quite what I had in mind. That's sort of obvious help, I was wondering if there was space for something more radical.
Actually I do not really know what I'm getting at. However, I have heard about the horror of being stuck at home with the kids quite a bit from women. And I've noted that among my friends and colleagues much of social life flows from work, rather than for example from your neighbours. Of course, both of the observations may well be conditioned by being in the academe. Then I've noted that homemaking tends to be confined to one home and is rarely appreciated other than indirectly. Finally, much actual childcare is these days delivered by professionals in groups, even from the youngest age on. This can lead to the absurd seeming situation that one woman is working largely in order to pay another woman to look after her child.
So I was wondering if somehow one could re-organize this whole business of child raising and homemaking more communally - removing at least some of the sense of isolation, bringing in some of the social affirmation and contacts afforded by a group of peers working for the same purpose, leading to more direct appreciation of this work and perhaps realizing some of the obvious benefits of grouping children without turning this into a paid relationship that removes the biological mother largely from the picture.
It just seems to me that much of this work could benefit from somehow extending beyond the nuclear family. And not just the childcare. Take cooking a meal. That's much better than buying pre-prepared food from the supermarket and chucking it into the microwave. It's cheaper and more nutritious. However, the effort and time involved in shopping and cooking is large. Yet this scales fairly well. In general, cooking for eight is not twice as difficult as cooking for four. So if one person would cook for two families, whereas another person would mind children for two families, then in total they would probably save quite a bit of time and effort as compared to both doing both on a smaller scale.
Anyway, I'm not much of a hippie and I'm not advocating that we all live in communes. However, I wonder if one could usefully bring some sort of communal job sharing into this. Can one imagine some kind of "team formation" among homemakers? I mean something more reliable than merely "helping out". Perhaps to the point where one can reliably say that certain days of the week are "available" for work or study (or indeed leisure), because the team is fully taking care of home-business.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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AberVicar
Mornington Star
# 16451
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Posted
That's what happens in some communities I've seen in Southern Africa, and is of course formalised in the Kibbutzim.
Are you after a Catholic Kibbutz movement?
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Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.
Posts: 742 | From: Abertillery | Registered: May 2011
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Spiffy
Ship's WonderSheep
# 5267
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
In some conservative circles, but certainly in "traditional Catholic" circles, the 50s of the previous century are seen as a kind of lost golden age: Men went out to earn the livelihood of the family, women were home-makers and mothers.
The problem with this rose-tinted view of history (no matter what side of the pond you're on) is that it applies the standards of the small percentage who had membership in urban higher classes across all of society.
I frequently have trouble getting people who buy into this Golden Age theory that "Leave it to Beaver" is not a historical documentary.
As for a 'better' modality-- hell. I don't know. For me it's living alone. For you? Could be something different. Where we run into problems is trying to shove everyone into the same box and swearing this will solve all their problems, make them happy, and keep the scary things far away.
But I stopped believing in a handsome prince coming to save me years ago; I'm a self-rescuing princess and I fight the damn scary things myself.
[ 11. April 2012, 16:47: Message edited by: Spiffy ]
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Looking for a simple solution to all life's problems? We are proud to present obstinate denial. Accept no substitute. Accept nothing.
--Night Vale Radio Twitter Account
Posts: 10281 | From: Beervana | Registered: Dec 2003
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
<in reply to AberVicar>
Well, I think the kibbutzim were overloaded with a lot more ideology than I would care about. And I'm not looking for a particularly Catholic solution, other than that I'd like any solution to be compatible with Catholicism...
A system where people would sign up simply because it helps them would be best. Let's keep it pragmatic and practical, there are enough other things in the world that require some idealism.
[ 11. April 2012, 16:59: Message edited by: IngoB ]
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
As for something better, why not? Much more open life structures allowing for career breaks, a much more Swedish-socialist style society with a strong economic safety net. Both help.
Well, I'm all for social safety nets and financial help for families and/or children. But that is not quite what I had in mind. That's sort of obvious help, I was wondering if there was space for something more radical.
