More Whine
According to some, women should be able to drop out of the workforce to care for their kids, and pop back in at exactly where they were before they left! Oh, and sorry, but career mommy will have to leave at 4pm, and you single or non-mommy workers will have to stay 'til 7 to pick up the slack...but we don't want to see an iota of difference in career mommy's pay! Yawn. That's what Momsrising.com founder Joan Blades is saying over at Huffington Post:
The real issue is will Elizabeth (Vargas) be able to return to her career without it being forever diminished by her choice to take time off to be with her young children? Data shows that most mothers never economically recover from taking time off. Their career path is henceforth constrained. Look in the halls of power. How many women are in boardrooms, in the Senate, in leadership? And how many of the women leaders there are mothers? The fact is, we need mothers in leadership. They provide a very important voice and understanding. Corporations that have women in leadership are the stronger for it. Legislatures that have more women in leadership have better family policies. It is not a given that careers must be linear, it is a tradition.Traditions change. Now most women work. It is time to use our understanding of the problem to remove the barriers for mothers. Example: The vast majority of tenured professors at universities are men. There is a logical explanation for this. It just so happens that traditionally the time when professors work for tenure, a time of intense work, coincides with the time most women must choose to have children or not. 82% of women become mothers by the time they are 44. One can see how this system might strongly select against women gaining tenure. Seeing the consequence of traditional tenure-track policies some universities have decided to make it possible for parents to take time off to have children without giving up their ambitions for full professorship. It is good for the university, good for the children, and good for the parents.
Having children is a choice, and if you make it, it's going to have an impact on your career. As the first commenter below her piece, luaxanaevila, points out:
What about non-mothers? Single women suffer as much or more because we're left to pick up the slack, and then we're looked upon with suspicion because "it's only a matter of time".If you want to be a breeder, great, but people need to take responsibility for their choices (which having a baby is), and not expect everyone else to help them get by. You think we should pay mothers for having kids? What about women who can't or choose not to have kids? We have FMLA for a reason so as to give everyone a chance to take time off, without losing their jobs, for whatever family situations may arise.
Women want to have their cake and eat it too. Therein lies the downfall of the feminist movement. Women say they want equality, but they don't. They want to get treated better. What about paid time off for new fathers? What about paid time off for single people or couples without children after picking up the slack? Are you for those measures too? While I agree that women (mothers or not) are an integral part in business, having a child is a personal choice and everyone else should be beholden to pay someone for a specific choice they've made.
> we need mothers in leadership.
> They provide a very important
> voice and understanding.
Umm... Show of hands. Anyone think this is a patronizing caricature of feminine nature, exactly the sort of thing that the movement was created to countermand?
Crid at May 27, 2006 12:11 AM
Good point, Crid. What do we need them for, to hand out milk and cookies as companies are going under?
Forgive me, I'm vulgar, but squeezing a kid out your cootch qualifies you to do nothing whatsoever. Not even to be a parent. And, quite frankly, more parents should be more focused on... actually parenting. I hear your loud spawn when I'm out in the formerly civilized spaces in society. And I'm not pleased.
Amy Alkon at May 27, 2006 12:30 AM
What about paid time off for new fathers?
My company provides that. Here's the thing though...most mothers don't get "paid time off". They might get 6-8 weeks of disability and up to 90 days of unpaid time off (FMLA does not mandate that you get paid for that time). In my department, we hire temps when ever anyone goes out on an extended leave for any reason. If other workers doing the same job and for the same pay are expected to "pick up the slack" for any other worker, regardless of the reason, then that's bad management and should be addressed at that level. Companies need to retain good workers and they know it. In my department some of the best and most reliable workers are parents. If I've invested 6 months in training someone and another year or two in growing and developing their skills, it's more than worth 3-6 months of them being out if I know they'll be bringing those skills back when they return. And once they do return, they're expected to put in the same 8 hours as everyone else. I don't know where these companies are where parents get to skip out at 4pm, but that's never been my experience.
deja pseu at May 27, 2006 6:21 AM
Having now raised two sons to the ages of 18 and 21, for the most part as a single parent, I have to say that modern day "mothers", are bigger babies than their off spring.
