Equality at home - Can this really be achieved?

[marga73]

There is an issue I've been wanting to discuss for a long time. It's the issue of equality inside the house.

Even though women now work and are able to gain respectable positions in the workplace, and we can say that some level of equality has been attained, it seems to me that once they have children, women lose more than men in terms of work opportunities and financial independence. And all because the house and the children still seem to be a "woman's job".

It's all great to find women who are happy being the SAHP, but don't these women feel sometimes that being 100% financially dependent on their husbands is frustrating? Doesn't this situation make them feel trapped and powerless? Is it OK for women to sacrifice their independence for the sake of their children and the house keeping?

I work part-time, and have two small children, and still feel trapped sometimes. I'm grateful in many ways that my husband earns enough so we don't have to worry about paying for mortgage, food, childcare etc - and I contribute to this too - but I feel it's far beyond from the ideal I had when I was young and it really annoys me. If I'm honest, it makes me very angry.

I would like a society where men and women work part time, share domestic tasks 50/50, and look after their children part time, and therefore pay for everything on equal terms. Is this too much to ask in the fierce capitalist society we live today? Am I naive to think that should be the case?

would you like to actually make any reasoned point amillionyears?

Xenia, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I don't think your opinion that SAH parenting is anti-feminist and should be destroyed is right. Many parents feel it's important that one of them is home while their children are pre-schoolers, and that's a valid way to feel. Where the problems come in is the set-up we currently have in society where women tend to be the lower earners, career breaks are damaging to long-term prospects and part-timers can be seen as less committed to their jobs then full-timers.

This results in a situation where in most families it's more economically viable for the women to be the one who stays home, as it's preferable to damage the career of the lower earner than the higher earner.

So what we need is a shift in attitudes. Part-time and flexible working need to become far more widely accepted, and taken up equally by men and women. The pay gap needs to be eliminated, so that a family can choose who stays home based on what suits them best, rather than by who earns less.

Once the working world sees men and women both working part-time, both earning the same and both taking career breaks to care for young children, then we'll have a truly equal system, where SAH is a viable option for everone, without women being penalised for doing so.

The problem is that it's a catch 22 - one factor in women's pay remaining lower is the career breaks they tend to take, but women will continue to be the ones taking those breaks while they are the ones on lower pay. It will be hard to break the cycle.

Will Rogers: ?We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.?

What gets me si the sexist relationships - where the man just happens to work full time and the woman a pittance part time, where she gets lumbered with dull domestic stuff, makes no pension provision, etc etc,. Leaves herself financially exposed, makes sacrifices which are not equal with her other half. Those are the extreme. Housewife or low earner part timer woman as extreme risk play as it were - very extreme and must be rooted out and destroyed.

This is the whole point-don't get into a sexist relationship-discuss it first.
I don't get a pittance for part time-it pays quite well for the work done. I am not lumbered with anything-and DH does his fair share. I have pension provision. The worst did happen and I was widowed. From that experience finances are worked out so that I am not financially exposed.
Most people never expect the worst and don't plan for it. I know that the worst can happen, you need wills you need guardians sorted, you need insurance etc etc.

I agree that there needs to be more flexible working but the ones who are going to come off best in career stakes are the ones that don't need time off for orthodontist appointments, sports days etc-men or women.

You don't have to earn pots of money to be a success. One of DSs friends is a surf and sailing instructor in Cornwall for the summer and a snow board instructor in French Alps for the winter and he sails competitively. It doesn't pay much.
My DS works for a firm that works very hard Mon to Thurs and then they finish at 2pm on Fridays and all go off mountain biking, rock climbing and other sports for the weekend. Obviously this doesn't earn as much but the job is interesting.

I don't think that people should get into a mindset that a career has to be a high earning one, take up your life and have high status.
It just helps if you have DCs with a like minded partner.

no the extremes for me are the: it's all about the money, money at one end and the it's all about the cupcakes at the other end.

most of us are in the middle somewhere.

