The Opt-Out Revolution

[Auspicious]

Just FYI, there's a feature in the New York Times Magazine about current trends in the age-old "employment and/or children" thing. The basic premise is "Many high-powered women today don't ever hit the glass ceiling, choosing to leave the workplace for motherhood. Is this the failure of one movement or the beginning of another?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/magazine/26WOMEN.html

AND there's a rebuttal in Salon:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/1 ... index.html

Both articles were . . . interesting. Everyone can form their own opinions, I'm sure. I just post this because this has been a topic of interest on this board in the past, and I thought some people might find these interesting but have missed one or both articles.

(The Times requires you to register and Salon requires you to watch an ad, but both are free and not difficult and don't send spam.)

I read the magazine piece on Sunday and just read the Salon piece. I found both very interesting. It's a pretty big topic to conquer in a magzine article, I think, but I did get something out of it, however narrow Belkin's pool of subjects were.

[houseelf]

Julie,

Thanks so much for sharing this piece. I photocopied this ten times and sent them to many of my girlfriends: some single, some working, some staying at home, some working with their spouse at home. I can't wait to hear their replies.

I do agree with Salon's critique that this is only a quandry for upper socioeconomic classes, but this doesn't undercut the fact that this is an important issue because it ultimately determines who will earn the leadership roles in government, business, and society.

Thanks for sharing.

Kelly

[migirl]

Wow, what a fascinating article (Times article)!! I'm also going to send it on to my girlfriends. The sentiments expressed are identical to those that I struggle with in our decision to have children and start our family. It actually makes me feel better and somewhat validated that others are feeling the same way. Thanks, Julie.

[PrincessFiona]

Julie,

I've just spent the last 1/2 hour reading through the articles....WOW! This is really parallel (spelling??? I must be losing my marbles!!) to a conversation that I had last week with the co-director of Alex's preschool and another couple of moms.

The co-director was asking me if I was still working (which I have been while Alex is in preschool) and if I was going to be working next semester. I explained that I had been offered a contract for next semester and that I had accepted it after negotiating to do all of my duties on off-hours...ie weekends. Since I already have everything setup (website, lab protocols, etc) it will require little extra work.

The co-director was shocked but tried to hide her disappointment. I explained to her that I would still be home with the baby all day long and most evenings...just that I would have to go in one day on the weekend to prep the labs. Nothing. So I said "I know that people feel differently about this topic. I've been a sahm for years and I've also had times where I've been a working mom. I only accepted this job this year to have something for myself outside of mothering...wiping little behinds, cooking, cleaning and supporting my husband and his career. I need something where I can feel a sense of competence and validation for me." I felt badly for having to justify something that would be a commitment of time away from home of something like 3-4 hours a week when Thomas can be home.

She shocked me though by telling me that she had always dreamed of having a family. She has 3 children...1 in college and 2 in high school. Because of the way that she was raised, she vowed that she would make her marriage and family priority #1 and would make sure that she was always at home until the kids were in school (she didn't start working until they were in middle school) and that she would do everything to maintain her marriage and not get a divorce. She told me that money wasn't important to her and that material things...houses, cars, etc...had little value....and that she had dedicated her life to her family....and ended it by saying "I got everything that I wanted...why aren't I happy".

This really stunned me. Several other ladies came into the office and joined the conversation. We stood there for an hour talking about the challenges of motherhood. One mentioned that motherhood is the #1 cause of poverty in women. Another said that sahm's have the highest suicide rate 8O . We discussed the fact that there are these societal ideas about parenting that are so inconsistent... ie the whole "motherhood/fatherhood are the most important job" line fed to us by the govt. and society, while we lose years of paying into social security to stay home, have inadequate medical leave for maternity/paternity etc etc. One of the women brought up the fact that women are our own worst enemies, which I readily agreed with. If you do choose to work then you are kind of ostracized by many of the avid 'my way or the highway sahm's (or sahd's) who ask behind your back why you even bothered having children if you aren't going to raise them. If you work part-time, the sahm's raise their eyebrows and see you as a 'traitor' and the working moms don't take you seriously because you are just dabbling. If you don't work, you are ostracized by the working moms (too dumb to do anything else...). At the end of the day, we as women are our own worst enemies.