Actually, what I'm proposing is at least as radical IMO as anything you have there. I'm proposing that allpeople get the necessary resources to have choices. And letting people decide what they want rather than forcing them into a specific mould whether the eternal treadmill of work or the 1950s style Stepford Wife ideal.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
A generation or two ago, people did seem to live more in community, but it was with people from their own extended family, either living in the same house or next door. So cousins were brought up almost as brothers, grandparents were living with grandchildren, etc.
In my parents' generation, the women who didn't work regularly got together for coffee mornings. By the time I got to that age, though, hardly any women weren't working, so there weren't any other mums at home during the day to meet up with. It was partly due to this that I went back to work, and suddenly there was actually some money left at the end of the month!
What seems wrong now is that women with young children have lost the choice of whether to work or not - house prices and rent being what they are, it's a rare family where one parent can afford to stay home all day. Even middle class families find this more difficult than they used to.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, from a social and psychological perspective, I think it is important to note that the satisfaction we get from a job or profession is not merely in what has to be done. To a considerable degree, it is about the community that centres around this work. Your workplace is actually where you hang out with your peers.
For me this is very true. I have always been lucky enough to enjoy my work, but the social and community side is essential for me. I love to laugh and having a good laugh with colleauges comes high on my list of 'essentials' in life.
I had the choice to stay home when the kids were small, but didn't take it. Now that I only work two days a week I look forward enormously to those two days. As I creep towards retirement I'm working hard to build and find other places where a similar sense of community can be found.
(Church is one of them - in a sense, but lacks the sense of common purpose, I find)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I'm proposing that allpeople get the necessary resources to have choices. And letting people decide what they want rather than forcing them into a specific mould whether the eternal treadmill of work or the 1950s style Stepford Wife ideal.
Much as I think ensuring that all people have resources is a good thing, there are two problems.
One is that the resources have to come from somewhere. At least some people have to choose to produce enough additional resources for other people to choose not to produce resources. (Of course, without the choice bit, that happens at the moment under capitalism: the working classes are producing additional resources for the capital-owning classes to choose not to do so.)
The second, somewhat more fundamental one, is that some choices are dependent on other people's choices. A trivial example: if I want to work part-time on Saturdays but not on Sundays, or vice versa, I'm dependent upon employers offering jobs that fit that description. A significant example: my choice to either work as part of a union or to work not as a member of a union is highly dependent upon what the rest of the workforce is doing.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
I gave up work as a solicitor to be a stay-at-home mother, albeit a SAHM doing an OU degree. We were in the fortunate position of having married on the basis of one income, mine, whilst my husband did his PhD, and therefore could continue on one salary, his, whilst our children were small.
I hadn't enjoyed the social side of being a solicitor; much of the office chat centred round money, new clothes, expensive holidays, etc. and there was an expectation that you would butter up important clients, which, for a young female solicitor, involved flirting, something I was hopelessly inept at.
Being a stay-at-home Mum was far more intellectually satisfying than working as a conveyancing solicitor. There was the OU, plus a church women's discussion group with creche, where we discussed books, soft political issues such as Fair Trade, various parenting theories, etc. I also went to Parant Is Paisde, Gaelic Parent and Toddler group, which improved my rather sketchy Gaelic. I was meeting far more interesting people amongst the "other Mums" than I had at work.
The downside was that we were living in a flat in a fairly poor area, and our children started primary school in a truly lovely multi-racial, multi-cultural school with very low educational standards. We were one of several academic families in the area; but some of our children's classmates' parents were on methadone, or wore ankle tags, and two mothers worked as prostitutes. It was all fine and friendly amongst the mums at the school gates and amongst the kids, who were young enough to take people at face value, but long term we wanted them to attend a school where they had a chance of actually passing some exams.
