Another perspective on "Lean In"...

[SoonerTexan]

I guess my takeaway is yes, having family around makes a profound, positive difference, (for me), but I don't see a solution in this article.

[GrayMatterWife]

I just finishing reading "What to Expect When No One is Expecting." Truly fascinating.

Yeah, it's not my parents responsibility to parent a second time, because I have decided that I want to have children and work full time. I want it all, I should make it happen and not make my dreams/goals/needs someone else's responsibility.

[ladymoreta]

My mom wasn't rising up a corporate ladder, but she was (and still is) a self employed barber, running her own business. My sister and I stayed with my grandparents during the day (Tuesday - Saturday) while she worked. I think that having that time with a grandmother, rather than a babysitter or child care worker, was a wonderful experience for me. Sometimes when my grandparents went out of town, we'd go to daycare, and it had a totally different feel. I can say with certainty that I was raised by both my parents and my grandparents, but more so by my grandparents; most people wouldn't say that about their daycare, even if they spent more time there than with their parents. I think it worked for them because my grandparents were retired, and my mom paid them what she could, which helped a little on top of their social security income. I wouldn't be comfortable asking my mom to end her career so I could further mine, and my MIL has health issues which prevent her from doing child care. If it's a positive option for both the parents and grandparents, though, it can work out really well for the kids.

[moonlight]

Laurie bring up such a good point. Seems like our parents' generation isn't as healthy as the OUR grandparents' generation. In MIL's family there are four siblings and the parents are still doing great at 81 yrs old. All four of the siblings (ages 50-61) have health issues. Two of them are diabetic and the other is at the start of heart disease. MIL has some slight heart and kidney issues. Their mother who is 81 has never been hospitalized other than when she had her kids. She plays tennis 3X per week and they take very few medications every day.

My own parents are not as healthy as my grandparents were at the same age. I don't think my parents could physically keep up with a small child.

ETA. DH spent a lot of time with his grandmother (not the one I was just talking about) and has very fond memories. But like Laurie, she lived close by and it was weekends only. I think the 6 years so far away from the US is such a hard thing to imagine. Then again I think about Michele Obama's mom that moved to the White House with the first family. (Many) Grandmas are amazing when you think about what all they are willing to give up and do for grand kids.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

My mom wasn't rising up a corporate ladder, but she was (and still is) a self employed barber, running her own business. My sister and I stayed with my grandparents during the day (Tuesday - Saturday) while she worked. I think that having that time with a grandmother, rather than a babysitter or child care worker, was a wonderful experience for me. Sometimes when my grandparents went out of town, we'd go to daycare, and it had a totally different feel. I can say with certainty that I was raised by both my parents and my grandparents, but more so by my grandparents; most people wouldn't say that about their daycare, even if they spent more time there than with their parents. I think it worked for them because my grandparents were retired, and my mom paid them what she could, which helped a little on top of their social security income. I wouldn't be comfortable asking my mom to end her career so I could further mine, and my MIL has health issues which prevent her from doing child care. If it's a positive option for both the parents and grandparents, though, it can work out really well for the kids.

But I'm assuming they lived in your hometown and still went home at night? They didn't fly halfway around the world to take care of you, giving up their own lives completely.

I think the thing that bothered me was that it seemed like she had completely ceded parenting over to her mother. It's like her mother was the children's mother. I think you can have a variety of childcare arrangements, some of which may involve family, and still be present as a parent. I would draw the line if I started to see any live-in help (familial or not) as more competently caring for my child(ren) than I am.

[Ladybug]

Great point, Julie. It's a blame shift, but still pointing fingers at females.

I still see money as the bottom line here. Yes, if free, familiar childcare was readily available it would probably swing the pendelum towards more females pursuing careers, especially at earlier-career, low-income stages. But after a certain paygrade I don't think it matters, and I don't believe family or childcare is what keeps women from acheiving a representative percentage of top leadership positions.