I agree with the idea in salon that maybe the reason that women don't rule the world is because we don't want to be. Maybe at the end of the day, those of us who stay our course and keep our toes on the ground realize that it is more important to either be an at-home parent or work in a job that allows us enough flexibility to still be a parent to our children...as opposed to working 120 hours a week to chase the brass ring?? Of course, another reason is that we are so busy tearing each other apart in many aspects of our lives that we just can't make it to the top. I mean, hey...we'd all applaud a strong woman as our next president....but imagine if she had children....the outcry would be unreal...she would probably get more votes from the men than the women....of course, I'm being cynical here.....

kris

[Rapunzel]

I haven't read the Salon critique yet, just the NYTimes article.

I think the NYTimes article is asking questions that are based on incorrect suppositions: "Why don't women run the world?" "Will women who choose to raise children ever be able to 'get back into the race' and run the world."

I believe women DO run the world. And they do so by raising in multitudinous manners their own children. Mothers teach their children to be ambitious or to be content with their "lot in life", to love or to hate those who are different, to obey authority or to question it. Abraham Lincoln was once quoted as saying, "All that I am I owe to my mother." And, thus follows the idea that behind every great man is his mother's teachings.

E.T. Sullivan once wrote, "When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies."

Women DO lead the world. If the mothers of wartorn nations taught their children love and appreciation for their enemies and to forgive and forget past wrongs we would see "Peace on Earth" within a generation. The problem with the NYTimes article is that it's author does exactly what many in our culture and others around the world still do: equate traditionally masculine roles with power. So what that we don't have a female president of the US. Every single male president we have had was primarily influenced by at least one significant figure in their lives: their mother. And so it goes for business leaders, political figures, etc, etc. Employment statistics and job titles and how many underlings one has are an extremely poor indicator of how important and influential a person truly is in the vast expanse of history.

The emotional reasons that mothers choose to raise their children full-time are beside the point in my opinion. The NYTimes article still belittles the power women inherently have because of, yes, biology, by subconsciously basing the story on the supposition that one must have a traditionally masculine (ie non-caregiving) role in society in order to be truly "important".


Now, I will go read the Salon article....

Jennifer

[Rapunzel]

Interestingly I stumbled upon this article today. It does not deal with HOW mothers raise their children - it simply discusses the findings of traits of ALL females who have given birth (well, female rats, and it is extrapolated that all female mammals would be similar ). Oddly enough, traits that are considered "leadership" traits seem to be inherent among those who have simply given birth:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/986137.asp?0bl=-0

Study: Mothers handle stress better

Female rats with offspring calmer and more courageous

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — It may not feel like it for a woman struggling to get her kids off to school just as the microwave explodes and the car gets a flat tire, but females with children are calmer under pressure and deal with adversity better, a U.S. researcher said Tuesday.

NEUROSCIENTIST CRAIG KINSLEY of the University of Richmond does his work with rats, but he said his findings probably apply to other animals and humans as well.
Kinsley found that female rats that have had one or more litters are much less stressed out when provoked than rats without pups. When he examined their brains, he found much less activity in the fear centers of the brains of mother rats.
Writing in the journal Physiology and Behavior, he called the phenomenon “maternal induced neural plasticity.”
In 1999, Kinsley published research showing that pregnancy hormones seemed to nurture brain cells involved in learning and memory. Mother rats did better than their virgin sisters in a rat maze test.
In the new study, Kinsley found that mother rats are not only smarter, but calmer and braver.
“There’s something about pregnancy and subsequent exposure to offspring that create a more adaptive brain, one that’s generally less susceptible to fear and stress,” he said in a statement.....