In my opinion if you both work FT then you do need to divide the house jobs between you. Male and female roles just dont exist the same way in this sphere.
However if you are the stay at home partner (male or female) then it is your responsibility and your job to keep the home and mind the children - either by paying for help or doing it yourself. This is a fair division of responsibilities, if this is what you choose.
If a partner works PT they need to then sort out a fair division of responsibilities that doesnt involve them doing all the house and children jobs.
Its simple really. I work PT and DH and I worked it out fairly easily.

Can I just add its is not sexist for the partner at home (normally a woman) to be expected to run a home and mind the children. Its a fair division of tasks. If you choose to stay at home, then take some pride in your home and child rearing. I am not talking about baking all day!

I sort of lose the thread of the argument!
I don't want either end.
My point is that bringing up DCs is a partnership and it is up to the individual couple how they arrange it. We all have different ways. There is nothing wrong with any of them if they suit both people in the partnership. If you have resentments you need to sort it out with your partner.
The way that suits us is the traditional way-and there is nothing wrong in it. I have always worked-apart from preschool years. I am not dictating how others should feel or act. Just fighting back at being told what I should be doing as a woman and arguing the fact that not everyone-man or woman -is remotely interested in a high flying career with pots of money and status.

I don't think that a parent at home should be minding children. Minding is what a babysitter does when I go out for the evening with DP and it bears very little relationship indeed to what DP or I do when we are with our children!

but exotic that denies that society has any part at all to play in the choices people make and the limitations upon them.

couples don't exist in a vacuum - the nuclear family is not the centre of the universe and is fed and shaped by the culture around it.

working practices, status and stigma, economic realities etc etc etc play into it. none of it is neutral - it all takes place within a socioeconomic point in history.

I get what swallowedaFly is saying - too often in these debates there is or perceived to be only" one way"- if you WOH -nightmare commute,farming out your children grindingly dull job,earning lots of money or SAH- running around baking cupcakes,doing interesting voluntary work,bringing up your children yourself .
None of the above have ever applied to me whether ive been a SAHM -2 years matleave followed by several years of lucrative - (yes really) partime work or whether Ive been fulltime - short commute,job I love and DH sharing the childcare due to flexible working etc.
There is always a parent at home when the DC are at home fom college/school and I love coming home to a tidy house and dinner cooking as much as DH does.
Neither of us are corporate high fliers but have satisfying,challenging careers- I know lots of couples like this.

Its a turn of phrase Bonsoir - minding, rearing, rearing, nurturing, looking after, taking care of. Is this clearer for you.

not intentional yak - i was pointing out really that it isn't cupcake and that that is just another cliche at one end of the spectrum. it was deliberate if you see what i mean as in the inflammatory way it gets presented.

these caricatures of women's lives do us no favours and don't allow us to discuss things intelligently and without a lot of emotional reactivity and defensiveness.

i'm a sahm and have never baked a cupcake in my life incidentally. mind you my staying at home has been influenced by my health and it is a happy coincidence that i think i would have wanted that with my first child anyway - especially as a lone parent who would have been juggling to the max.

if i was in a relationship, if my health was sorted and i was having a second child i think i'd want something different. something close to what the OP describes would suit me well i think. i wouldn't want to spend another 5 years full time parenting young children.

(nor 5 years working full time and relying entirely on paid childcare)

No, snapsnap, that is not clear because your list of verbs refers to various sorts of way of taking care of children that are not synonymous.

Interesting thread. I agree women defaulting to stay at home whilst men work ridiculous hours to bring home bacon is hardly a decision made in a vacuum though it is a valid choice.

I despair though just how many women on mn state they gave up their work to stay at home rather than their partner because their male partners earn so much more than them. Is this the norm? I've always earned more than dh until recently. Is it the careers women pick in the first place? Because there must be something happening before children that is causing such income disparity.

