Balance between women working and having a family?

[angell1]

in my anthropology class, we have touched on this suject, basically what i’ve learned is that since the industrial revolution, that’s when the major distinction between work and home was really drawn. due to that, work outside the home became “mans domain” and the home became “women’s domain” more clearly. of course we know what happened from there, women weren’t really happy being stuck at home all the time. and also, this is the time when household duties and child rearing ebcame viewed as labour of love instead of real work and were looked down upon.

john paul II write about this and saying that family shoudl be a woman’s priority but they should be engaged in outside work as well and their presence in important.

how would tis look in real life?

i odn’t think simply sending all the women home is a solution.

some poeple suggest paying a man higher wages so women don’t need to work outside the home. but what if they want to. employers will not hire them if they are already paying the husbands higher wages. also, there is anegativity around hiring older people, so if a woman does stay home (or even a man) it is hard for them to come back and find a job later on after 10 or so years of child rearing.

of course, nothing against stay-at-home parents, my mom is one. but there are issues on both sides, some see a woman working as neglacting her family (which isn’t always true) some seeing women at home as not reall work.

what about spending many years at school then getting married with kids, wouldn’t that be a waste of a degree almost? i’m just very confused.

any suggestions to a good solution to this problem?

 

[ServusHumilis]

The cost of living is so high were I am that it is pretty well impossible for the woman to stay home to raise the family. Just to own a house in the city in this area both the husband and wife would have to make about $100,000 each a year and have a renter in the basement.

 

[k5rakitan]

I see nothing wrong with the man doing some of the household stuff. When I was growing up, both of my parents always had jobs, but my mom always earned slightly more than my dad. I was an only child and I didn’t cause too much trouble, so fortunately this worked for them. I never felt neglected, though. My dad spent more time with me than my mom, but I still feel satisfied with the attention I got from her. These days with the downturn in the economy, my dad can’t find work, but my mom still has a job. So, when I come home to visit them, he’s always the one cooking dinner.

I think in the old days, it wasn’t so much that the man earned more, but that they lived with extended family like uncles and grandparents and aunts so that they didn’t have house payments and had extra income from uncles and aunts could also care for the children.

 

[Petaro]

The reality of today is that a man’s wage for the majority is not enough to raise and be the sole support of a family within the normal middle class expectations.
In Australia back in the 1950s the Industrial commission, which was a governmental tribunal within the Industrial relations system, brought down what was then called The Harvester’s decision. It attempted to set a wage structure based on this concept of paying a just wage to a man sufficient to support him, his non working wife and two children.
This was the last attempt I know of where a social authority attempted to base wages on the then “traditional” family. It failed of course and we now see many in America working three jobs between a couple to raise a family. Family now means one child rather than six.
However our expectations have risen dramatically to include three cars, the pool, private education, overseas holiday once a year and of course your own home worth in Sydney Australia an average of 1 million American dollars.
We have sacrificed a family life for something that will never bring us happiness much less peace of mind.
Women should have a choice either to work or to stay home with the kids. But this option is available to few.
I believe we have gone backwards in wanting too much and finding frustratingly that we are no happier.

 

[Sunbreak]

Certainly it wouldn’t be fair to pay a man more because he was married and pay his hardworking co-workers less who did the same work. We already had that in the 50s - there used to be ads in the help wanted that were segregated into help wanted men and help wanted women and some ads even specified they wanted a married man (who was thought to be more stable).
As for why people can’t live on what they earn. Part of it is that wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living. Another factor is the one another poster has mentioned - a higher standard of living. Let’s take 1950s Detroit for example - many houses were only around 900 square feet. If someone needed more space they finished the basement or attic. There was 1 landline phone that everyone in the house shared. Most families only had 1 car. There may have only been 1 tv and 1 stereo in the house. Contrast that today where people think they need houses that are over twice that size, everyone that can drive has to have a car, everyone has to have their own phone, etc.

 

[Kal2012]

Keep in mind that minding the house used to be an all day task.

How many of us bake bread, manually scrub our laundry and the like these days?

It used to be much harder to care for a house.

Child mortality was also high in those days.