It's certainly possible to be at home, but neither trapped nor isolated. Fortunately, we were living within walking distance of the city centre and also the University, so we had access to free amenities such as the city library, the Botanic gardens, the art gallery etc etc.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
It's probably worth mentioning, in the context of this community stuff, that I used to notice a very interesting thing in my last church.
Babies and small children basically got passed around the church all the time. There was an entire network of pseudo-aunts and pseudo-grandmothers on a Sunday morning, such that a mother would often spend a considerable amount of time not having to worry about her child.
And I'm reasonably sure that some of the same activity would happen during the week. People looking after each other's kids.
It happens outside churches as well. I know that my sister has had both a neighbour and a close friend, each with children of a similar age, who can be called upon to take care of a couple of extra ones when the need arises. People find ways to replace that kind of community structure that used to be provided by extended family.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Babies and small children basically got passed around the church all the time. There was an entire network of pseudo-aunts and pseudo-grandmothers on a Sunday morning, such that a mother would often spend a considerable amount of time not having to worry about her child.
Sounds like the church I go to. I spent most of coffee time on Easter Sunday sitting on the floor with a two-year old who'd got himself a new book from the library and wanted someone to read it to him.
I guess that makes me a pseudo-uncle?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine
Being a stay-at-home Mum was far more intellectually satisfying than working as a conveyancing solicitor.
When my children were small, I got great intellectual satisfaction from watching my children figure things out. I now get the same satisfaction from watching my grandchildren.
When one of them was about a year old, I gave him a rag doll which I had made. He was playing with it, and he suddenly frowned thoughtfully and felt the doll's yarn hair. His mother said, "That's the doll's hair." He felt it again, then felt his own hair. Next he felt his mother's hair. You could see the wheels turning in his mind.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I didn't work when my children were small (apart from a small amount of private tuition) because my job was a primary school teacher. It didn't seem right to leave my children with a minder while I spent all day with someone else's children. I guess it's different if your job is with other adults so you go there to get a break from children.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
.....
In a marriage or relationship that is understood in modern terms as an equal partnership, both the mother and father take equal responsibility for the care of the children. Thus the mother can no longer rightly be designated as the default principal carer, even if that is how it usually works out in practice. Now it is perfectly possible for the father to be "the stable person at home" - something that was unthinkable in the 1950s. How to share out the child care is something for each couple to work out for themselves, ideally with the help of their extended family. But there should be no automatic assumption that this is the "mother's role".
Being equal doesn't mean being identical. Equality for a woman doesn't mean being like a man or accepting male as normative in society. There's an assumption in so-called 'modern' attitudes that taking care of children is a low-grade mechanistic task, like doing the laundry, and therefore needs to be shared out 'fairly'.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
.....
In a marriage or relationship that is understood in modern terms as an equal partnership, both the mother and father take equal responsibility for the care of the children. Thus the mother can no longer rightly be designated as the default principal carer, even if that is how it usually works out in practice. Now it is perfectly possible for the father to be "the stable person at home" - something that was unthinkable in the 1950s. How to share out the child care is something for each couple to work out for themselves, ideally with the help of their extended family. But there should be no automatic assumption that this is the "mother's role".
Being equal doesn't mean being identical. Equality for a woman doesn't mean being like a man or accepting male as normative in society. There's an assumption in so-called 'modern' attitudes that taking care of children is a low-grade mechanistic task, like doing the laundry, and therefore needs to be shared out 'fairly'.
Where did I say that gender equality means a woman being "like a man"? And where did I say that I "accept male as normative in society"? In a rather laughable reversal of the whole point, this assumes that a mother who works outside the home is doing so because she has bought into 'male' norms (for paid employment = male) and rejected 'female' norms (for homemaking = female). Therefore, by your reasoning, 'working mothers' have failed to be proper women. And fathers who stay at home as principal child-carers have likewise failed to be proper men. Of course, the reality is that mothers who work outside the home, and fathers who are principal child carers, have in fact rejected both definitions of male and female 'normativity', and are just doing what works best for them and their children.
