"Have it all" backlash

Well, I'm starting with the end.



First of all, what the author fails to mention is that in France
the income taxes are exorbitant high to provide such services as affordable part-time preschool/daycare. After all, somebody has to pay for all this in order for government subsidies to exist. Dito for Germany, however before stay-at-home mothers are able to get their children into government subsidised preschools, they have to wait until a place becomes availabe since working mothers have first priority.
By the time a preschool becomes available, the child might
be already 10 years old.

Secondly, alleviating ecconomic pressure for families so mothers can stay at home and dote on their children is a
somewhat difficult task, as there are plenty of mothers out there who want to work. Would they be punished because
their financial pressure is missing?

Somehow, the author mentionend the words "government mandated" or "government subsidies" one too many times for my taste.
How much interference do we want from the government?

Talking now from my own experience what I see in my
daugthers class: about 2/3 of the mothers are stay at home mothers. So out of 30 kids, 10 children have working mothers who juggle both, family and work. If there is a class project or some volunteer work to be done, the working mothers try to make time to be part of it, the stay at home
mothers usually give great lip service. Our school also provides after school care and from the 20 classmates my daughter has whose mothers are at home, at least 5 kids stay on for aftercare (not every day) because their mothers have to attend yoga classes and what not.

Granted, there are many many mothers out there, who
need to make a living and have a hard time combining both family
and work, however, they're the ones, who rarely complain.

I work and I take full responsibility for my childs welfare,
without government help or interference. Then again, I don't strive to be perfect either, instead of chauffering my child
from one activity to the next, she plays outside and gets oldfashioned dirty.

I too work and take full responsiblity but....

Preschools in my area cost about $500 each month for a three day week. I pay $180. each month just from adding Mo to my insurance. So, we're talking about $700 each month just for those two things. A little over $8,000 each year.

Personally I would be willing to pay $8,000 a more in taxes each year if I knew every kid - not just mine - would be recieving quality preschool and health care. That 8,000 probably puts me in a similar tax bracket as anyone in France.

When you throw college tuition in on top of that..... (as I understand it, in France, college educations are cheap) well.... it starts making more sense.

But I don't strive to be perfect either. Still, I think music and art are important things that I know most kids aren't getting in public schools. Heck, some schools don't even have librarys!

Well, first, slacker moms unite.

(Choppy, making notes as I read.)

Disagree with this:



I was born in 1970 and was very politically active, as was pretty much everyone I knew.

I think part of this that Warner doesn't touch on is the general victim culture. Squeaky wheel gets the grease. Weird "I have it worse than you do" competitions.

Also entitlement, which affects a lot more than just this arena. Many, many people feel like they should... they deserve... to have something that they don't currently have. It was a big thing that I had to deal with in my center in L.A., people with no money and no skills who wanted a nice car and a nice house with nice furniture and nice curtains NOW. The advertising industry is huge, ubiquitous, and predicated on that. Go on. You know you want it. You deserve it.

That said -- big bad advertising industry -- I think people have to take some responsibility for that, that if they want everything and they don't get it, perhaps it's their OWN expectations that are unrealistic. The blame doesn't always lie elsewhere. My students wanted that nice car and that nice house NOW, and a big part of my curriculum was about how getting from point A to point Z required hitting points B through Y first, and that points B through Y would probably often suck, but that's what you gotta do.

I think there is a general [getting into old coot mode] movement away from the idea of the work ethic, that if you want something you work hard for it and either you get it or you don't. No automatic expectation of getting it. But ESPECIALLY no automatic expectation of getting it if you don't even work hard for it.

Now, I do completely agree that more needs to happen with society in general. I disagree that nobody's fired up about it or doing anything about it though -- what does she base that on? I personally have done a lot and know a lot of people who have done a lot. The Family and Medical Leave Act was passed as a measure specifically to help mothers be mothers and keep their jobs.

