Letters to the Editor
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Putting the burden on dad
I'm the only working mom in my network of friends. For my husband and me, it's not a choice; two state employees' salaries combined don't even come close to what a mid-level corporate drone brings home. On the positive side, we're each only working 40-hour weeks and have the luxury of leaving work at work (physically and, most of the time, emotionally). Our kids have done well in daycare, and I have a lot of respect and love for the women who have helped us care for them over the years.
When I think about my friends who stay at home, I don't really worry about them; most of them were never particularly ambitious to begin with and welcomed the chance to trade suits for sweats. As many have said in these letters, who among us wouldn't want to stay home if we had the chance?
I do worry about their husbands, though. Carrying the entire financial burden has got to be tough on these guys. Computer programmer? Hope your cube-farm job doesn't get outsourced. Credit card marketing manager? Hope you make it through that merger, pal. M & A attorney? I heard you actually got to come home for dinner one night last week; then you went back to work till midnight. Better be nice to the boss, keep your nose clean, try to get that promotion so you can make some more money. Everyone's counting on your paycheck and your insurance plan.
I don't know how these guys do it. I don't know why they do it. I was the sole earner for a while when my husband went back to school, and losing the financial balance wasn't good for either one of us. Now, I take comfort in knowing that if either one of us gets the axe, at least we have the other's salary and benefits to lighten the load till we're back on our feet. I'll take our two slow-track careers over one-working-as-hard-as-two any day.
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The Future...another direction?
I am not sure why women cannot do both--work at home and raise a family. I know that is not possible in all professions, but many women I know work at home at high paying jobs (or at least part time jobs) and continue to raise their family.
A better vision is a national government initiative to support more telecommuting and remote work, by both men (who can help out with the family obviously) and women. I am amazed that in this day of wireless high speed Internet and video conferencing that we spend BILLIONS of hours of time and money commuting to a cube or office located 20 or more miles away. I think 100 years from now, people will laugh at the endless hours we spent in our cars, sitting in traffic jams wasting gas, polluting the air, etc, to do something we could easily do at home. Hopefully in that future world, our children will be raised in the best environment possible and everyone will be fulfilled professionally, and be less stressed.
Ray
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It's the fathers leaving that's the problem.
Every day, I see highly educated, professional career men leave their children with bored and resentful caregivers. How can a father do that to his children?
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Great. Another opinion piece on the last opinion piece discussing the opinion piece before that.
Can we frame this issue, being so publically debated, as a public issue?
Because right now the discussion nets out to a big circle jerk of personal opinions. This has turned into a discussion of a few New York Times brides, Maureen Dowd, David Brook's happy home and a woman who got screwed by her husband of 40 years. Not to say that I don't have an opinion on each of these - I do, much as I have an opinion on shoes and my friend's boyfriends. This, however, is not worthy of public debate.
I'm getting a headache from all these articles that keep adjusting the lens from macro to micro to anecdote to data.
Give me some proposed legislation, some data and some reform and stop telling me about your dating history or who cooks dinner in your house.
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Women Should Grow Up
I just read the Hirschmann article that apparently spawned these exchanges. At first I worried that I've made the compromises she criticizes. I attended Boalt Hall law school and now I work as a full time lawyer with one child in school. But it's a government job so I'm not making the big money some of my former classmates pull down. I do, however, have some impact on social policies, etc. And my income puts me in the upper 5% of female wage earners, even without considering my husband's income. So maybe Hirschman will accept that I have not become a mover and a shaker but I'm still fulfilling my promise.
And the truth is, I generally like working, getting dressed, going to my tidy, organized office, talking to adults, occasionally grappling with intellectual issues. My son seems just fine. He likes school, likes afterschool care, performs well academically and socially.
I review my personal history and realize the women in my family have always worked, partly because they could not rely on absent men. I have a photograph of my great-great grandmother graduating from a teacher's college in 1886. I know she and her daughter helped operate the family hotels for years. Both my grandmothers, who were divorced from their childrens' fathers, had jobs from the 1930s on. My mother went back to school and work when her youngest child started kindergarten. I worked during my pregnancy and my son's infancy because his father, my first husband, would not.
I look at my sister-in-law, about to be divorced by my brother and lacking education and skills, and I wonder how she could possibly have gambled on his lifelong support and protection. Women need to take care of themselves. It is the fundamental responsibility of being an adult.
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mmefiori is a sour misanthrope
. . .straight out of a Dickens novel. To this person, all mothers are subhuman "breeding sows" who must be separated from the rest of society, discriminated against economically and punished for existing, along with their children (though there's no such enmity toward fathers, for some reason). I guess for this person, the Indian Ocean tsunami was cause for great celebration -- so many children killed!
You've got to feel sorry for this person's own mother.