And where did I denigrate taking care of children as "a low-grade mechanistic task"? My point is precisely the opposite. The care of our children is so important, that I would want to see both parents fully involved, with every opportunity for fathers to be the stay-at-home carer if that is what works best for the individual couple. To want the opportunity for mothers to work outside the home is not to denigrate the task of child care. It is simply to say that the twin responsibilities of child care and bringing in the money belong to both parents alike. Working mothers are not responsible for child neglect. Where there is child neglect, both parents, working or otherwise, are responsible.
Besides, my point is about the legal and societal status of working parents, and not about how individual relationships are worked out. The dominant societal model may indeed be the traditional one of the working father and the stay-at-home mother. (This is not the reality any more, but I accept that it may still be seen by many as the ideal.) If that works best for an individual couple, then I have no problems at all with that. A traditional-looking family model does not, however, indicate essential inequalities in the relationship. One would assume that the various options have been considered and discussed, and the best one for that family has been followed - as opposed to a situation where both father and mother feel bound to conform to an externally-prescribed role regardless of their particular circumstances. In other circumstances, the parental tasks and responsibilities might have been shared differently.
And even if the traditional model is still the ideal, this should not be enshrined in legislation or government programmes. On the contrary, what help the state provides should be - and be seen as - equally available to mothers and fathers. As women and men are equal citizens of the state, so their choices regarding work and child care should be legally the same. Only in this way can they be freed to make the right decisions for their family.
And finally, inequalities in society, in the workplace, and in the home, are not addressed by idealising a "women's role" as homemaker and child carer, any more than they would be addressed by denigrating these tasks. Both approaches come down to "Women, Know Your Place". It is just that the first attitude says that The Place is brilliant, while the second says that The Place is rubbish. Same place, though. Same limits.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking
There's an assumption in so-called 'modern' attitudes that taking care of children is a low-grade mechanistic task, like doing the laundry, and therefore needs to be shared out 'fairly'.
Many years ago there was widespread outrage when it was discovered that the US Labor Department classified the skill level needed for childcare as the same level required for valet parking of cars.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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justlooking
Shipmate
# 12079
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Posted
Cottontail posted:
quote:
I think the big difference now is not our attitude to children, but our attitude to relationships and marriage. It is still accepted that children can't bring themselves up, and that a "stable home base" is essential. What is not accepted is that it is the mother's job alone to provide this.
What is not accepted now is that children have the same basic needs whatever the circumstances of their adults. In the aftermath of WW11 the provision for war widows and their children was made on the basis that young children needed a full-time carer. Most single parents are women but these days they are mostly divorced, separated or unmarried mothers rather than widows. This makes no difference to their children's needs. Why do you think most single parents are women?
quote:
In a marriage or relationship that is understood in modern terms as an equal partnership, both the mother and father take equal responsibility for the care of the children. Thus the mother can no longer rightly be designated as the default principal carer, even if that is how it usually works out in practice. Now it is perfectly possible for the father to be "the stable person at home" - something that was unthinkable in the 1950s. How to share out the child care is something for each couple to work out for themselves, ideally with the help of their extended family. But there should be no automatic assumption that this is the "mother's role".
This reads like something from an A Level essay. Theoretical possibilities don't match reality. You want to see a mother and father each giving 50% of their time to child care and 50% of their time to paid work. Dream on.
Couples do work things out for themselves and they tend to work out that the mother will do most of the day-to-day care for a baby. Child-care isn't genderless. Women are physically and psychologically equipped for bearing, feeding and nurturing babies. What do you think breasts are for? Men don't have them. The physical processes involved in bearing a child affect a woman psychologically. This isn't inequality it's just nature's way of ensuring a baby's survival.
The big difference now is that we have a system which values children according to the presence or absence of a working parent. A SAHM in a two-parent family with a working father will be described as a 'busy mother'. A single SAHM will be 'unemployed'.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Theoretical possibilities don't match reality. You want to see a mother and father each giving 50% of their time to child care and 50% of their time to paid work. Dream on.