I dunno (I'm commenting as I read along), this article feels slippery and dishonest to me. Simplistic, something. Right now my reaction is because of this:



She starts out with politicians and family values, that pulls a liberal like me in, great, true. But the second sentence is weird, it's semantics, it's simplistic. Yes, we do need to do all of those things. We need to do all of those things AND take some more practical measures. It's not zero sum. Practical measures are a great way to say a lot of those things and mean it. But there are all kinds of ways that what she is saying is tied up with those "unnecessary" statements and approaches.

For example she (accurately) points out that inadequate day care is a huge thing. If women felt better about sending their kids to daycare, women would feel better about working. But as I quoted recently in another context, daycare workers make less than dogcatchers. It's not a respected profession, it's not something people want to do. All of these things are related.

Changing the CULTURE is vitally important, for all kinds of practical reasons. It's not something that can be done all at once, it's something that needs to be approached on many different levels. So in addition to her practical suggestions, I'd add two big ones -- change how child care is viewed (mothers, day care workers), and change how the role of fathers

Sticky thing here that she doesn't touch on, I've seen a lot of -- there is a tendency for women who are setting out to do this motherhood thing perfectly to keep the fathers out of the picture. They don't do the diapers right. They don't get the baby to sleep as fast. Here, let me do it.

One of my best friends warned me about that tendency, and how she wished she hadn't when her kid was little. I took it to heart, involved E.G. even when I had to bite my lip to do so. He didn't do it as well -- but he did it! He was able to actually co-parent.

I think a lot of women cheat themselves of this resource (and I'm sure there are also a lot of men who just don't do it, and they can and should).

I agree with the party/ perfectionism thing entirely -- slacker moms unite -- but I think that is again a cultural thing, and an awkward one for her thesis. I think it comes more from competition with other moms than anything else. Early in her article she talks about everyone competing for a spot in a dance class -- whose fault is that? Why is a dance class -- that SPECIFIC dance class, mind you -- necessary in the way she characterizes all the extras being necessary because of lousy schools?

The cultural change I'd like to see there is away from the workaholic/ I'm sooooooooooooo busy ideal. (Different from work ethic. Workaholic is about being at the office, not how efficient you are when you're there.) Boomer, you and I have talked about that before -- the whole, "So what did you DO today?" thing. ("Um, we colored. Yeah. And I think we danced a bit." "No, what did you DO? Where did you go? What appointments did you keep?")

Totally agree with this:



In other words -- slacker moms unite.

$500/ month for a 3-day week?? Cripes. Ours is ~$350 for each 4-month session, and it's a great one.

That definitely has to be addressed. I just think there are more prongs to it than Warner seems to.

Excellent post sozobe, and I agree with everything you said.

boomerang, I also paid $ 500/month for preschool, but
it was a Montessori and it is in a part of town where even
the gas station charges 20 cent more than someplace else. I could have used a less expensive one - they are out there,
but I wanted my daughter to be in this particular preschool.

As for health insurance: we do have a choice which plan
to take, and there is very reasonable healthcare for children available.

Public schools have sometimes a higher dollar amount allocated per child as private schools do, yet they never
seem to be able to afford computers, music instruments
and proper art supplies.

Admittedly, my child goes to private school and she has
the advantage of learning additional languages, a music instrument and is working with the latest computer technology, however, I pay my taxes for public school as
well as for private school.

Boomer, I just heard a tidbit about this study and also welcomed it's results. Though, I'm sure there will be tons of backlash. I watch women with careers become mothers and try to balance the whole thing. Some times the men they partnered with help enough to make it sort of ok, but sometimes they don't. It's a difficult balancing act and one I love not having to perform.

Around here it's somewhere over 1,000 for a month of 3-day weeks. I think. I could get accurate rates if you all want me too. That's for daycare. The private pre-school my neice goes to costs more like 2k/mo and that is 5 days a week from 8:30-3.

"You can have it all, you just can't have it all at once." - Oprah

First, let me say that I read the article with relish, and, while I generally agree with what the author is saying, I found myself confused about the "powerlessness" that many of her interviewees spoke of. She says something to the effect of "They want their lives to change but they have no idea how to do it."

The article isn't addressing the moms who HAVE to work so I'm wondering where this powerlessness comes from.