Bonsoir I really dont know what point you are trying to make, nor do I particularly care. I imagine most posters understood the meaning.

My point was perfectly clear but it is apparent from this and other posts of yours that you don't really have much grasp of what parents do with their children!

Bonsoir. Yes with 2 of my own children I have no idea what parents do all day with their children
You are correct in that I dont know what you do, the same way you don't know what I do with my children all day.

I think you are getting a bit defensive and wound up about the use of a word. I am Irish and 'Mind' is very commonly used in relation to taking care of children, its a turn of phrase.

If you disagree with my other posts well thats fine but I dont question other posters parenting or knowledge of how to parent and I would expect the same in return.

I don't think the nuclear family as self supporting economic unit is desirable at all. It just isn't fair in a million ways:

1. too many men think it is designed to look after them, not the kids, and use it for that (of course, it was designed for them in the first place and I was definitely brought up in a culture where women and children always put the man first; though kids come first more now, far too often the woman always comes last).
2. why should our children's chances be determined so brutally by the earning power of the parents they happened to have?
3. children are the future of everyone in a society, not just their parents
4. it's so so hard financially when you have little children, and you either lose a whole income by giving up work or buy paying someone to look after them (not that childminders are overpaid, far from it) - the cost should be spread, not just over time, but over society (more than it is)
5. women with children (well, all women) should be materially free to avoid abusive men. having one breadwinner, always male, is just a way to allocate women to men to do what they like with.

Some of this is very slightly addressed in economic terms by things like state education, the nhs, tax credits etc, but not nearly enough. I think there should be universal financial support for children (not families - as an ideological position - for children, and to the people who look after them) such that there is no stigma, and no incentive to not work (ie you keep all this if you work) in the following forms:

1. children eat free. Universal free school meals, family cafes which serve meals at which children eat free. (obv you do not have to go to them but you can.)
2. free childcare for older children at the family cafes which have activity rooms and libraries associated with them (so your kids can leave school, have tea, do some homework or play games or sport, till you are ready to pick them up after work)
3. free activities (music lessons, sport etc should all be free, everything that is valuable outside our very narrow curriculum)
4. children travel free: free public transport, kids get free bikes, a national network of proper safe cycle lanes
5. free health care for children. Really free, including dental care, and specs

How could this be paid for? well someone has to pay for all this already. Most children already eat, already travel to school etc. It's just a different model of financing it that leaves no one out and recognises that children need material support and they are the future of everyone.

Also the children themselves can do something towards it. They don't need to sit with their feet up being served in cafes, for instance, they can be a part of the process.

I know to many of you all this will sound silly and I know there is no will to make things like this happen. I admit I am being silly and making things up on the spot. but why? Why is it so silly to try to award the same support and privileges to all children?

Vezzie I agree that in an ideal world every child should be given the same chances and that a childs potential should be valued more.

However, I dont think everything is achievable but homework clubs along with after school activities, particularly languages and music/team sports would go some way towards giving deprived children chances and opening up the world to them.

snapsnap - I am well acquainted with the Irish use of "minding children" and it doesn't describe what modern parents do when encouraging the development to full maturity and potential of their children. That frame of reference is certainly not one that is going to be useful when talking about equality between the sexes within the home.

Bonsoir you are being exceptionally defensive here, the language is in no way inflammatory and nor is my post. If you feel so secure about your position within the home, then why the need to be so adament when justifying it.
I am totally comfortable with my role within our family unit, and I don't think any person or forum can diminish it.

Whether you have equality in the home is based on how 2 people (married or unmarried, male or female) decide to divide up the daily tasks that involve working outside and inside the home. If both parties feel valued and believe that the arrangement is fair, then you have equality.

From reading this some posters feel that housework and minding taking care of/nurturing children is deemed to be low value, womens work. Not in my house its not and that is because I married a man who did not view my role in that way.