'Womens Work'

[HalloVera]

Why is the traditional 'women's work' no longer considered 'work'? Its not normally done by men (or it would be upgraded very fast!) but is still the lot of women everywhere.

More than ever, it is described as if it were a sort of 'hobby' that people are doing in their spare time and not real work.

Why are single parents on benefits, who look after their own children, not considered to be 'working'? Its incredibly hard work bringing up a family, and considerably cheaper for the government to give income support than pay out huge amounts of subsidised childcare. Especially as few can afford to live on current wages and need topping up anyway.

Looking after your children at home seems to have been downgraded to the same status as 'brushing your teeth' or 'feeding the cat' - something you do when you are not 'working'!

I find this a real insult to women - this brushing aside of all they do, all they have done in the past, and the sacrifices they constantly make for their families to keep them healthy and safe and on the rails.

Or am I missing something?

School-time does give a few hours to do something different if only there were more jobs that went from 10 - 2.00.

Maybe the low value placed on domestic work and home-making is because its portrayed as old-fashioned and anti-feminist and restrictive but it would be amazing to have it positively upheld as a valid and responsible choice - not as mandatory like in the past - but a good choice even if you're only SAHM for a few years.

I don't see how it can be anything other than an important source of support for your family to be a SAHM and so with the role being downgraded, its like downgrading the family - that's crazy when, for most people, family is the most important thing.

I like your post, Keepithidden, - maybe its the Economics - statistics, and the ignorance of those who use and rely on them.

Reading through, there's a lot of support for SAHM in the posts.

Important to note that being SAHM does not have to be forever and does not mean that you can never go out and earn an income again.

Also the posts seem to offer some confirmation that being a SAHM is not seen - by mums at least - as the easy or the lazy option.

Financially, SAHM can save money by being around to cook and do child-care.

Extra benefits are that SAHM support neighbourly communities - especially poor ones - forging friendships locally and reducing crime opportunities by being around during the day, and potentially, SAHM's look after weaker members of their communities (as happens in Benefits Street).

If fewer SAHM's around, all the above benefit has to be provided by the government at huge cost, so SAHM save public money too, possibly.

This is all apart from - in addition to - any SAHM benefits to their DC's.

One of the issues seems to be if you are not a SAHM, who looks after your kids? I know there are families where two parents work part time and split childcare, and families where grandparents have the kids. But for a lot of families equality between the sexes means two working parents and children looked after by underpaid woman in low status childcare job with low status, poor prospects, poverty and insecurity for her own family.

The whole thing only really works with state funded high quality childcare.

Perhaps the real reason we need more men on childcare is to increase the status of childcare and stop treating it like brushing a cat.

In terms of some women going out and collecting water and clearing fields while also looking after kids, that surely isn't the best kind of childcare? Wherever you live in the world, a lot of childcare is about educating children beyond the immediate tasks they see the mother doing - reading, writing, geography etc.

The skills children have to learn if they are going to have a good chance in life are highly complex and require a lot of support outside of school. I don't think we can really characterise good quality childcare as having ypur children present all day while you clear fields etc.

Otherwise we would be saying that it was childcare when 5 year olds worked in coal mines with their parents. Hopefully we now see childcare as an important activity in its own right, not something women should ideally carry out while manuring a field (although many still do).

I don't recognise the 'childcare is an insecure job' description. The nursery my children go to invests in its staff and many of them are graduates (including a couple of trained teachers who much prefer the flexibility that nursery offers them in comparison to working in a state school). The childminders I have spoken to on the school run have become childminders because it fits round their family responsibilities, they are all graduates, and again a lot of them are ex-teachers.

I think any feminist argument against SAHM is that it makes the SAHM financially dependant on another person and their income rather than disapproval of the people who choose to do what we all know involves a lot of drudgery (arts and crafts with my 6 year old this afternoon is great fun, crawling around under the table picking up the half chewed remains of my 18 month olds tea, not so much). And the fact that so many men (who have more choice in this patriarchial society) choose not to become the dependant partner sets off klaxons. DH (who works part time so he can do his share of the childcare) says being literally on his knees for much of the day when we first had DD1 was a real shock to the system, I think a lot of men just don't need to bother to try and overcome that.

I didn't say childcare was an insecure job, nor did anyone else. I don't want to be confrontational at all, but you have something in quotation marks and I'm not sure who you are quoting.

Child care is poorly paid in the UK. For example:

'The report also found that the early years profession has been in a cycle of low pay since the 1970s and childcare staff in other European countries are often significantly better paid. Average annual salaries for early years staff in the UK were between 13,300 and 16,850 in 2012. In Denmark, the average salaries were between 20,350 and 32,800, while in the Netherlands they were between 22,100 and 34,400.'

That is from here: www.employeebenefits.co.uk/childcare-workers-caught-in-low-pay-cycle/101073.article

Low pay of childcare workers is a feminist issue. Being in a low paid job increases insecurity for families because they end up more likely to live in poverty. That is not the same thing as the job itself being insecure.

As for many mothers choosing to become childminders because it suits their own family arrangements, flexibility of a job so that people with caring responsibilities can do it isn't a justification for that role being poorly paid.

'I think any feminist argument against SAHM is that it makes the SAHM financially dependant on another person and their income rather than disapproval of the people who choose to do what we all know involves a lot of drudgery.'

There is no feminist argument against SAHM or WOHM. There are a number o feminist arguments about why both groups are treated unfairly in different ways by wider society.

"Women's work": I think the base thing is that the closer to the core of what we (either individually or as a society) need: food, nappy-changing, primary care, the more it's made to be a dirty word.

Historically, consider this: in devout religious communities, nobody was allowed to 'work' on Sundays. People would walk to church - many individuals expending more effort - because harnessing a horse was considered work. Did these people go hungry on such a day? No. Did babies wallow in their own filth? No. Would an elderly patriarch have not had his needs tended? Fuck no.

And it's like that in general: things that are truly important to us, we can't allow to be important ! Gods forbid.