For a lot of families, the homestead was their world. The man worked outside while the woman worked inside, but they were on the same team.

Real wages haven’t risen since 1973.

Honestly, I’m really not sure what the problem is that you want solved. Some women like being at home with their kids. Some women don’t. Some women have to work. Some women don’t. Why don’t we let individual families decide what it best for themselves? Sounds like a good solution to me.

 

[1ke]

that’s when the major distinction between work and home was really drawn. due to that, work outside the home became “mans domain” and the home became “women’s domain” more clearly.

That is an incomplete picture of things, a major oversimpification.

of course we know what happened from there, women weren’t really happy being stuck at home all the time.

We know this, huh? You are asserting this as a fact, but have provided no evidence.

and also, this is the time when household duties and child rearing ebcame viewed as labour of love instead of real work and were looked down upon.

Another assertion lacking any proof. Sounds more like the opinion of a certain anthropology professor than an actual argument of any real substance.

john paul II write about this and saying that family shoudl be a woman’s priority but they should be engaged in outside work as well and their presence in important.

Again, major oversimplification. JPII did not say that women “should” work.

any suggestions to a good solution to this problem?

I don’t think it is a “problem”, certainly not a societal problem. I think it is an individual decision made by individual couples based on their goals, their situation, and their values.

Mulieris Dignitatum is a great letter by JPII. Perhaps reflecting on it would help.
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_15081988_mulieris-dignitatem_en.html

 

[DanielJT]

Firstly, it is important to recognize unjustified generalizations. To say that women were unhappy all of a sudden I do not think is completely fair. There are a lot of factors that went into this shift, not the least of which (which has already been mentioned) was economic and in my opinion still largely is.

Workers are being underpaid where, in order to support a family, both parents need to work. The income gap has risen. My mother would have loved to stay home with me and my little sister growing up and was actually upset with the “women’s lib” movement putting so much pressure on her to go to work.

I, right now, am a stay at home father because I am lucky enough to have a wife with a decent paying career (better than teaching, which is what my education is in) and I would propose this as part of the solution.

The workforce or the home do not need to be separate “domains” that are somehow inherently gender related. We need to start from the family and do what is in the best interest of the family. Children do better in school when there is an ATTENTIVE and consistent parent that stays home with them in the early years. This means an improvement in our education system (which is floundering right now), but it won’t happen without the economic support that is required to get one parent (mom or dad) out of work and focused more deliberately on their children’s lives.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

Mothers helpers, nanny’s, maids, housekeepers, robots …

The history you seem to be in the dark about is the career of the mothers helper, nanny, house keeper, ect. In the 1950’s robots like dish washers, cars, replaced the old careers of nanny’s. Since the introduction of the robots we ignore nanny’s because only the rich, busy, uncaring mothers can afford them. (Ahhem … Total false thinking!)

Nanny’s are in the Bible usually tied to the middle and upperclass families. Even when early colonies arrived to America, a nanny was usually given room and board to secure the family. This job, nanny, often allows younger women safety by including her into a family helper. Who can forget the movie, “Mary Poppins”?

Today there are many in the profession of childcare. Families have so many choices to personalize what works for them and their budget. There is daycare, baby sitters, mother helpers, cleaning services (merry maids), meal delivery (swansons), professional nanny’s, and existing family (aunts, uncles, older childreen) to supplement care giving. Todays woman needs to examine what she values most with the family and outsource what is secondary to her giving her best to the family.

You did miss a huge part of John Paul II’s letter to women:

Thank you, women who work! You are present and active in every area of life-social, economic, cultural, artistic and political. In this way you make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of “mystery”, to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

Firstly, it is important to recognize unjustified generalizations. To say that women were unhappy all of a sudden I do not think is completely fair. There are a lot of factors that went into this shift, not the least of which (which has already been mentioned) was economic and in my opinion still largely is.

Workers are being underpaid where, in order to support a family, both parents need to work. The income gap has risen. My mother would have loved to stay home with me and my little sister growing up and was actually upset with the “women’s lib” movement putting so much pressure on her to go to work.

I, right now, am a stay at home father because I am lucky enough to have a wife with a decent paying career (better than teaching, which is what my education is in) and I would propose this as part of the solution.