Anecdote time.
When I took my daughter to primary school or picked her up from school about one in five of the parents or other carers was a man. (I counted, a number of times)
Some years ago a larg(ish) survey in the USA found that 17% of divorced women said that their first choice as a babysitter was their ex-husband. I would assume that those were mostly the husbands who had done a lot of childcare before divorce.
Of the first ten men of about my own age I I thought of who have kids and who I know well enough to have some idea of their home life (as opposed to what they say about their home lives & I'm including myself) I reckon that five did some childcare at evenings and weekends when their kids were young but on their whole left it to the mothers, four did a large chunk of childcare but mostly probably less than half, and one stayed at hoime with the kids when the mother went out to work (but I suspect the mother did more than do most fathers in that situation).
If I assume that the out-to-work dads did one hour a day on weekdays and one third of the work at weekends (which seems generous to be honest), and that the sharing-and-caring dads did about one third of the work all week, and the stay-at-home dad did two-thirds of the work, that conveniently comes to somewhere between 17% and 20% of the total.
So I reckon that, in the world I live in, fathers do about one fifth of the caring for young children, mothers about four fifths.
Does that seem plausible?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Cottontail
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# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by justlooking:
Cottontail posted: quote:
I think the big difference now is not our attitude to children, but our attitude to relationships and marriage. It is still accepted that children can't bring themselves up, and that a "stable home base" is essential. What is not accepted is that it is the mother's job alone to provide this.
What is not accepted now is that children have the same basic needs whatever the circumstances of their adults. In the aftermath of WW11 the provision for war widows and their children was made on the basis that young children needed a full-time carer. Most single parents are women but these days they are mostly divorced, separated or unmarried mothers rather than widows. This makes no difference to their children's needs. Why do you think most single parents are women?
Huh? I wasn't talking about single parents. I was talking about people in a long-term relationship or marriage taking equal responsibility for raising their children. I also had in mind parents who, although separated, both take full responsibility for their children and hopefully have shared custody. I fail to see what you can object to about that.
Basically, I disagree that it is "not accepted" nowadays that "children have the same basic needs". I can't think of anyone who thinks that children don't need a stable loving home. No one - but no one - thinks that the parents' needs should be put before their children's. We are simply disagreeing as to how children's needs might be met while also keeping a roof over the family's heads: you seem to have a "one-size-fits-all" pattern, whereas I am arguing for more individual tailoring. quote:
quote:
In a marriage or relationship that is understood in modern terms as an equal partnership, both the mother and father take equal responsibility for the care of the children. Thus the mother can no longer rightly be designated as the default principal carer, even if that is how it usually works out in practice. Now it is perfectly possible for the father to be "the stable person at home" - something that was unthinkable in the 1950s. How to share out the child care is something for each couple to work out for themselves, ideally with the help of their extended family. But there should be no automatic assumption that this is the "mother's role".
This reads like something from an A Level essay. Theoretical possibilities don't match reality. You want to see a mother and father each giving 50% of their time to child care and 50% of their time to paid work. Dream on.
If you read my post above, you will see that is not what I said. At no point did I posit a 50-50 arrangement. You seem to think that a regard for equality is manifested by a jealous guarding of rights. Not so. In fact, the opposite: true equality is the seed of true generosity and care for the other.
In practice, the 50-50 thing may work for some few families; for others, the sharing of responsibilities will work along different and more complex lines; and of course, most will need more than one wage coming in anyway. I would not presume to tell any couple how they "ought" to manage this.
My argument, as stated in my previous post, is that each couple should have the freedom to work out the arrangement that best suits their family. "Reality" is that some women earn more than their husbands; "reality" is that some men are happier in the homemaker role than their wives; "reality" is that some couples can just about afford to pay the mortgage and balance the child care if one works nights and the other works days. This may not be your reality - it may not even be common - but it is someone's reality nevertheless. Would you seriously judge a couple for making the decision that best suits their circumstances and inclinations?
quote:
Couples do work things out for themselves and they tend to work out that the mother will do most of the day-to-day care for a baby.