There are so many things that I do try to do differently that my mom. I've learned some painful lessons and I'm trying to change some behavior patterns for my kids health. Our generation has experienced an explosion of child development, health, safety, learning, personality development, communication information. Even "nice" grandparents are still (however subtly) old school and have inherent parenting differences. Each generation cummulatively changes and grows. I'm passing on what I've learned experientially and academically. If I had a passionate, well-paying career I would opt to select a childcare provider that shared those values/education and who wouldn't boss me, criticize or argue with me.

I think culturally we still suppress women because we don't respect them. The media vomits this all over the place. I've been pushing our girls school to adapt the "miss representation" curriculum to develop a deeper media literacy for our females. Our senior girls wear kilts so short that their underwear show sometimes. Do you think any boy in their class is ever going to take them seriously as a leader? Will he ever see past her bare legs or peek-a-boo panties? It starts so young. The boys campus has a strong, integrated leadership program. The girls don't. One weekly leadership class, and it's a joke.

FWIW, in Jude's jewish community center class 50% of the primary parents are males. Things are shifting when there is an obvious advantage to a partner's earning potential. It seems like when both partners are passionate (our own medical families) then things (money) tends to tip toward the fledging medical career.

[MissCrabette]

It's an entirely different culture. If it works for them, great. Nobody is forcing us to do the same.

I was basically raised by my grandparents until I went to school, and I spent most of my school breaks with them. I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I kind of resent my mom for making that choice. She only saw me over the weekends, and sometimes two or more weeks would pass between her visits (they lived in different towns). On the other hand, I was incredibly close to my grandparents, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. Once I went to school, I was handed a key that I wore around my neck. I walked to school by myself, came back, did homework, and played on the playground behind our apartment building with the other kids in the neighborhood. There was a neighbor who stopped by to feed me lunch, but she might as well not have bothered. This kind of thing would probably be considered neglect or some sort of child abuse here, but other societies are different.

Would I ask my mom to do the same? No, probably not. I would like to think that I'd have kids because I want that experience, and I wouldn't pawn them off on someone else. I also can't imagine living that close to my mom and seeing her that often. I love her, but no. But realistically speaking, she could do it. She had me when she was 30, I'm 31 now, and she's about to retire at the end of the year. Unless people have kids very early on in their lives, this could technically work. Why not?

[medpedspouse]

If it works for them, why not? Perhaps grandmother did not get to raise her own child because her mother did it. Now it is her chance to raise a child...her grandchild.

My parents divorced before I was born. There was no way my mom was going to be able to raise me and work to support me at first. My grandparents stepped in. They lived in a different city. It was a heart wrenching decision for my mom but it was what was best for me. Later, as she moved up in her career and had a better earning potential, I lived with her. Frankly, I do not once feel like I missed out on anything. My mom always worked and I had a nanny and spent long holidays with my grandparents. My mom and I have always been close. I actually was always very proud of my mom and saw her as a great role model growing up. For example, before I even left high school I knew about professional attire and business etiquette...things that have served me well in my career.

All that to say that if all parties are happy about it, what is wrong with this set up?

[PrincessFiona]

I think there are different expectations in different cultures. We a know s family from the Romania where her mom came for 6 months then his dad then her mom off and on for years during their residencies. They had 4 kids. It baffled me, but the parents truly saw this as a normal thing to do.

It was culturally accepted and they didnt understand why our families didnt pitch in more. They had also received support from their parents at some point.

To me it seemed they embraced the idea that it takes a village

[Pollyanna]

Very true Kris, culture certainly plays a huge role. I knew more than one Chinese grad student that sent her baby home to China with her mother so she could complete her studies. It was so hard for her but she said, "it is what is expected". I also had a grad student from India that intended to do the same but when the baby arrived she just couldn't.

I have no issue with grandparents helping, I just find all the facets of the discussion fascinating. It's interesting to hear everyone's experiences growing up.