The workforce or the home do not need to be separate “domains” that are somehow inherently gender related. We need to start from the family and do what is in the best interest of the family. Children do better in school when there is an ATTENTIVE and consistent parent that stays home with them in the early years. This means an improvement in our education system (which is floundering right now), but it won’t happen without the economic support that is required to get one parent (mom or dad) out of work and focused more deliberately on their children’s lives.

Stay - at - home fathers is trending, yes! My husbands female co-workers typically have their spouse stay at home. My husband (traditionalist) is struggling from viewing these men as lazy. He will give me a scenario and expect me to agree with him that the man should “Man up” to which I turn the scenerio around and substitue me in his example … Usually, he takes a deep breath and tells me I’m right.

We have seen that many of the stay-at-home dads do have a unique need (apart from women) to take anger management classes when managing small children. I guess males do not get to role play caregivers as children whereas women get to role play construction workers and astranaughts. I was watching Sesame Street and the skit was about baby bear (a boy) embarrassed about playing with a dolly. Men still are discouraged from role playing caregivers. Our little girl recieved a Tool Box for her birthday (my friends way of saying my girl was too girly) … But my SIL agreed she would probably not let her little boy play with a doll … So, how can a new generation of men who may become stay at home dads prepare for this vocation?

 

[LittleRose]

how would tis look in real life?

Ideally, I think it would look like a family business where all members of the family, Mom, Dad, and even kids, no matter what they do, are making real contributions to the advancement of the business and the survival of the family. But, as your anthro class pointed out, the post-industrial revolution economy we live in makes this difficult.

Family businesses are not a practical option for many people, and work-life balance is a difficult struggle for women and men, so what then? Employers can make themselves more family-friendly by offering flexible family leave, telecommuting, pumping rooms for breastfeeding mothers, paternity leave for new fathers, and on-site daycare, to name a few things. One thing industrial culture forgets easily is that work is supposed to serve the family, not the other way around. Working parents often face pressure to put their employers ahead of their families. Employers have a moral duty to minimize this problem. Policies like those above help to do this. (Incidentally, utilitarian attitudes toward employees and human life in general is why we also have a utilitarian attitude toward education, which is where we get this ridiculous idea that it is a waste for a degreed woman to stay home with her kids.)

The other problem is, our culture needs to stop defining “contributions” and “success” in what have been stereotypically male terms (professional advancement, power, job titles, salary size, etc.) and rediscover the value of domestic achievements, whether they are performed by women or by the increasing number of full-time dads. The false idea that traditional “men’s work”, is necessarily superior has naturally contributed to the discontent of many women. The mistake of the Feminist movement was its acceptance of this idea and subsequent insistence that we all do the same things, when it would have been better to assert that all good work, in or out of the home, has dignity and value, and that women deserve equal respect whether we contribute to society as part of the workforce or as SAHMs

what about spending many years at school then getting married with kids, wouldn’t that be a waste of a degree almost?

Not at all. Kids ask some really deep and difficult questions about life and the world. Knowing more and developing your critical thinking ability is just another tool in your mommy-arsenal for when they do this. Furthermore, most SAHMs I know don’t hide in the house baking artisanal cookies and wiping runny noses all day. They go out and use their gifts as volunteers in schools, churches, and various charitable organizations. Very often they use skills they acquired in school. They do hard work helping people outside their families, and their contributions are very important for the well-being of the community and society in general. Making the family your first priority doesn’t make it your only priority.

Your brain and your work still count, whether they make money or not!

Further reading on this issue:

Architects of the Culture of Death (read with particular attention to the chapters on the Atheistic Existentialists):
amazon.com/Architects-Culture-Death-Donald-Marco/dp/1586170163

Mulieris Dignitatem: vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_15081988_mulieris-dignitatem_en.html

Rerum Novarum:
vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html

The Emancipation of Domesticity by G.K. Chesterton:
ignatiusinsight.com/features2007/print2007/gk_domestwwww_july07.html

The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc:
archive.org/details/servilestate00belluoft

 

[Sarcelle]

Keep in mind that minding the house used to be an all day task.

How many of us bake bread, manually scrub our laundry and the like these days?

