Feminism & children / emotional labour

[screamer1]

Never posted on this board, so I'm sorry if I come across ignorant, or I'll-informed. I'm not entirely sure of my own thought on the following, so I might appear incoherent.

Basically I wanted to canvas your thoughts on how feminism works when you have a child. I've always been ambitious and independent. Had children mid-30s, so was well set up in my career. I've worked part-time since having them which has worked well, in that I want to be with my kids, but it has obviously impacted my career. I'm freelance, so in a way I've managed to do as much work as I would if I was working full-time. However, the work just simply is not of the same quality, and my drive is pretty much non-existent due to the fact that my brain is filled with thoughts about the kids, nursery pick-ups, drops offs, mealtimes, parties, vaccinations, play dates etc.

Meanwhile dp has gone from strength to strength. He pulls his weight, is a really good man, thoughtful etc. But the pure fact is that I'm the one who's suffered career wise. Maybe it's just a case of having to come to terms with the fact that I chose to go freelance / part time, but I've started feeling slightly resentful. Not particularly at him, but almost at me / the system. It seems that biologically, women are programmed to want to be with their kids. As a result everything else in their lives takes a bit of a hit. I understand that many women are very happy and fulfilled to be sahms, and that is absolutely not at odds with being a feminist. But how does it work if you want to work and have a child and be a feminist?

I hope I've made sense!

Wow. I could have written your post (except not as articulately), OP. I reflect on this EVERY DAY normally when I am wiping a counter, thinking about what my son needs to eat this week, reorganising his clothes, booking his flu jab or taking his library books back and also trying to be ‘the professional’ and ‘creative’. Love Bumpity’s response. I also had a shock at how much I just knew I wanted to let go of certain things to focus on my baby when he arrived.

I wouldn't slam you at all for that view midgebabe you have stated a completely valid view.

When I was breastfeeding my husband then (without crazy hours working) would bring me the baby for feeding - he would do the nappy changing and the washing etc - there was a lot he could do.

Sorry but they work got in the way I did say more than him around the house - massively more

@whazzer
Please don't give yourself a hard time over your time as a SAHM. It sounds like you have given it your all and you bravely recognise that maybe you aren't suited to the role. There is absolutely no shame in this and your love for your son is tangible in all your posts. I hope this doesn't come across as patronising!

@MIdgebabe
I absolutely agree that men can form an extremely strong emotional attachment to a baby/child and I would never diminish that. I am aware that my rants may suggest that I've had a bad experience with the father of my DC, but I have actually had had the opposite and I know my DH would do absolutely anything for his children and is extremely well bonded to them. I would say however, that the initial biological process of carrying and birthing a baby does tend to mean women will bond deeply with their babies more quickly. It is extremely rare for a new mother to abandon her baby but reasonably common for new fathers to walk away. I honestly don't believe that this is simply social conditioning at work but something more powerful, nature. I think this is also a primary factor as to why women are more likely to want to be the primary carer for their children. I think this incredibly inconvenient if we are to achieve equality on men's terms without changing the rules of the game but it is my honest, genuinely held belief.

I think that’s violent agreement then! Nothing simple black and white, which is why it is interesting .

Hmm. I did not feel any strong biological urge to prioritise being with my child above all else - I should point out we bonded deeply pretty much instantly, and I feel a very strong emotional connection and want to spend plenty of time with him. But as long as his dad was looking after him, I didn't really feel that I needed to be there 24/7 tbh, just to know that he is safe and happy and I'll see him soon, and I feel I benefit mentally from having time away.

His father on the other hand was seemingly incapable of taking a day off while DS was in nursery - he would take a couple of days leave to "sort the house out" and then end up not taking DS to nursery because he felt too guilty about leaving him there when he could be with a parent. He obviously feels tremendous guilt that DS spends any time in holiday club (but has conceded reluctantly that he really really enjoys it).

