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?

tut!

i'm a sahm and haven't chosen to take offense to this thread.

it's a woman saying what an equal society would look like to her or in her ideal. i didn't read her as wanting to prescribe it to everyone or meaning to put down anyone or their choices.

i guess the middle ground is that it would be nice if such a way was seen as the norm and achievable for everyone if they wanted it that way. of course people could choose other models but all too often currently financial survival relies automatically on women not working or working part time and a man earning full time and the domestic labour falling mainly to women not because all women choose that but they find themselves funneled along into that as the 'norm'. if the norm was to share it all other choices could still be made as positive, that's what we want, choices of course but those choices would be more meaningful rather than default effects of having children.

did that make sense? bit of a jumbled long paragraph sorry.

In a relationship where both the man and woman believe everything is property of the joined union and treat each other with the highest respect, equality can be achieved even with one partner being a SAHP. This is because the WOHP recognises the contribution of the other (in fact I think it works best when both partners think the other partner is contributing more than they are IYSWIM).

For those lucky enough to be in that position, they must wonder what all the fuss is about, but sadly I don't think most relationships are like that. Indeed, given that 1 in 2 relationships fail (cohabiting and married included together), it would seem that they definitely aren't.

I think the fact that childcare is considered the woman's problem in so many cases could be counteracted in the way society deals with single parents. Start charging non-resident parents for half the childcare costs the resident parent incurs and you make a strong political statement about childcare being both parents responsibility. It would trickle through into relationships where the parents are still together.

Regarding housework, I just don't know what the solution is. Women are socialised from birth to believe that this is still their domain far more than it is men's, and men are still considered to 'help' rather than 'do their fair share'. Yet my 5-year-old DS manages to put his dirty clothes in the laundry basket and take his cup through to the sink, so I have no truck that men don't see dirt etc. I think men have to decide to change and stop making adverts that normalise the sexism in domestic labour. That will achieve far more than women refusing to do it (unless they do it en masse, which lets face it is unlikely precisely because of the normalisation I describe above), but how we can get a situation where they choose to do that I don't know.

Sunshine, I agree in the ideal world adverts would change but I dont think that will happen. The best chance I see for women is for them to stop picking up the dirty washing. I think feminist theory is correct to put the emphasis on men, but I want women to benefit from real change in the here and now.

We shouldn't have to be the drivers for change, but I think we need to take courage and be the drivers for change. I make sure I dont take responsibility for more than my fairshare at home. It does sometimes involve a small amount of social embarassment when e.g. Dp forgets his brothers birthday, but it passes.

Without wishing to be inflammatory, if. you see it from your dcs view, they are spending most of their time being looked after by women whilst in childcare regardless of what gender balance is going on at home. It doesn't make it equality when you employ other women to do the domestic work you can not do. I find it weird when women beat their equality drum and replace their domestic other female workers. Forgive me if that is not really the point of this thread though. I find that at home my dp does a lot of stuff but it is the fixing and mending, the loft, the lightbulbs and a lot of extras so although I hate my jobs, it is a fair trade off and it works.

Well, it's not if there's much choice that you can go and pick and choose whether your childcare is done by men or women (and I'd rather they're being employed on merit and not because they've got the right set of genitals).

That said, there's one male nurse in my daughter's preschool, and I m glad about that.

My DC has a male key worker at nursery. The other 2 workers in the baby room are female. I was really pleased he would still be getting a male influence whilst in childcare, as was DH

i have those low energy, long life lightbulbs and i've never been in my loft so it wouldn't be a fair trade off for me jif

agreed if you only get female workers to do your households domestic work and your partner does none of it then your children would still only be seeing women doing domestic work. that's not the idea though is it of this thread which is saying that the OP would like to see both doing both and screw the whole gender divided labour.

see if the OP's model was the norm and then outside of that norm there was a roughly equal division of male and females who chose sahp you'd still lose the 'gender' malarchy. though yes we'd need to up get to a 50/50 m/f balance in childcare work too.

it's the auto-dividing along the lines of gender and the inequal value attributed to private and public sphere work that is the issue for feminism historically rather than the idea that there should be no division.

i felt the definite need to stay at home with my son when he was little however if i had another child, with a partner who i trusted and was great with the baby and pulled his weight at home i would really like the OPs model. i'd still see loads of my child and i wouldn't be needing to leave it in childcare for long hours or be too busy stressed myself from running around making childcare times to enjoy my time with my baby, i'd still be getting two days in the week alone with them and all weekend with them and my partner but i'd also have some adult 'out there' time a few days a week.

it's easy to say a sahp can have lots of interests and do OU and volunteer but the reality is you're at home with your baby all day - you can't take children volunteering, most adults are out at work bar other mums with their children (which isn't really the same as adult time is it? mixing with other mothers and their children?), you don't have any substantial time to yourself and by the evening you're generally tired and ready for the sofa and presumably wanting to spend time with your partner who you haven't see all day.

and it sounds like the reality for most sahms is that come the weekend they're still entangled in being the main 'do-er' at home whilst facilitating their partner getting some 'quality time' with his children or let's face it some of the women on this forum have husbands who bugger off out with their mates for much of the weekend.

i think many women who are stay at home parents would actually like to work a few days if they could find a job they liked, if their children were going to be looked after by a partner during that time and they weren't going to have to find a way to afford childcare in order to work, and if they'd come home to happy kids and a clean, sorted household.

as in, sahp isn't really a 'free' choice for most people - it's a choice made in the context of the alternative - rushing around fitting in with nursery times, leaving their children long hours in childcare, having to fork out a fortune in childcare fees, still having all the domestic work and dinner to cook etc when they finally do get home, ending up doing two jobs - work and home.

some do positively choose it some make a non-choice to do it because the alternative is too hard/expensive/exhausting etc.