Anyway, these findings support my opinion that motherhood is, by its very nature, a leadership rolel more important and world-changing than any other job one could hold. But, because it doesn't pay a lot of money and doesn't provide for a great deal of underlings and it doesn't get your name in the paper it isn't considered inherently powerful or influential by our society.

Now I really will go read the Salon article (after the kids are in bed )


Jennifer

[houseelf]

Lunatic,
The devil in me feels that I have to play advocate against the "part-time" option. Which, by the way, is the path that I have currently choosen as I navigate this question in my own life. Even part-time is not without drawbacks. In my heart of hearts part-time represents the best option for me currently but I have to be brutally honest with you because I don't think that part-time is the panacea for the working parents' dilemna. Off the top of my head , here are some drawbacks to this option:

1- a part timer becomes the target of insiduous comments and tactics like, "Oh, you weren't in yesterday so I just took care of this for you." and "I guess that you won't be able to be on this committee because your not available on Mondays"
2- No one gets to the highest echelons (sp?) of a corporation or government by giving up only a small portion of their time and energy. More than likely, a part-timer will always be a worker bee and never a leader.
3- Reduced pay for almost the equivalent amount of work-- As a part-timer you feel less entitled to sick days and other liberties that you took as a full timer (i.e. paying bills at work, chatting at the water cooler, or on ISM as the case may be ). Many part-time jobs simply shrink the hours to do the same amount of work for half the pay and less benefits.
4- Less retirement, 401K, etc. Women are notoriously underfunded for retirement.
5- Part-time quality childcare often is more difficult to find and contract.
6- In our society 50% of marriages end in a divorce. A person who has been out of the workforce for a significant period of time is highly likely to receive some sort of rehabilitative spousal maintenance for a period of a few years. An individual who merely restricts his/her career potential for the sake of the family will experience a massive life time reduction of wages (the mommy track anyone?) and yet this reality is rarely ever factored into a divorce settlement. Typically, 5 years after a divorce a man experiences a standard of living of 130% of that of when he was married while women experience a standard of living of 70% of the standard incurred during the marriage. (I believe that I read this in a recent Minnesota Law and Politics but I don't have an exact pinpoint cite.)
7- A few studies have shown that part-timers are expected to contribute more than their share proportionately to the domestic duties. (Again, don't ask me for a site for this...I believe that I read it in a recent fall issue of Working Mother magazine).

Yet, even with all of this, I have to say that it sure beats the alternatives for me. I spent 7 years of my young life to earn this degree. Whether it is P.C. or not, I would have to say that I am ambitious. (Perhaps another question for another day is why is motherhood and ambition considered mutually exclusive?) Furthermore, I feel like it is my duty to pay my $500+ student loan payment. But I felt frazzled when I worked full-time, and my job isn't nearly as demanding as most in my field. I would say that it wasn't my parenting that suffered, caring for my child is almost a primitive urge. In truth, my marriage suffered because I was conciously or unconciously felt like "Hey, you're the adult and I only have so much to give, you will have to go to the back of the line for my attention and energy." But even beyond the benefit to the marriage, I am personally happier and more balanced. I can enjoy things like reading and jewelry making and an occasional girls' night out without feeling like I'm taking away from the needs of my family.

Alright, is anyone out there sick of me talking about this issue? The work/familty balance issue has been a major theme for me the last few years and I seem to hemorrage (sp?) my emotions about it every time it comes up. Nonetheless, it is refreshing to know that you all are struggling, contemplating, and negotiating the same aspects of your life. It completely validates me.

Getting back to work now.

