Motherhood and equality, what does Eutopia look like?

You WOH, you WIH (money earning defines work?) or you SAH... just the language... it’s a bar in the cage IMO.

(I understand why it is genuinely radical to believe no woman should ever care for her own children though)

Majority of women have limited choices to choose in the first place TBH

Some women choose SAH because of compliance with particular patriarchal standards, some because of values related to child rearing (as with waged work). No woman, working, child rearing or anything else chooses to be considered lower status or to operate within a world that considers them to be so, even if their choices and values are shaped by patriarchal ideas.

Lack of intellectual stimulation and feelings of contribution and therefore value I think are the crux for many women. I don’t think these things are inherently attached to child rearing... even the name ‘SAH’ I have difficulty with because it is so explicitly complicit with sexist thinking. I think these things being attached to child rearing and enforced on women who are child rearing are largely artificially constructed or the consequences of other constructions.

I think to some extent in this current system SAHM cannot ever really be a freely made choice because it comes along with so much baggage that women don’t discover until too late.

That is not to say that no woman should ever care for her own children which is something I have found to be prevalent thinking in women’s groups.

I tend to think more about why SAHM is so hard, how it is hard and whether each element of difficulty is inherently hard or artificially constructed to be so, which parts of the construction achieve things which may be of value to society and which are really about perpetuation of patriarchal capitalism...

We also agreed all this stuff. It still didn’t quite work as we planned

It’s been very hard to stick to mainly because of external expectations. It is very, very easy to slip into a housewife dynamic on maternity leave and then carry it on as a default when actually you want to work.

(Of course if sahm is your choice and freely made that’s up to you.)

My dad explicitly says he felt he needed to do that because his anxieties about filling the masculine role adequately were increased by the responsibility of having children.

Yes, I've had this talk with DP before - that he feels pressure to bring home the bacon, and that's why he works so hard, and me pointing out, that him being out all hours like that, actively prevents me from doing my own work to take off that pressure! We've gone an unusual route I think - we're working like demons for the next couple of years, we've chased jobs by moving around a lot, working all hours etc. BUT that means we'll be in a position to semi retire after that couple of years - and have all the time in the world with the kids.

I.e. it is not easy to change for individuals, it requires structural change.

My dad explicitly says he felt he needed to do that because his anxieties about filling the masculine role adequately were increased by the responsibility of having children.

From that I have drawn that people can only think themselves out of socialisation/cultural expectations around gendered roles to a certain extent and the hugeness of having children in many ways is a watershed moment for men as well as women in this system.

Yy, I don’t specifically mean this WILL happen with YOUR DH.

I’m clumsily trying to make the point that women shouldn’t be dependent on agreements made with men prior to PG.

Men have to choose between integrity in relationships with women (and children) and integrity towards the values of partriarchy. There are consequences for them there even though they are not as fundamental as the consequences are for women.

Offred this was not a decision made based around having children, it was discussed before we were even married let alone pregnant, not everything in life is about kids.

I really don't think the problem will be convincing DH to go through with his plan to work less hours, convincing his employer to let him will be the challenge.

And I’m not necessarily blaming individual men for the entirety of that. Men who are generally of good character do still exist within patriarchal structures and their actions are affected by them.

What I’m saying is, sadly, women just cannot rely on male partners to follow through on those agreements but are in the unfortunate position of having to because men are the gatekeepers.

Paradoxically despite all that (and having been required to achieve higher grades to get into medical school because she is female) she used to tell me all the time that sexism doesn’t exist anymore.

Eryri - I’m not saying this will happen to you but I believe a lot of women have had discussions with and made agreements with the fathers of their children that, when push comes to shove, the fathers do not honour.

Women suffer the consequences of this and often then children suffer too from the resentment it breeds.

My mother was one such woman who had secured agreement that their entirely equal status in the world of work (both GPs) would continue and that the child rearing would be shared.

What actually happened is that my dad went back full time, obsessively progressed his career, moved to working away in policy for the civil service and my mum became default full time carer for 12 years with other knock on effects.

I'd also say that DH and I have always shared the same belief and plan, that long term we will both go part time with roughly equal hours, I earn more than DH per hour, but he is not proud (is that the right word...I want to put he is not an arsehole) about that, for us it is about a fair contribution of time and energy, so that we can both share the lifestyle we want together.... He is yet to approach his employer about part time hours, we will see how that goes, several of his female colleagues are part time, but DH is the only Male there aside from the company director.... we will see if DH is able to achieve equality in his workplace.

Giving your child over to an abuser - social care says you are doing it wrong, not giving your child over to an abuser - the court says you are doing it wrong.

Going to work - society says you are doing it wrong, not going to work - society says you are doing it wrong.

It is virtually impossible for women to achieve any kind of status in a myriad of ways. That is the point.

Haven't RTFT, I am a new mum in my late 30s, having been childless by circumstance, and single through most of 20s.

For me equality for women and men at work would include the option of flexible working for all regardless of kids, whilst I know the law has changed to move towards this, I don't believe it is the reality in many work places.

I went part time a couple of years before having DD, for a range of reasons, but due to the inflexibility of my employers, my only way to do this was by going on a zero hours contract, with all the risks and lack of rights that comes with that.

I did it because I didn't want to spend the next half of my life feeling exhausted, torn in too many directions, and with all sorts of things on hold waiting for me to retire (adventures, getting a dog, creating an amazing garden etc.). 6 weeks after I quit my permanent positon my DF was diagnosed with a Brain Tumour, aged 68 (retirement age for my age bracket) less than a year later he was dead, this totally validated my decision, not that I needed validation. I am more than happy to live a less materialistic lifestyle, in a smaller house, with a shitter car!

The crazy thing was the reaction of my colleagues... you'd have thought I'd come out to them as a Flat Earther!! Most simply can't get there head around anyone without children going part time, others have been very inquisitive, as if what I have done is a totally new concept to them, and it is been like a game of 20 questions . I think prior to this I was seen by colleagues as being a reasonable high flyer with a good prospect for career progression, and therefore higher pay (which does seem to be at the forefront of a large proportion of my colleagues minds), which maybe meant it was even more of a surprise to some of them.

Surely equality in the work place, would mean women and men being able to choose there own career progression and work life balance, without judgement from others regardless of children.

And who then say ‘family court is sexist because it won’t give me my child 50/50 at the exact times that personally suit me’

On the most basic level this is the massive number of fathers who believe; ‘ok if you want to work you need to earn enough to pay the childcare AND you’d better not let the housework slip’

Because children are a ‘women’s thing’ the only time child rearing becomes visible is when a women is perceived to be ‘doing it wrong’ and lots (but not all) of these value judgements are being made on fairly arbitrary standards regarding what ‘doing it right’ looks like. Some of them are actually in direct opposition with each other and so we are now in the position where patriarchal thinking has now shifted to pushing women into ‘having it all’ which in reality means women doing it all but men being in control of it all and men directly benefitting from women doing it all.

Yes, I agree with you there grumpy. When I announcd I was pregnant I got asked approximately a million times if I would be returning to work part-time. Guess how many times DH got asked that...

This imbalance of expectations is already SO skewed towards women. If there has to be a career hit, it should be smaller by being shared between 2 parents.

I think you can see how important child rearing is in the ACE study tbh.

There have been a number of patriarchal narratives attached to what the findings mean, but to me the main thing it highlights is that how we care for and raise children is of fundamental importance to humanity; to progress, to health, to wellbeing, to functioning, to the economy etc etc