It used to be much harder to care for a house.

Child mortality was also high in those days.

For a lot of families, the homestead was their world. The man worked outside while the woman worked inside, but they were on the same team.

Real wages haven’t risen since 1973.

Honestly, I’m really not sure what the problem is that you want solved. Some women like being at home with their kids. Some women don’t. Some women have to work. Some women don’t. Why don’t we let individual families decide what it best for themselves? Sounds like a good solution to me.

Or there are family owned businesses where both husband and wife and sometimes kids work.

 

[mikekle]

The cost of living is so high were I am that it is pretty well impossible for the woman to stay home to raise the family. Just to own a house in the city in this area both the husband and wife would have to make about $100,000 each a year and have a renter in the basement.

this is true almost anywhere you go today!

It truly makes me wonder if this is something done on purpose, as back in recent years, it was common for a wife to stay home and raise children and the man go to work, but ever since the mid to late 80s, it seems our society has been forced to have 2 people bringing in paychecks, almost makes a person think it was specifically changed for some purpose…that would be a very small detail and most people would not recognize it as something the enemy has done, but it does make me wonder…?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

this is true almost anywhere you go today!

It truly makes me wonder if this is something done on purpose, as back in recent years, it was common for a wife to stay home and raise children and the man go to work, but ever since the mid to late 80s, it seems our society has been forced to have 2 people bringing in paychecks, almost makes a person think it was specifically changed for some purpose…that would be a very small detail and most people would not recognize it as something the enemy has done, but it does make me wonder…?

When comparing the “good old days” with today, let’s not forget the role of higher expectations and a higher standard of living. Sure, you may need to have two people working to pay for what many people expect out of life. But we are also expecting so much more out of life than we were long ago. I would not be surprised if expectations alone account for the largest part of the need for two jobs.

 

[Stilldreamn]

Firstly, it is important to recognize unjustified generalizations. To say that women were unhappy all of a sudden I do not think is completely fair. There are a lot of factors that went into this shift, not the least of which (which has already been mentioned) was economic and in my opinion still largely is.

Workers are being underpaid where, in order to support a family, both parents need to work. The income gap has risen. My mother would have loved to stay home with me and my little sister growing up and was actually upset with the “women’s lib” movement putting so much pressure on her to go to work.

I, right now, am a stay at home father because I am lucky enough to have a wife with a decent paying career (better than teaching, which is what my education is in) and I would propose this as part of the solution.

The workforce or the home do not need to be separate “domains” that are somehow inherently gender related. We need to start from the family and do what is in the best interest of the family. Children do better in school when there is an ATTENTIVE and consistent parent that stays home with them in the early years. This means an improvement in our education system (which is floundering right now), but it won’t happen without the economic support that is required to get one parent (mom or dad) out of work and focused more deliberately on their children’s lives.

My husband and I have a very large family (11). Over the years, we have adjusted our work/home balance many times. Both of us have had our careers interrupted and restarted. Sometimes he worked nights and I worked days and we slept in split shifts (not too healthy but we were younger then!) Now, we have 16 year old twins at home and 2 young adults in college - and I work full time and my husband is “retired” and helping with our grandkids along with ours. Our family IS our vocation. We also have pretty low material expectations and live in a low-cost area of the country. That helps!

 

[Captain_America]

In my opinion, our society is worse off when women are all at paid jobs. This is because:

(a) more women in the workplace depresses the value of male labor;

(b) it defeats the likelihood of ever establishing a just living wage, in which one person’s work allows that person to afford the full cost of a family.

(c) it puts everybody on the “corporate treadmill.”

(d) it prevents the operation of the Home Safety Net; this used to be a pretty handy thing during downtimes. It operated this way: with one wage-earner bringing in the cash, the family retained the potential of having another wage earner bring in cash, should the first wage earner be fired. IF both are working, just one firing/dismissal means the family is put into dire straits.

(e) it substantially eviscerates local society; neigbhorhoods during the daytime look as if they’d been struck by neutron bombs. Who volunteers to help make schools, etc., better? We lose an enormous positive force for good in communities.

(f) the role of parents gets diminished because there is less presence;

(g) family size diminishes.