I am disgusted by the limp mothering I encounter, which is why Amy you are exposed so many children in public that make you crazy. Children are not the mini-me of their parent, they are not adults, they are children, which means you need to actually parent them. This would be setting limits, guiding them, providing solid examples, and remembering they learn what you teach them. Follow through is HUGE. I see too many parents that cave in at the sight of a protruding lower lip, or worse a full blown tantrum.
No, I have not been a perfect mom, but I will say that I made choices for my sons that were not convenient for me, but required me to be an active parent, like not plopping them in front of the TV all the live long day. Which begs to ask, do you really need a DVD player in that God forsaken mini-van?
Work and motherhood, well guess what, when I wanted to advance in my career, I worked late, and my children survived that. When I needed to "mother", on work time, I used vacation time to be there. Fair? Well it is what it is, and I knew if I wanted to wear big girl shoes, I had better be able to walk in them.
sonja at May 27, 2006 7:07 AM
What I've recently come to understand (recently, because I don't spend a lot of time studying kids) is how right John Bowlby was in his theories of the securely and insecurely attached. What seems to matter most is that kids have a base of love and acceptance -- that they know they are loved and accepted and that it's not about the mother's convenience.
At the very same time, they need discipline -- another way of providing security, and a form of love to exercise it judiciously...not to plop kids in front of the TV but to talk to them. I don't have kids, but I see how discipline works with my dog. I'm pretty much a fascist about her behaving -- and it's done her a favor, because it means I don't have to leave her home. I can take her anywhere, and nobody would ever no (yes, because she's tiny), but because I can count on her to disappear and stay disappeared if I say "lie down, no noise."
As for what you're talking about Sonja, I see it with my neighbors and how they parent their kids. The kids, 5 and 2, aren't allowed to watch TV except for educational videos. Instead, the parents just bought the 5-year-old boy a $100 Taschen?, I think, book of antique color drawings of plants and animals. He plays with his dinosaurs all the time, too, and trains, and he can tell you the names of a bunch of dinosaurs, which he loves.
The thing is, you really can't have it all. If you're going to be a mommy, you're going to have to make sacrifices, and it's not up to the rest of us to make them for you.
Amy Alkon at May 27, 2006 7:16 AM
Deja, I experienced the mothers leaving at 4pm when I was a producer at Ogilvy & Mather, right out of college. I had to pick up the slack a lot for my boss, who always had to go get her kid at ballet or something.
Amy Alkon at May 27, 2006 7:18 AM
Sonja, my hat's off to you. I don't suppose you'd be willing to let us clone you? Pretty please? My (college educated, already on the career track in the Army) mother became a stay at home mom when my older brother was born. She continued to do so until I was 12, when she took a job that didn't pay very well but was flexible enough for her to leave at a moment's notice when either one of us needed her. She homeschooled us when it was necessary and our house was always the one with the mom home. No surprise that that was where all of my friends went when they needed help, advice, food, or bandaids. She took a government contract job recently and works very hard at it. My mother never asked for a handout or a hand up, or made a coworker stay to pick up her slack, and she did all this while being a firm, loving, and attentive parent. I'm only 21, and I'm absolutely disgusted by the way I see children being coddled and indulged by their candy-ass parents. I'm stricter with my dogs than they are with their kids, and they wonder why little Snotleigh is uncontrollable and violent. All of the news articles about violent and sexually predatory 10, 11, and 12 year olds? The direct result of lazy and ineffectual parenting. Excuse the vulgarity, but grow a set and quit being a namby-pamby. You're bigger than your child for a reason, and I'll be good and goddamned before I cater to any woman who thinks she's better than I am because her vagina spat something out.
amh18057 at May 27, 2006 7:20 AM
Hey Amy, where'd my comment go?
deja pseu at May 27, 2006 8:13 AM
Uh-oh...just got a bunch of spam...try not to junk real comments along with it...will go find it and bring it back. Sorry...and thanks for letting me know right away so I didn't delete it forever!