[PrincessFiona]

I also new a girl from India (I believe) who sent her 2 year old daughter home to her mother for 2 YEARS so that she could finish a bachelor's degree in computer science. She took offense at how I reacted to that and she just didn't understand why I was killing myself to piece together part-time childcare for Andrew and Amanda so that I could slowly eek out a post-bacc.

I really think it's easy to forget that the American way isn't the only way ... or necessarily even the best way all of the time. I'm not arguing for this, but if you step back, who would you rather have care for your children when you work full-time (provided you don't have abusive parents, etc?). I'd rather have my mom watch my kids than a full-time daycare provider, tbh and would think it best for my children. If our culture were set up in a way that I have children and work until I'm 55, then retire to watch my grandkids and that's the way it always was for everyone ... then why not? I could put in a good 25 years of work and then give back in the same way that was given to me.

In many cultures, it is also completely normal to care for ailing parents in your own home instead of shoving them off into nursing homes too.

We are a very individualistic culture. We also bemoan the lack of a village to raise our families, but then we aren't willing to help each other or get help from our families ... it's very interesting.

[v-girl]

My abuela (grandmother) came to America to help my mom about 1.5-2 years after my parents divorced. It took that long for my mom and her to save money for the plane ticket. Mom couldn't raise us on her own without someone to watch us while she worked and with my sister being a young teen, she wasn't old enough to take care of younger siblings every night. She never moved back to Panama (she liked TV and air conditioning and the microwave too much) and eventually helped with my kids some.

She and my abuelo had divorced by then, but she would have come anyway. Her daughter needed her and her sons had their wives to help with their kids. Mom had no one but family friends and the parish priest (talk about Father-daughter dinners for the Girl Scouts and elementary school!). It isn't unusual in a Latin American family either. My mom has a friend from Peru who lives with her daughter and has basically been the nanny for her grandchildren all their lives. My cousin's MIL lives with him and his wife and has done the same with their kids (wife is from Chile).

[GrayMatterWife]

I think there is big difference between life situations happening (divorce, death, unplanned pregnancies, and so forth), where people rise to the occasion and pitch in and help out. My mom certainly did that this past spring, when she moved in with us for seven weeks during my last trimester, when I had developed complications. But circumstances like that strike me as much different from deliberately planning, conceiving and having children with the plan that grandma will be the free nanny. If that works for your family/culture, then great. But my parents would flat-out say no, and I don't blame them. I'm a grown-up. They've raised their kids. We were not raised by our grandparents. They've done what is expected in terms of child-rearing. They aren't going to do it twice, and it is not reasonable of me to expect that they would.

[Thirteen]

My husband was pretty much raised by his paternal grandmother, who lived in-house until he was in high school (when she remarried).

It is cultural, but at the same time, I wouldn't say that his parents didn't plan on someone else taking care of their 3 children from the beginning.
They are not kid friendly.




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[DCJenn]

My grandparents owned a hotel. In the hotel lived my mother's great-grandfather and they kind of hung out together. In my parents situation, my grandparents couldn't have come help because they both still had kids at home. My dad's sister was in high school and my mom's youngest brother was 8 when I was born.

When we lived in DC, I loved the parental support- but I wasn't working. Conversely, when the Army shipped us back here, I had to work and we had zero support. Now we're established in the neighborhood and there are probably 20 different people I could call in a pinch. I would love to convince my parents to move here but not for child care reasons but because my mother hates where they live.

In my career, I've been lucky to find two different jobs (doing the exact same thing for different industries) that all that mattered was how close I was to the airport. Highly convenient for the medical spouse moving all the time. That said, it takes an immense amount of coordination to manage those three days I travel when there's a kid involved and if I had more than one, I probably couldn't do it. I'm the only female in the entire 100 person cadre that has a little kid. Lots of men do but they have their wives to handle the kids. It's a whole different ball game for me.

I have a job interview on Tuesday for a HUGE national corporation- it will be interesting to hear what their expectation of management are.

J.