To feel sad some women are forced to go back to work

Everyone is saying "women have always worked!!" but as you correctly say, this would usually be extra money for the household supplementing a man's wage, or a subsistence income for a widow etc - I am pushing back against the idea that in the past, on a large scale, women were working long hour career-type jobs and leaving their babies elsewhere for the entire day. I'm speaking of pre-industrial revolution periods especially, and to some extent until the mid-20th century.

Do we have agreement there?

(When I talk about piecework style jobs for myself I am thinking more of independent consulting, report writing, analysis in my field etc which is an option I'm pursuing for myself especially after baby #2; I'm definitely not quitting my job to take in ironing as I cannot afford it. Any woman would attest that this kind of work is much harder to find/create than the default 5 days a week office job though. I think the next gen of feminists should start with "mothers should not be away from their babies for long periods" as a starting premise rather than confidently stating women can just "slot in" to existing male-pattern workplaces and career paths because we are just dickless men.)

@IcedPurple

Do you really think this 'piecework' you so covet would have earned anything more than subsistence money? And that it wouldn't have been extremely precarious, with no benefits, no sick pay, no possibility of promotion and all the other rights we take for granted?

Exactly.

FYI I have a M-F City job and my baby is in formal nursery 4 days a week, so this is not me passing judgement on others; I wish I didn't have to do this, I wish I had more options for pre-IR "piecework" style work that would be more suited to this stage of my life. I don't think I'm an outlier in this respect.

Do you really think this 'piecework' you so covet would have earned anything more than subsistence money? And that it wouldn't have been extremely precarious, with no benefits, no sick pay, no possibility of promotion and all the other rights we take for granted?

If you're so desperate for such an existence, why not give up your high paying job and find some zero hour job that will give you more flexibility? Or downsize your life so that you can afford not to work?

You have options
you have options to live a much more basic life
perhaps earning some money on evening shift after your hsband works a day shift
in a smaller house somewhere less desirable with just the basics of life
but you don’t choose that minimalistic life

Women have always worked.

I think it's an indictment on our culture that so many women spend very long stretches of time away from their young children in the course of said work, which is indeed an historical aberration.

I disagree with using binary "worked" vs "didn't work" in attempting to answer this question because critically, many of the types of work that women used to do were a) either in the home or in a setting where they could bring young children, and b) could be set down or paused to attend to a child's needs immediately. This is absolutely not comparable to the average office job with scheduled Zoom meetings etc.

I think it is sad and heartbreaking that our babies are separated from us, their mothers, at a young age, and that we think this is normal.

FYI I have a M-F City job and my baby is in formal nursery 4 days a week, so this is not me passing judgement on others; I wish I didn't have to do this, I wish I had more options for pre-IR "piecework" style work that would be more suited to this stage of my life. I don't think I'm an outlier in this respect.

I agree it's true that mothers in the past did more working with the children around. My mother worked full time in the early 80s and I spent many school holidays in her office entertaining myself.

However.. was that a good thing? There was a lot of low level neglect going on. I certainly was kinda miserable sitting there for weeks at a time, I would have been delighted to be in childcare instead

I was born on 1973 and my brother in 1976. Mum worked in the evenings as an office cleaner because it fitted around school hours and my dad's work. Later on, she worked Saturdays in various shops and libraries. She is a very clever woman but put us first and took whatever job gave her the right hours. There was no maternity pay and money was tight. It wasn't a golden age. Women today are lucky to be able to hang onto their career, get maternity leave and rights, pensions and subsidised childcare. They can also keep more independence than my mum enjoyed.

It’s fairly good advice tbf 😂

lol. I might use that quote for my tombstone one day!

actually. No I didn’t say that everyone should be in paid employment. I gave my opinion and stated my reasons why I went back to work.

it does seem a bit odd that you’ve posted on AIBU then just disagreed with everyone who has a different opinion than you.

@OneAmberFinch

I also don't really get why you wouldn't acknowledge that women with very young children have almost always been at least partially supported by and therefore dependent on men; you might argue that this isn't a model you want to return to, but it's quite odd to try to rewrite history to make all the women into fully financially independent girlbosses.

No one is doing anything of the sort. People are pointing out that the era that is held up as a template for ideal parenting is actually a historical and demographic anomaly.

The central thesis of this thread is that its “sad” and “heartbreaking” that women are likely to have to work, which posits the idea that its some aberration from the norm. When it turns out the norm has historically been that more women have worked than not.

Oh and this “girlboss” phrase can get in the bin. So condescending and disrespectful.

Yeah, this is my objection to the "all women worked! most for money!" talking point.

A part time school hours job or taking in some ironing to do in the evenings is just not comparable in terms of time spent away from children.

Monday to Friday full time including a commute for mothers of young children is historically weird.

Every wide scale historical example I am familiar with involves either very part time work (scaling up as children grew up) or a job where you can have your children with you as you work.

I also don't really get why you wouldn't acknowledge that women with very young children have almost always been at least partially supported by and therefore dependent on men; you might argue that this isn't a model you want to return to, but it's quite odd to try to rewrite history to make all the women into fully financially independent girlbosses.

Also tbh it wasn’t always true that a single salary covered the entire family. And when it did it often covered the bare minimum with nothing left over.

Pointing out that women had significantly fewer rights in the 1950s than today is not saying the 1950s was 'the most evil and sexist decade ever'. It was worse for women before the 1950s (except perhaps in some ways during the war when women did have more independence and opportunities than before or after). In previous decades, women didn't have the vote. Rape was considered a crime against another man's property, because women were legally and socially not fully human.

What I mean by this is that we could roll things back further than the 50s and things would be even worse. We should really bear in mind how recently some of our rights were won and how fragile they really are. And that should keep us on our guard against people who are trying to argue in favour of regression.

In absolute terms women do absolutely have more choices.

Each individual woman may not have every choice open to her today, her choices will be limited by a huge range of factors including her experience, education level, network, her husband’s income, the quality of their relationship etc. Some women have to work and some can’t work.

But the theoretical range of choices open is much larger. Until the 1970s it was legal to exclude a person from consideration for a job based on their sex.

And how many of the 48% had primary age kids?

I wonder how many of the 48% worked only part time?

Yes, but from experience, I don’t imagine that the figure for primary age children was that high, especially pre-school children. And even then many would have been part-time.

I believe the number of mothers who went back full-time when their child was a baby was very tiny.

Even those that do work, many are part-time.

The idea that all mothers work/worked full-time from when their children were babies apart from a brief period in the 1950s (apparently the most evil and sexist decade in history) is absurdly wrong.

@PeloMom They don't have more choices. now that one salary is usually often not enough like it used to be.

I’m glad today’s women have more choices than in the olden days. They can chose:

• to have a career and go back to work if / when they wish
• a supportive partner who can provide for the whole family and the woman can chose to stay home or not
• anything in between

@Bluelilacbella

According to these statistics more than half (52%) of women did NOT work in the 1970s

Sure, but its still close to half working. The received wisdom on some of these threads is that we have an unusually high percentage of women working.

But it turns out even in the backwards 70s (the decade time forgot) nearly half of women worked.