Speaking only for myself, when I found that I was becoming overwhelmed I started taking serious steps to relieve the situation -- to find some balance.

I've said before on other threads that I feel parents have been sold a bill of goods about what kids need and I've pondered the competitive nature of parenthood. I've said that I think a lot of the "for the kid" stuff is really self serving.

For instance, I really respect my neighbor who put her kids in preschool so "I could have a frikken break fercryingoutloud" that I do the mommies that have their kids in preschool so that they end up doing well on their SATs.

The culture of "perfection parenting" is so pervasive that it is really nice to start seeing someone say relax.

For instance, at the park yesterday Mo and I were playing restaurant, a game we really like and one that usually gets every other kid in the park involved. One mommy came up to me and said she would appreciate it if I didn't order birthday cake but would choose salad instead because sugar robs your body of B vitamins and blah blah blah. Ummmmm..... okay.......

I really liked what the article says in a more general scope - that not every moment has to be a teachable one. That not every second has to be planned.

Right boomerang, but do we really need an article
to tell us this? Common sense plays a big part in this.

Heh! (The restaurant comment.) Oy.

I was similarly confused. I think that she started this article looking at herself and friends in similar situations -- it seems firmly rooted in an upper/ upper-middle-class milieu. Then she went elsewhere to pad what she's saying.

I had a weird reaction to the article, still figuring it out. I liked "just relax", but that doesn't actually seem to be what she's saying throughout. Her message is not clear and consistent. I love the last paragraph (that I quoted above), but it doesn't actually organically arise from the rest of her article. The rest of her article includes DON'T relax! Agitate! Make things happen! It includes blame the schools, blame the government, but don't blame us. Oh wait do blame us because we let this happen. Oh wait don't blame us because we let this happen, why is it all up to us? Oh wait we can't rely on anyone else so we have to stick up for ourselves. Oh wait...

:-?

A-ha, I think that's part of it. There is this heavy aspect of, OK, this is wrong, who to blame? I gotta find someone to blame.

THAT's what I think is not so simple as she would like.

For example, I think one huge element of this equation is two things that have naturally arisen from more choice being offered to women -- moving away from the areas where one was raised, and the death of the daytime neighborhood.

If I wanted to live in Minneapolis, I'd have abundant free childcare from at least my mom, probably my dad and his wife, and probably a couple of teenaged cousins. But I don't wanna. I have a relationship with my parents that fares much better if we have a certain geographical distance between us.

No neat scapegoat there. Nobody wants to go back to the days when women had no particular prospects and were stuck in the podunk town where they were born.

If I lived in a community of stay-at-home moms, I'd have infinitely more freedom during the day. I'd let sozlet go out and play in the neighborhood with other kids knowing that every 60 feet or so there would be an adult keeping an eye and an ear out. If I had to do a quick errand, I'd send her to the neighbor's for a bit and go and do it.

No neat scapegoat there. Nobody wants to go back to the days when women had no particular prospects and so stayed at home to raise kids 'cause that's all there was.

I still like the idea of having planned child-friendly communities -- families with one stay-at-home or work-from-home parent (either gender) clumping together to recreate those kinds of neighborhoods.

CalamityJane, right. And who has been saying that, anyway? That's part of what gets my back up about these kinds of articles (this is far from the first, there was an op-ed in the NYT a couple of days ago that had a different spin but was similar, lots lately, backlash is the new thing) is that they take extreme examples and use them to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The baby here is lots of good ideas within the "attachment parenting" philosophy, the bathwater is how some silly people take it to silly extremes. It's the same thing I complain about with educational philosophies (I guess it's very similar), that you have a good idea explained with restraint, some people go whole hog with it and implement it in weird, extreme ways, and then the good idea is trashed. It's the implementation, not the idea.

Yes, soz, I agree. I was born in 1960 and grew up in an atmosphere of political turmoil with the belief that we could change things. I was a little confused with her timeline as well.

I have dealt with many of the entitlement demanders too. It is easy to see where that kind of thinking might come from when we're encourage to show our patriotism by going shopping.