That is fine. "Tend to" is fine. I have no problems with "tend to". I only have a problem when "tend to" becomes "ought".
quote:
Child-care isn't genderless. Women are physically and psychologically equipped for bearing, feeding and nurturing babies. What do you think breasts are for? Men don't have them. The physical processes involved in bearing a child affect a woman psychologically. This isn't inequality it's just nature's way of ensuring a baby's survival.
Again, I don't dispute this. Good maternity leave provision is certainly vital. But once the child is weaned or on bottle feeds, is Dad such a bad option? I agree that on one level, everything we do is gendered: everything I do, I do as a woman and not as a man, and no doubt I do it differently to how a man would do it. But then, I also do it differently to how another woman might do it. (I have never met two mothers who mother in the same way.) So I am afraid I don't buy your rather rigid gender stratifications. And I certainly don't think they should be written into legislation.
quote:
The big difference now is that we have a system which values children according to the presence or absence of a working parent. A SAHM in a two-parent family with a working father will be described as a 'busy mother'. A single SAHM will be 'unemployed'.
I actually agree with your final point - there is a nasty double standard at work. It would be good if single parents were financially enabled to stay at home and bring up their children. But that too, I fear, is not "reality". Perhaps a return "Dream on" is justified here ...
Justlooking, we obviously disagree on our understanding of gender roles. We may have to live with that. But just to be clear: I admire and share your passion for the welfare of the children. My own passion for the freedom and equality of men and women does not diminish that. I just don't think that "traditional" is always best in every circumstance. Do you?
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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justlooking
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# 12079
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Posted
posted by Ken
quote:
So I reckon that, in the world I live in, fathers do about one fifth of the caring for young children, mothers about four fifths.
Does that seem plausible?
Yup.
posted by Cottontail
quote:
Huh? I wasn't talking about single parents. I was talking about people in a long-term relationship or marriage taking equal responsibility for raising their children. I also had in mind parents who, although separated, both take full responsibility for their children and hopefully have shared custody. I fail to see what you can object to about that.
I object to your positing your ideas of what you would like to see as if this had any bearing on what is actually happening in reality.
quote:
Basically, I disagree that it is "not accepted" nowadays that "children have the same basic needs". I can't think of anyone who thinks that children don't need a stable loving home. No one - but no one - thinks that the parents' needs should be put before their children's. We are simply disagreeing as to how children's needs might be met while also keeping a roof over the family's heads: you seem to have a "one-size-fits-all" pattern, whereas I am arguing for more individual tailoring.
If this society recognises that all children have the same basic needs then no child would be living in poverty because all would be provided with those basic needs. It used to be the case, before Margaret Thatcher got going, that welfare benefits to families were calculated on what people actually needed to live in a reasonable way. The cost of food, adequate clothing, heating, laundry etc. For children the basic needs included a family holiday of at least a week once every two years staying away from home, not with relatives. Policy makers actually took the trouble to think about what every child should have as a minimum, regardless of the circumstances of their adults. This doesn't happen now.
quote:
My argument, as stated in my previous post, is that each couple should have the freedom to work out the arrangement that best suits their family.
They do. No-one's stopping them.
quote:
..... "Tend to" is fine. I have no problems with "tend to". I only have a problem when "tend to" becomes "ought".
Actually it's your posts that are full of "oughts". Everything is about what you "want to see" and what "should" happen.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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rolyn
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# 16840
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Posted
Originally posted by IngoB:
In some conservative circles, but certainly in "traditional Catholic" circles, the 50s of the previous century are seen as a kind of lost golden age.
I suppose you could be unkind and say that prior the liberation of the 60s the church had people where they wanted them .
The Church tradition of long term marriage without contraception related to the limited options faced by people of that age. So in that regard the 50s may appear "Golden" for the church as this was the final decade of general unquestioning obedience.