Kelly

[Rapunzel]

Well, now I have read the Salon article. Here are my thoughts on that critique (my critique of a critique if you will):

Joan Walsh makes the point that the NYTimes article is only observing a trend among rich white women. I agree with her in that the NYTimes article is observing this trend among rich white women with an important shared characteristic: They all live in the most expensive cities in the US. In those US cities the cost of living is such that there is a huge discrepancy between the haves and have-nots. Thus, you have the many struggling families trying to afford basics such as heat and food and you have a handful of rich and priveleged individuals who live in what would be considered middle class standards anywhere else in the nation due to the extreme cost of living in their own city. Therefore these women view themselves as mainstream America when, in fact, they are not. In that manner the NYTimes article was a bit off and the Salon criticism is correct - in a certain light. The faultiness of the Salon article lies in its extrapolation from the NYTimes' incorrect supposition that this cannot be a widespread middle-America trend. I would be interested in facts: Across the US is there, in fact, a trend towards motherhood being viewed actively as a more noble and worthy life-long pursuit?

Another criticism of the Salon editorial is that it's author buys wholesale into the supposition that motherhood is not a powerful life-changing pursuit in its own right. She determines that motherhood is finite and women have to get back to "the real world" eventually and thus must work while mothers in order to not fall behind. She claims that mothers who recognize their own power and importance in the grand scheme of things are "arrogant". Her rant sounds like a very sad attempt at defending her own lifestyle to the bitter end based on the supposition that motherhood in and of itself is not a powerful and ennobling position in society.

Additionally, the Salon author makes the faulty assumption that the difficult portion of motherhood is temporary. I suppose it is for a few women, but the mothers I know who have preteens and teenagers and are very involved in their children's lives are every bit as busy as I am - just in a different manner. Motherhood is a lifelong career, love it lump it. The problem in our "modern" society is that motherhood is viewed as marriage is: a "phase" in life that should be nurtured as long as it fits the individual's best interest.

I guess I know too many women who are NOT wealthy and white who have opted to choose the most historically influential and powerful career: motherhood. I find that the Salon author is making a visceral attack on the NYTimes article for her own personal reasons and not looking at the subject matter objectively.

That is my stream-of-thought assessment of the Salon article.

Jennifer

[Auspicious]

Letters to the editor in Salon regarding the aforementioned articles:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/letters/2003/1 ... index.html


It's definitely a complex and loaded issue.

[Rapunzel]

Unfortunately, I don't think most of society looks at motherhood as a "career" at all. In fact, I would venture to say that it is looked down upon as something not terribly important.

This is true of modern Western society. Originally our society was quite paternalistic - until the women's movement at the turn of the last century (that would be circa 1900) began. Many important things were accomplished to secure the fact that women are co-equals with men. These were outstanding ideas. However, not everyone associated with the "women's movement" had outstanding ideas or principles. The feminists of the 60s and 70s who claimed to be ideological descendants of these original "women's movement" members did much to destroy the view of motherhood as a rewarding and powerful position in society, "The Feminine Mystique" being the first wide-spread effort.

This legacy continues and I find that my contemporaries have this opinion by default. Even among the many statements I find on this board I can see the fruits of the "anti-mothering" philosophy born late in the last century. Examine the following statements which I here oft repeated on this website (not to pick on any one person - these are generalizations of numerous statements),: "One day I will contribute to society, right now my children are too young." "If only I was doing something important instead of just changing dirty diapers." "Those who choose motherhood sacrifice a good career."

The implications of these statements are 1)Motherhood is not a notable contribution to society, 2)The manual labor involved in mothering renders motherhood unimportant (thus forgetting the millions of tiny teaching moments between mother and child during the most mundane hours of the day), 3)That motherhood is not a "career" (ie a life-pursuit with its rewards and accomplishments), and 4)That motherhood is not one of the, if not the most, important of careers in existance. All of these words and attitudes contribute to the idea that motherhood is less than what a woman should aim for in life - and all of these attitudes are passed down to the children of those who feel and act this way. It is admirable for mothers to pass on to their children the importance of education, of talent, of improving the world. Is it admirable to pass on to their children that motherhood is not the best way to improve the world? That motherhood in and of itself is not a noble, worthwhile pursuit? Is it admirable to pass on to their children that once those children leave the house - even for a few hours a day, Mom is going to joyously be unshackled so she can do something "worthwhile"? Is it good to have moms who would rather be around adult acquaintances instead of their own children? Interestingly, as our government schools have increasingly become daycares we see the age of entrance to these schools pushed further and further forward. Washington DC recently had the possibility of pushing the mandatory school age to 3 years old. Just another reinforcement to the idea that young children don't need their mothers around much. It is absolutely no wonder that motherhood is viewed as subpar in light of these cultural attitudes.