And yes, the advertising industry is certainly influential. I think about the car ads that say "we'll help you get the credit you deserve" when the type of person who typically responds to such things doesn't DESERVE any kind of credit at all.

And absolutely about the workaholic thing - the "what did you DO?" thing - and the competition thing.

Within the dynamic of my family this is a very complicated issue. I'm going to think on it a bit more before posting.....

Looking forward to your further posts, boomer.

Meanwhile, I think I may have identified a central problem I had with the article.

When one reads the article, one comes away with a sense of resentment towards those perfect moms who pretend they can handle everything and have those perfect kids and make the rest of us look bad. I think that is exactly the wrong place that resentment should be going. I think that's why I especially disliked the part where she says we shouldn't valorize motherhood, etc. -- yes, we should, and she's doing the opposite.

It's the whole crab theory, that crabs in a bucket will grab a crab trying to get out and drag him back down. Used as a metaphor for any number of oppressed communities.

Parenting (not mothering, men or women can do it) is indeed an incredibly important thing, and I bristle at the connotation that those who do it well should receive scorn and resentment rather than praise and aspiration. I think that is ultimately destructive for everyone.

Hmmm, CJane. Judging by B vitamin mom there might be a lot of people who need such an article.

I thought it was interesting from a cultural standpoint and that's why I talk about backlash.

I grew up in the era where women's work fashions were skirted men's suits with huge bows at the neck! The feminist movement was in full swing. Then, perfection mothering came into vogue - this was at the time when most of my friends began having kids - books with titles like "How To Be the CEO of Your Family" and the like littered bookshelves. It was a kind of post-feminism. Now it seems we've entered a post-post-feminism, where women are reclaiming more traditional roles and feeling like they have to validate it.

Yes, littlek, I think there is going to be some serious backlash. I think things like this re-crack open the door to the whole work world thing of not paying women as much, or giving them as much authority because "they're just going to leave and start a family".

Backlash is never pretty but it does often lead to real change. I should print this thread and put it in a time capsule so we can pull it out in 30 years and compare!

OK one more! (Geez, you think I find this subject interesting? ) (Thanks for posting the article!)

I think that Vitamin B lady needs this article -- but I think the sad part is that Vitamin B lady probably is acting because of another article. Or book. I think Vitamin B lady is one of those non-intuitive, uncreative, doesn't trust herself and her own instincts kinds of parents who goes looking for validation in whatever printed matter she can find.

Since there are a lot of those people, I worry about what they will do when they read Warner's article or book. What message they will actually take from it, what they will actually do. If it's "relax", great. (Also a major message of the Sears', though somehow that's not the message that a lot of Vitamin B lady types receive.)

And as I outline above, I worry that "relax" is not the message they'll get from Warner's many-messaged article (and presumably book.)

DrewDad, I like that comment a lot but I confess it's a bit hard to swallow coming from a woman whose earrings cost as much as my house!

I had a weird reaction to the article too, soz. I think for me that it comes from the fact that it doesn't mention the sacrifice it takes to find the balance. I went through a very angsty period of considering what I had to give up and what I had to keep to find some kind of balance in my life.

It's like your comments on deserving. It's almost like a tantrum - if we yell loud enough and long enough we'll get what we want - its the yelling that gets us there. Really though, these things are being decided quietly in homes all over the country and that is what will eventually lead to change.

"Sacrifice" is a word that has really fallen out of favor.

I love the concept of daytime neighborhood. I lived in a neighborhood like that, one free of cell phones to boot! "Be home by dark" was the big caution. All of that has most definately changed.

I really, really agree with this.

(Also about the earrings! ;-))

The resentment thing is something that I've personally stuggled with but not towards the women I know who do manage to have it all - and do it quite well. My resentment comes more from the fact that I am expected to do the same, especially when the expectation comes from Mr. B. We have had long talks with me starting by saying something like "I appreciate the fact that you think I am competent but the fact is, I'm not all that competent....."

Luckily, Mr. B is a good guy and he really tries to understand the disconnect between my younger self and my current self.

There are a lot of people who consider all print gospel. Vitamin B is probably one of them. Finding balance begins with being truthful about yourself, with yourself.