Amy Alkon at May 27, 2006 8:22 AM
Just found it and brought it back. Refresh your browser and it should appear in place above. Please...if anybody notices their comment disappear...tell me right away, and in the first words of your post so I can see it asap as a header in my MT software. I'm trying to be very careful, but sometimes a comment inadvertently gets disappeared. I'll try to be even more careful.
Amy Alkon at May 27, 2006 8:26 AM
I dunno. I've got two kids, worked all the time, and spent more than my fair share of time working at home, in the car, at kid's school events. My unmarried/childfree counterparts were on the phone whining about their last dates, trying to get into the pants of the cameraman and puking up lunch in the ladies' room. There's slacking on both sides.
Being a mother made me a much better producer--I always have a snack in my purse, know where the bathrooms are, and can treat most minor injuries in a flash.
KateCoe at May 27, 2006 9:43 AM
Deja, I experienced the mothers leaving at 4pm when I was a producer at Ogilvy & Mather, right out of college. I had to pick up the slack a lot for my boss, who always had to go get her kid at ballet or something.
And once again, I call "bad management."
In my workplace, if you stay home with a sick kid, it comes out of your sick or vacation time. If you need time off to go to a school function, it comes out of your vacation time. The rules are the same for everyone. In my department, the biggest attendance problems we've had haven't been parents, they've been a few of the younger folks who have a tendency to go out and party too much and call in hungover the next day.
deja pseu at May 27, 2006 1:34 PM
This discussion reminds me of a column by Marilyn Vos Savant. She was addressing the unequal pay issue between men and women and called the statistic -- 75 cents per woman for every dollar per man or whatever it is -- "an oversimplification."
She asked her readers to consider their decision if they were hypothetically the CEO of a large corporation, considering hiring two equally qualified candidates, a man and a woman.
Your business depends on establishing long-term business relationships with clients and you're going to spend 100,000 dollars to train this new hire. Which one is more likely to quit their job to start a family? Which one is more likely to need extended time off for a new birth in the family? Who's more likely to be called away from work due to an emergency with their child? Who's more likely to be absent from work to stay home with their sick or injured child?
So? Who do you hire?
I don't recall the column well, but I thought Savant did a superb job with it.
Patrick at May 28, 2006 2:53 PM
You just get more for your money out of the person who isn't divided by other interests - kids or whatever.
Still, Kate, while I can appreciate that it's a lot of people who waste time, kids take an enormous amount of effort. I've been single (I prefer the term "an independent") most of my life, and it's never stopped me from working like mad.
Amy Alkon at May 28, 2006 2:57 PM
Granted, some people whine, take advantage, abuse their power and believe they are entitled. People who think they have done the world a favor by reproducing, leave me at a loss for polite words.
Setting that aside; I keep coming back to the thought that "we" as a culture do not have in place a truly workable system that allows family members to care for the temporarily, extremely dependent - newborns or people who are terminally ill. 90 days off without pay does not work. We can choose whether to have children, but we can't choose whether a parent, spouse or child becomes terminally ill.
My best friend, age 33, recently shared the responsibility of caring for her terminally ill father. Three adults held down full-time jobs while sharing this responsibility, and it did not work. The hospital refused to authorize home health care or hospice, but someone had to be with him at all times because the poisons building up in his system made him irrational and dangerous (the police could not legally deprive him of access to his guns and car).
In another instance, my childhood friend had to keep working at his job in order to retain his health benefits to fight his brain tumor. He lost that fight. I wonder if he could have spent that last year focusing solely on his undeniably serious health problem, it might not have been his last year.
I think the upcoming predicament of baby boomers becoming geriatric en masse merits creating work structures that increase flexibility and accountability, favoring a long term (rather than a short term) view of return on investment.
Meanwhile, the same government that mandated fuel inefficiency in the 80's/90's is now publicly financing a war for foreign oil. If we can subsidize oil, we can subsidize family leave and health care.
Michelle at May 28, 2006 10:10 PM
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