I agree with Bumpity's description of two dynamics going on, but I don't think 1) is necessarily biologically driven:

1. Women choosing to go down to PT/be SAHPs because they think it's in the best interests of their child and are more likely to prioritise this over their own careers. Because I think this is biologically driven (controversial I know) then I think society should be restructured to facilitate this with as little possible impact to that woman's career as possible.
2. Women not actively choosing to be the primary carer but becoming this be default. This can be either because the father simply won't step up or it's impractical for them to do for financial reasons. This one is more about socialisation as well as other factors such as women tending to marry older men who have more established careers and therefore earn more.

DP was clearly very "Type 1" driven. I am wary of saying "biological" because often this is used as a get-out - "oh but it's destiny we shouldn't change that" but also as a club to beat women with - wanting anything different is by definition then unnatural (not that anyone on this thread has said that, but I think it makes discussion harder if we're using a word that other people use in that way, if you see what I mean?).

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether it is biological or social - Type 1 driven parents have a strong urge/vision for how they want to parent, and fulfilling that urge with our current societal setup comes with penalties.

I think that structurally, if DP had been female and I male, that our different reactions to parenting would have pushed us towards SAHP/WOHP instead of our relatively equitable current setup. Type 2 would have kicked in and maximised the distance between our approaches.

I think that would have been a little sad for us both - DP prioritises DS above career, but he obviously benefits mentally from the social & intellectual challenges of his job and I don't think he'd find that balance as easy as a SAHP. And I would be sad to have less time for DS due to being sole earner.

I even get annoyed that all school emails are sent to me automatically from the start, not her father. Especially fundraising ones! Huh? I work too, why does everything come to me?!

When you signed the kid up for school, somewhere on a form they asked for a contact email address and you gave them yours. Maybe switch off from time to time and have dad be responsible for all that. I remember a man saying he had no idea how time consuming everything was until it was his email that was given and he was responsible for school lunches, drop-offs, permission slips, etc etc.

Here's an observation without really a helpful piece of advice:

A lot of feminist women insist on believing that their husbands are special, kind, and unusually unsexist. They have to, in order to love them and live with them and cooperate with them. They pretend that their husbands do more at home than they do; they rationalise the "decisions" that they have made "jointly" which I suspect are, from their husbands POVs, simply unexamined defaults to a sexist status quo ("oh it made more sense for me to do it because....." torturous explanation ensues. If I asked the guy "why does your wife do this and not you?" I bet you a million quid he would just look at me blankly and say "well, of course the mum does that"); they accept all sorts of low level insulting behaviour from their husbands and say "oh well he didn't mean it like that". This sort of behaviour builds up the more they SAH and the less they WOH relative to their husbands and the denial, and the effort to maintain the denial builds.

What this means is that the woman is always denigrating her own efforts. She is actually doing far more than she will even admit to herself as that would involve admitting how little her husband does. As a result, she can't understand why she can never get ahead. She thinks she is failing, or certainly not excelling. She doesn't know where her energy or her brain power has gone. She gradually internalises the belittling sense that she is getting from her husband that she simply isn't very good.

Watch out for that. It is literally depressing.

I don't know what the answer is because I went from being that woman to being single and badass. How you get to be with a man AND get him to step up AND have the head space and the self respect and the bodily energy to be badass - I have no idea. but watch out that in protecting your relationship you don't throw yourself under the bus.

@cucumbergin
Interesting post, you have made me think...

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether it is biological or social - Type 1 driven parents have a strong urge/vision for how they want to parent, and fulfilling that urge with our current societal setup comes with penalties
I think it is important to understand if the drive for women to be the primary carer is biological as fulfilling this role is detrimental to women as things stand. If you identify why there is a discrepancy between men and women in this area then you can start to work on an effective remedy. If it's all about socialisation and societal expectations then you would look to break them, whereas if it's a biological difference between the sexes then society should change to better accommodate this inate difference.