For some strange reason I personally look the 50s as some idyllic time even though I didn't exist then . But a closer look at the facts , as with any selected era of human history, reveals the forces of light and dark didn't impact more or less on that particular decade than any other.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Cottontail
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# 12234
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Posted
Okay, justlooking, I'm going to have one more try. And it is a genuine try to communicate past the anger of your posts. Please read what I say with credit for my good will, and help me to understand exactly what it is that has made you so angry.
Firstly, I was not dismissing single parents: I was simply talking about something else, i.e., how parenting works between couples. To talk about one reality is not to dismiss another.
Secondly, I agree totally re. your point about welfare and child poverty. Society doesn't care enough, you are right.
And lastly, I have checked over my previous posts, and am struggling to see where all these "oughts" and "want to sees" are. I will happily say what a government ought to do re. women's working rights - just as you say what they ought to do re. child poverty. But no where have I said what any individual woman or family ought to do - unless you count me saying that they should have the freedom to work it out for themselves.
So please can you tell me or quote for me where I have dictated what people ought to do, and if I have overstepped the mark, I will gladly correct myself.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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justlooking
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# 12079
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
I have checked over my previous posts, and am struggling to see where all these "oughts" and "want to sees" are.
This is what I posted:
Actually it's your posts that are full of "oughts". Everything is about what you "want to see" and what "should" happen.
Here are the examples:
quote:
... But there should be no automatic assumption that this is the "mother's role"....
...I would want to see both parents fully involved, ....
.....this should not be enshrined in legislation or government programmes...
.....I certainly don't think they should be written into legislation. ....
.....choices regarding work and child care should be legally the same. ....
.....help the state provides should be -....
.....each couple should have the freedom .....
My initial post was about my experience. I didn't propose this as some theoretical idea. That women and not men are equipped for bearing and feeding children is a fact not a 'rigid gender stratification'. That most single parents are mothers is also a fact. So is the double-standard in attitudes to children.
As for anger - you seem to have got yourself very steamed up largely about matters of your own invention.
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Cottontail
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# 12234
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Posted
Thank you for your response. I appreciate you taking the time to reply, and offer here my response to your response!
With the exception of the first two, all the rest you list are about legislation, not about the decisions individuals make. I admitted as much in my last post. Yes, I have strong opinions about what governments ought and ought not to do, just as you have. The point of such legislation is to make is possible for individuals and families to have genuine choice: in other words, to minimise the "shoulds" and "oughts" for individual situations. You think the government ought to legislate to make it possible for single mothers to stay at home; I think the government ought to legislate to make it possible for mothers to work outside the home. Why not yes to both? They are in fact two sides of the same coin, which is about genuine freedom of choice.
The first on your list was addressing a more general attitude, but was precisely countering an "ought" from the other direction. You say that women ought to be the primary care-givers; I say that that may mostly be the case, but it ought not be assumed. How else should I have expressed that?
The second example is the one where I most obviously state what I think should be the case for individual couples. Is it actually that contentious to believe that both parents should be fully involved in childcare? You will note that I do not say how that full involvement should be worked out in practice, and throughout I have stressed that this could well take the form of very traditional gender roles. You accused me of denigrating childcare; I responded by prioritizing child care. The way I prioritize it may be different to you, but we agree that it is the topmost priority.
Regarding your last paragraphs, I was not in any way denigrating your personal experience, nor even dissecting it, and I am sorry if that is how it came across. The paragraph I took issue with was the one in which you departed from your personal experience to offer more general commentary. I disagreed with your analysis, that is all.
I have done my best throughout to be balanced and non-proscriptive, leaving room for many different models of relationships and parenting. I am not sure in what other terms you think I could have expressed disagreement. Maybe it is simply that you see feminism and child care as incompatible, and I don't.
But I will leave it at that, and bow out now.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Rosina
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# 15589
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Posted
IngoB wrote "women actually did want to escape, in large numbers. They did not want to remain "alone at home, stuck with the kids".