You do have a choice -you don't have to have DCs.
Life is never the same again afterwards.
You can both have a high flying career and work all hours if you farm out the childcare completely. Most people wouldn't want a nanny to see more of their DC than them. If you don't want this, or can't afford it, one parent has to be the one available in emergencies working sensible hours etc.
People need to sort it out first-more and more men are becoming the sahp-it is up to the couple. If you are going to be resentful and bored then don't have DCs.
If you both work the same and prefer to farm out then both should be doing housework, cooking etc-another thing to sort out first.
People drift into it without discussion. In our case it was simple-I found bringing up DCs the best thing I have ever done.

the choice isn't be a sahp or don't have children. people are more creative than that. especially if they had equality in a real sense then they could really make creative choices.

the op is suggesting a perfectly sensible way that avoids exactly what you're saying is the dichotomy of, as you insensitively imo put it, 'farming them out' or staying home.

what on earth would be wrong with sharing both the work and the childcare?

it's fine that you wanted to be a sahm and you love it. you don't have to justify that by that putting down the alternative you know? imo sahm is a valid choice in and of itself not through justify itself by slagging off the alternative and thereby the women who do the alternative.

and lets face it wohm isn't a 'free' choice for everyone either.

most women don't make real choices about these paths, they do what seems to be the most logical or economically salient thing in their circumstances.

"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."

I would like to see a society where this is possible in the workplace, but personally I adored the years I spend at home with my DC.Also, not everybody earns an equal amount so it often makes financial sense for one person to work full time.

Personally I have never felt trapped or financially dependent on my DP - I have full access to his earnings. My independence has only been sacrificed in that that you never come first once you have children, they do. Such is the life of a decent parent.

I think the problem is that people change during their lives. When I had DS all I wanted to do was to be with him and I resented having to work full time as it was time away from him.

The problem is, children don't stay children forever and eventually you are in a position where you want to get back to work but have lost experience and time. That's why I think the part time model is a good one because it enables women (and all parents) to keep their hand in their career. The problem is it depends on the company and isn't really part of our culture yet.

It's a waste of talent also, which no one really seems to notice.

You may not feel financially dependent on your DH but if he is the only income earner then the fact it you are. Being financially dependent on someone does not mean you have to ask them for money or get a housekeeping allowance. It simply means you depend on someone else income to pay the mortgage, bills, etc. It's a fact not a judgement.

I tend to think that more parents would choose to let work take a lesser role (or even stop it altogether for the early years) if it weren't for the fact that this often means career suicide. It is wrong that so often the person who becomes a SAHP for say years ends up setting back his or her career (usually hers) for a much longer period than those five years, and sometimes indefinitely. If that changed, I think more people of both sexes would be inclined to SAH a bit more.

Likewise, if we introduced flexible working as standard across all fields where it is practicable, and we ended the culture where part-time also = career suicide, I think we'd see a lot more equality.

The biggest thing that needs to change though is paternity leave.

Unlike most people, I don't see a problem with having more female primary carers than men. I personally believe that not enough respect is paid to the fact that only women gestate, labour and breastfeed and that these often have as much influence as any financial one over the decision of who is primary carer. Undoubtedly in a world where men and women earned equally and sexism was dead we'd see much more men in this role, but I still think that during the early years this will be dominated by women. But what should change is the negative effect this has on the rest of the woman's life in all too many cases. We all have much longer relationships with our adult children than we ever do with them as children, so why should women still be paying for a decision they made when their child was born when their child is celebrating his or her 30th birthday? Because that's the reality quite often now and that's due to the male-dominated structure of the workplace.

Paternity leave really does need to change - as do workplace attitudes to career breaks and part time working. I do agree though that even if everything changed to a utopian ideal allowing total equality in bringing up children, the simple fact that only women can breast feed would probably mean it was still more common for women to be the primary carers than men.

It would be lovely if there was more real choice though.

All this talk about part time working is well intended, but what about the practicalities? Can you have somebody managing a strategic account, but only be available 3 days a week? Likewise, does it really work when you can contact your boss only 3 days a week and for the rest you're left to your own devices?

I think the important things are indeed paternity leave (I like the German model, where it's completely up to the couple who takes the leave and sharing is incentivised by getting an additional two months paterny pay if one partner is taking at least 2 months of leave and the other the rest)

The other thing is that presenteeism is very damaging as a work culture (no matter whether you have children or not), and I think flexibility through things like telecommuting should be encouraged. Obviously you still need childcare when working from home as a long term thing (not talking about emergencies), because you can't do both at th same time properly.

I agree with sunshineandbooks, it is the way working life is organised, not home life, that is important. Equal leave rights for men are a new thing. Good employers like councils are now made up of more women than men. If this went across the private sector, with penalties for those that don't do flexible working, men wouldn't grow up expecting to work full time, without a break for 50 years when the leave school or college.

How many careers really need the same person available 24/7?

Technology means that a colleague should be instantly able to see what you were last working on, what terms and conditions you have arranged with a client, and any issues that need resolving or are currently being discussed. Anything more practical than that is simply a matter of training and effective handovers (e.g doctors).

Yeah, in theory perfect handovers would be possible and everyone could do everything just by having read the file.
What it leads to though is lack of ownership, people not reading the relevant file before doing something and thereby crocking it up.

But that's just my experience.

I wonder why we don't call men career-dependent on their primary carer partners in the same way we term women financially dependent on men.

The truth is that for many men the financial cost of arranging childcare that would be as flexible and reliable as that provided by their partners would be prohibitive.