I know male "type 1s" exist and to a certain extent would suggest my own DH is also one. I also know that there are women that are absolutely not "type 1s" and just don't have the overwhelming urge to prioritise their children. I do think however that biology does explain why at least in the first few years of a child's life in particular there are more female types 1s than male. I think hormones play a huge factor and just the experience of being pregnant/giving birth.

I think it should be fine to say because of this biology women are more likely to want to become the primary carer in the early years. They are more likely to carry the mental load for their child, worry about their welfare and want to avoid things they perceive to be damaging to their child such as overly long hours in childcare (not criticising childcare here). This does not mean all women must feel this way, that women that do feel like this are superior mothers or we should expect all women to do this

I know people have fears that it's a slippery slope argument that will ultimately be used by men and society at large to explain why women can never be equal to men but I don't see it that way. I think if the different biology and experiences of men and women tend to shape our choices then we should acknowledge this so it can be recognised and accommodated. Difference is absolutely not the same as inferiority or weakness.

Also (sorry for the ramble) if society was restructured then I think it would stop type 1 situations automatically morphing into type 2 situations as women would be better supported to get back to FT hours/work once the early years had passed. I think at the moment that type 1s that make any career sacrifice for their kids do tend to lose too much ground to their partner to avoid a type 2 scenario kicking in. This shouldn't be inevitable.

I'm not sure I'd necessarily want to break the socialisation that creates type 1s (if it is socialisation, rather than biology or a mix). I might instead wonder if we should try socialising everyone that way instead of just the service class? I would certainly agree that working to restructure things so that type 1 parents had an easier transition back once the super-intense early days were over would benefit society regardless.

It occurs to me (I haven't thought about it like this before) that initially, DP seemed to want me to supply that type 1 attention. I suspect, that if he had been in a relationship with another type 1 driven parent, that he would probably have ended up still reasonably hands on, but less so as he would have been able to sublimate some of that urge by knowing someone else was providing it. Which makes me wonder whether that Type 1 drive is actually less common in men, or whether they just tend to express it differently due to socialisation, expecting someone else to do the heavy lifting? (Am I trying to have my cake and eat it with this argument? )

@cucumbergin
I'm not sure I'd necessarily want to break the socialisation that creates type 1s (if it is socialisation, rather than biology or a mix). I might instead wonder if we should try socialising everyone that way instead of just the service class?
Oh absolutely, I articulated my thoughts really badly but basically I agree with you on this.

It occurs to me (I haven't thought about it like this before) that initially, DP seemed to want me to supply that type 1 attention. I suspect, that if he had been in a relationship with another type 1 driven parent, that he would probably have ended up still reasonably hands on, but less so as he would have been able to sublimate some of that urge by knowing someone else was providing it. Which makes me wonder whether that Type 1 drive is actually less common in men, or whether they just tend to express it differently due to socialisation, expecting someone else to do the heavy lifting?
Interesting, definitely possible. Could it be that it's a mix of socialisation and biology that means that women tend to be the ones that bond the quickest and strongest initially whereas men tend to lag behind with this as they don't have the advantage of being pregnant/birth, hormones or the societal pressure to bond instantly. I do think generally (big generalisation) men tend to develop this kind of bond slightly later on. We then get into the situation where the mother is fulfilling the type 1 role to the extent that the father can continue to focus on his career, happy in the knowledge that his partner is focussed on their child. Even if he is a type 1 parent, he is rarely confronted with the situation where he needs to cut down his working hours or become a SAHP to meet the perceived needs of his child as someone else is already doing it.

This then becomes an expectation and it's all too easy to fall into a type 2 scenario once the child is older and both parents have developed a similar bond.

I believe that a new mother's desire to be with her children is biologically driven and I really don't agree with the whole socialisation argument.

In which case I've got something missing, Bumpity. I experienced no such longing. My career was always central to me. I loved it and earned much more than DH. With DC1 I went back to full time working after four months on maternity leave.