I am sad and surprised to read this - Although child-rearing doesn't look glamorous at all for me it was the most rewarding thing in the world.
I agree with this from justlooking:
"The big difference between the 50's and now is in our attitude to children. It used to be accepted that children couldn't bring themselves up and needed a stable home base and a stable person in that home. Children are now marginalised. There may be non-stop rhetoric about them from politicians, constant 'concern' from various agencies, but in practice child-care is regarded as a service to be bought so that a mother can be 'freed' to join the workforce."
And this is all to the detriment of society IMHO.
Kids that aren't cared for grow up to be uncaring.
Kids that get the message that mum's time at work is more important than time with them grow up to be adults who value money over people.
Kids that get handed toys in place of active involvement grow up learning that things are more important than people.
Kids that aren't shown the best way to operate in society figure out their own way and I'm wondering what net effect that has on the society we live in.?
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"Imagine." If you can imagine, you can dream, and if you can dream, you can hope and if you have hope, you may seek and if you seek; you will find.
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poileplume
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# 16438
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Posted
In Quebec, our problem is not so much the role of women but that of men. We are/were a very old fashioned society with closely defined traditional gender roles.
Women have moved on and adopted ‘modern’ roles. The problem we have is that there are no such roles or norms for young men. We have the classical anomie, if you are familiar with the term. “The breakdown of social bonds between an individual and their community ties, with fragmentation of social identity and rejection of self-regulatory values" to quote Wikipedia.
It is a serious problem for society and the government, the the young men often just drift. (Plus for the girls, as the young men just won’t marry!)
On the career versus stay at home mum debate, the norm is that the wife is given the choice. In our large extended family, half the women with children don’t work. But then we do have low house prices and a low cost of living.
The couple adapts to either standard of living – single income or dual income, but it is not that materialistic a society. Outside our two cites, the standard of living and expectations are actually low, so there isn’t the pressure on couples materially that exists elsewhere.
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Please note I am quite severely dyslexic
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rolyn
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# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by poileplume:
In Quebec, our problem is not so much the role of women but that of men. We are/were a very old fashioned society with closely defined traditional gender roles.
It is a serious problem for society and the government, the the young men often just drift. (Plus for the girls, as the young men just won’t marry!)
Young men can be excused for not wanting to get married in a hurry these days.
They only have to use the evidence of there own eyes to see they are letting themselves in for something decidedly risky by getting married and producing a couple of kids.
What's happened since the 1950s is a power shift from male to female , pure n simple.
With the power comes the territory and the responsibility . Some will abuse it, some will not.
That's how it was with male dominance for Centuries , and that's how I presume it's going to be be with female dominance in the time to come.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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justlooking
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# 12079
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
What's happened since the 1950s is a power shift from male to female , pure n simple.
With the power comes the territory and the responsibility . Some will abuse it, some will not.
That's how it was with male dominance for Centuries , and that's how I presume it's going to be be with female dominance in the time to come.
What makes you see women as 'dominant' rather than equal. I think the major change for women has been a freedom from male attitudes of superiority or presumptions about male as normative. Does male identity depend on seeing women as inferior or in some way abnormal?
Posts: 2319 | From: thither and yon | Registered: Nov 2006
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Eigon
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# 4917
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Posted
As far as I can see, women haven't even reached equality yet, never mind dominance.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
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Posted
I've become aware that most of the jobs my children observe people doing, are now done by women. Most of their teachers are female, their GP, dentist, optician, my daughter's physiotherapist, the village librarian, the school librarian, the school dinner ladies, the postmistress, the hairdresser, all female. My daughter has a wide variety of female role models. My son has less; our minister, youth worker, some teachers, the school bus driver, the bin men, the school janitor. Of course they're both aware of the jobs that their father and our male friends and neighbours do, but in terms of actually interacting with people at work, it's mostly female. I suspect this is increasingly true of many children, and is bound to affect their approach to their adult lives.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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