(h) growth of yet more individualism; potentially more divorce due to this, and due to workplace temptations to both persons.

(i) worse childhoods; children left to watch TV or play games at home rather than be in a neighborhood setting or developing via interaction with a parent.

I really believe we’re eating our potatoes here: our society is taking a short-term gain from more female employment, but at a much greater long-term cost.

I discard the notion that it’s a “waste” of education for a woman to run the communities, neighborhoods, households. Education is good in itself. The people who chant about education in the way the OP mentions are simply talking about technical training.

PS: it must be noted that women’s reported levels of personal happiness have plummeted in the past few decades. And that a separate study has confirmed that female happiness—contrary to the hoary old feminist mythmaking—was actually awfully damn high in the 1950s.

(Note, of course, the aberration of the 1950s: enormous pent-up consumer demand, and virtual elimination of foreign industrial competition thus making the American economy quite vibrant. . . and of course, vast numbers of people wishing to HAVE a home life after so many years of doing without due to the war).

 

[sallybutler]

In my opinion, our society is worse off when women are all at paid jobs. This is because:

(a) more women in the workplace depresses the value of male labor;

More people in the labor pool depresses the value of existing workers. You may have to compete with people of the opposite sex, people straight out of school, people in other companies, automation, etc.

(b) it defeats the likelihood of ever establishing a just living wage, in which one person’s work allows that person to afford the full cost of a family.

• BTW, sometimes a woman has to support a family. Perhaps her husband died. Or was in an accident at work. Or disappeared. Shouldn’t she expect the same just living wage?*]

(c) it puts everybody on the “corporate treadmill.”

(d) it prevents the operation of the Home Safety Net; this used to be a pretty handy thing during downtimes. It operated this way: with one wage-earner bringing in the cash, the family retained the potential of having another wage earner bring in cash, should the first wage earner be fired. IF both are working, just one firing/dismissal means the family is put into dire straits.

You are assuming that the non-fired could get a job faster than the fired one??? Why couldn’t the fired one just get another job?
(e) it substantially eviscerates local society; neigbhorhoods during the daytime look as if they’d been struck by neutron bombs. Who volunteers to help make schools, etc., better? We lose an enormous positive force for good in communities.

And some of those neighborhoods look like that because parents have their children enrolled in so many after-school activities that they aren’t at home. Additionally, many children see no reason to go outside where they can’t play on their video games.
(f) the role of parents gets diminished because there is less presence;

I]The role of the parent depends on the parent. My mom worked. I knew better than to mess up.
(g) family size diminishes.

Lots of families with a stay at home parent have small familes.

(h) growth of yet more individualism; potentially more divorce due to this, and due to workplace temptations to both persons.

If someone wants to stray, they don’t have to look to the workplace. They could find someone at church, school, games, next-door-neighbors, etc
(i) worse childhoods; children left to watch TV or play games at home rather than be in a neighborhood setting or developing via interaction with a parent.

I’ve seen stay at home parents who were more neglectful of their children than ones that worked.

I really believe we’re eating our potatoes here: our society is taking a short-term gain from more female employment, but at a much greater long-term cost.

I discard the notion that it’s a “waste” of education for a woman to run the communities, neighborhoods, households. Education is good in itself. The people who chant about education in the way the OP mentions are simply talking about technical training.

PS: it must be noted that women’s reported levels of personal happiness have plummeted in the past few decades. And that a separate study has confirmed that female happiness—contrary to the hoary old feminist mythmaking—was actually awfully damn high in the 1950s.

(Note, of course, the aberration of the 1950s: enormous pent-up consumer demand, and virtual elimination of foreign industrial competition thus making the American economy quite vibrant. . . and of course, vast numbers of people wishing to HAVE a home life after so many years of doing without due to the war).

 

[Sarcelle]

In my opinion, our society is worse off when women are all at paid jobs. This is because:

(a) more women in the workplace depresses the value of male labor;

(b) it defeats the likelihood of ever establishing a just living wage, in which one person’s work allows that person to afford the full cost of a family.

(c) it puts everybody on the “corporate treadmill.”