My experiences at work after returning from maternity leave reawakened my feminism. I was eventually forced out of my job.

By the time I had DC2 I had my own business. I worked full time until a week before my planned C-section and went back less than two months later. It would have been sooner but I was lucky to have him just before the predictable summer lull in business.

I was lucky to have a brilliant childminder. The boys were either with her or my DH - safe and loved. I never had a moment's anxiety.

I love babies but I couldn't look after one 24/7. I'd die of boredom. If I'd breastfed I might have felt differently (though I doubt it) but it didn't work out for either baby.

I'm missing the guilt gene too. Never felt an atom of guilt. I was working for all of us, and by the time my younger DC was 3 my DH was able to give up work to become a SAHF. We both felt very proud of that.

I'm lucky to have a friendship group of women who have taken a wide variety of paths - SAHM, part time, full time. We don't judge each other. They mean a lot to me.

yeahcorvid your post resonates with me a lot. Recently separated from H, definitely used to think he was a good one and got it, it's now apparent he wasn't and I flogged my guts out trying to keep everything together

When you signed the kid up for school, somewhere on a form they asked for a contact email address and you gave them yours

Actually no, we were asked for parents contact details and gave both. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for schools, including and especially their parents groups, to send emails to both parents or carers. This should be the norm in my view.

@Prawnofthepatriarchy
Just because I think that this urge is driven by biology doesn't mean that I think that it effects every woman universally in the same way. I think it's common for women to prioritise their child over all else including their careersnf they are compelled to do so at least initially by biology but this absolutely doesn't mean that a woman that chooses a different approach is "missing something".

It's like some women get PMS/T, some are compelled to breastfeed, some get PND, some have terrible side effects from the menopause... I believe all these things are driven by biology, but not all women will have the same experience. If I don't get PMS, it doesn't make me any less of a woman nor if I manage to avoid PND. How our biology interacts with our body and our mind is complex, but I think to deny any relationship exists isn't right even if you personally didn't share the same experience as another woman.

Sorry for grammar in above

Such an interesting discussion. You’re all helping me organise my own thoughts on this issue.

@YeahCorvid I agree with you on this.

My own DP didn’t want our children in full time childcare any more than I did. However, there was no offering himself up as the sacrificial lamb. But I’m still not sure if that’s because it was so evident that I wanted to take that role. There was certainly no discussion on the matter.

It seems that to achieve parity there needs to be an equal value placed on caring roles (as mentioned up thread), which would in turn create easier transitions when returning to work etc. It would be interesting to see whether in itself that change would make fathers more likely to step into the childcare role more willingly. Or whether women would still do the bulk, but that they would then find it easier to return to work once their child was of school age. I suspect it might be the later.

I'd add to the other points OP, speaking of more recognition of caring roles, that if you're not married it would be sensible to consider doing it. This is so that in the event of a split, your reduction in earnings in order to take on more of the caring responsibilities can potentially be recognised in any asset split. There's not enough structural protection for women doing what women tend to end up doing, but there is this, and unless you've substantially more assets than DP it's worth seriously considering.

There's not enough structural protection for women doing what women tend to end up doing
There's a reason for that. It benefits men for women caring for their children to be dissuaded from separating

In which case, women caring for children whilst reducing their own earnings and not being married is even better for men. A married woman who has some possibility of her efforts being recognised in a divorce settlement is less likely to be dissuaded from separating for financial reasons than that same woman would be if unmarried.

“I always presumed that the maternal instinct of having carried a baby for 9 months drives a level of care/responsibility/ guilt”

I think this varies person to person. I personally experienced this responsibility guilt as a socialized response. That is the existence of the social concept of “mother” made me feel I should want to be home, and the fact I would rather be working and leave childcare/diapers to the experts made me feel guilty - like I was an unfit mother etc.

Not possible to “prove” nature vs nurture for feelings though.