As a sidenote the last century saw breastfeeding - an incredibly important mothering tool both biologically and psychologically - as unimportant. Margaret Sanger went so far as to claim breastfeeding was harmful for children and beneath women therefore should be limited to only the very young infants. (Margaret Sanger also famously called families "evil" but that is another tangent). Today, breastfeeding is once again seen as a good thing - but my point is that one of the quintissentially female aspects of life was belittled and denegrated for decades and is now only popular due to a concerted effort on the part of organizations such as the Le Leche League to legitimize what has always been a powerful tool - both symbollically and in reality.

That motherhood is not considered an important, if not the most important, contribution to society today is notable and we can see the fruits of these negative cultural attitudes towards motherhood all around us and in recent history. Many mothers do go back to work after their children have gone to public school - but is that without consequences? Society gives a resounding "No" and I am sure the gut reactions of those of us who have been raised in this anti-mother society agree. Interestingly, a book came out a while back (I forget the name) whose thesis was that school-aged children are influenced far more by other children (their immature peers) than they are by their own parents - to the point of parental involvement being optional. Right there we see the devolving of the importance of motherhood to the point of being found obsolete in our society. I do not disagree with the premise of that book, on the contrary I am sure it is true. Do older children need their mothers as much as younger ones? What is the age at which a child is better off with a large group of children rather than their mother?

My overall point here is that many of the commonly held attitudes in our society that are considered "benign" are, in fact, symptomatic of our cultural denigration of motherhood. Is it really so bizarre that I prefer to spend the day with my children? I have some odd things said to me while out with my home educated children - and there is an overwhelming attitude that I should "have my own life" and place my children in the care of government institutions; then I can do something important and contribute to society! I had one young adult years ago while checking out of the supermarket say to me that I shouldn't stay at home with my kids because I should be working. Such is the pervasiveness of these anti-mothering ideas. I recently took my children to the dentist so that my oldest could have his teeth examined. While there another adult exclaimed to me, "All of these are your children?!" (So far not an uncommon comment for me to hear, but it gets better). This person went on: "You are a 'breeder'". Now, what the heck does that mean? But, it sums up the attitudes of American society: Mothers can give birth to other people but that's about as much as they can contribute to society in the role of motherhood. 'Mother' is synonimous with 'animal husbandry'.

These incredibly rude comments do come quite a bit from strangers I happen to be around. But, I don't think most other people realize the implications of their supposedly benign comments when they say (or imply), "I don't find motherhood fulfilling," or, "I am a mom but I wanted to contribute to society so I also work," or, "I prefer the company of adults." Such statements and their numerous variations denigrate the role of mothers in society and throughout history. And, they are equally as insulting as the comment that I am a "breeder."

Jennifer

I tend to agree *also* that the "full-time" sense of motherhood does come to an end when your children go to college. It then becomes time to let go, to let your birdies fly their own wings. Having only been a mother for 4.5 months now, I realize that right now, it is a 24/7 "career" and I enjoy it to the absolute fullest. I can't imagine doing anything else right now. However, I do fancy notions of starting to "work again" (on my creative interests or teaching) when she gets to be older and/or enters kindergarten. . .and then really working full-time again when she graduates from high school. I think this will be healthy for both of us. In my experience, women that don't detach from their mothering role to a certain extent as their kids get older become nosy, overbearing mothers. And I have seen way far too many women who are sitting around twiddling their thumbs while their kids are off at college having a grand old time.