(d) it prevents the operation of the Home Safety Net; this used to be a pretty handy thing during downtimes. It operated this way: with one wage-earner bringing in the cash, the family retained the potential of having another wage earner bring in cash, should the first wage earner be fired. IF both are working, just one firing/dismissal means the family is put into dire straits.

(e) it substantially eviscerates local society; neigbhorhoods during the daytime look as if they’d been struck by neutron bombs. Who volunteers to help make schools, etc., better? We lose an enormous positive force for good in communities.

(f) the role of parents gets diminished because there is less presence;

(g) family size diminishes.

(h) growth of yet more individualism; potentially more divorce due to this, and due to workplace temptations to both persons.

(i) worse childhoods; children left to watch TV or play games at home rather than be in a neighborhood setting or developing via interaction with a parent.

I really believe we’re eating our potatoes here: our society is taking a short-term gain from more female employment, but at a much greater long-term cost.

I discard the notion that it’s a “waste” of education for a woman to run the communities, neighborhoods, households. Education is good in itself. The people who chant about education in the way the OP mentions are simply talking about technical training.

PS: it must be noted that women’s reported levels of personal happiness have plummeted in the past few decades. And that a separate study has confirmed that female happiness—contrary to the hoary old feminist mythmaking—was actually awfully damn high in the 1950s.

(Note, of course, the aberration of the 1950s: enormous pent-up consumer demand, and virtual elimination of foreign industrial competition thus making the American economy quite vibrant. . . and of course, vast numbers of people wishing to HAVE a home life after so many years of doing without due to the war).

You mentioned devaluing male labor. Do you think women should be shut out of the job market?
This kind of reminds me of a Catholic blogger who once proposed making it illegal for a woman, any woman, to be financially independent of a man.

 

[strugglesl8]

I believe in the long run what is important to you.
My belief is when the children are young the mother should be at home. It’s very hard and a stress all the way around for the mother and child, trying to juggle work/and home life, but that’s my opinion.
It also depends on your support system, do you have family that can help care for the child. Remember no one will love your child like you do.
I believe we can do without many many things and sacrifice in order to give what the child needs the most and, that is love and attention from their parents. In today’s world we live in a society of keeping up with the Jones.
As a grown adult I can’t remember every toy that was bought for me, etc… but I sure remember the memories with my parents and absence when my parents weren’t there.
All and all it’s what works for your family.
I think it’s always taking a bit to live. In my Grandfather’s day the men went to work and did the overtime so the women could stay home with the kids. My Grandfather worked 16-18 hours a day, and talking to many in the older generation that’s what was done. That’s how I was raised with my parents. Right or wrong.

 

[SocialReign]

in my anthropology class, we have touched on this suject, basically what i’ve learned is that since the industrial revolution, that’s when the major distinction between work and home was really drawn. due to that, work outside the home became “mans domain” and the home became “women’s domain” more clearly. of course we know what happened from there, women weren’t really happy being stuck at home all the time. and also, this is the time when household duties and child rearing ebcame viewed as labour of love instead of real work and were looked down upon.

john paul II write about this and saying that family shoudl be a woman’s priority but they should be engaged in outside work as well and their presence in important.

how would tis look in real life?

i odn’t think simply sending all the women home is a solution.

some poeple suggest paying a man higher wages so women don’t need to work outside the home. but what if they want to. employers will not hire them if they are already paying the husbands higher wages. also, there is anegativity around hiring older people, so if a woman does stay home (or even a man) it is hard for them to come back and find a job later on after 10 or so years of child rearing.

of course, nothing against stay-at-home parents, my mom is one. but there are issues on both sides, some see a woman working as neglacting her family (which isn’t always true) some seeing women at home as not reall work.

what about spending many years at school then getting married with kids, wouldn’t that be a waste of a degree almost? i’m just very confused.

any suggestions to a good solution to this problem?

The ideal is for a woman to stay at home with her children. Unfortunately this is not always possible. JPII also wrote that societies have an obligation to try to structure the social order in such a way that women can indeed stay at home.

Most women that are married actually can do this. We have just fooled ourselves into believing families need 5 cell phones, 2 televisions, annual vacations, video games, 2 nice cars, etc.