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| Agatha didn't mind staying home with her children...at least, not as long as she could watch The View |
Some tweets from Pundit & Pundette:
The value of a mother raising her children is not fundamentally economic, any more than the mother/child relationship is economic.
It could be the easiest thing in the world and it would still be infinitely more valuable than, say, being an RIAA lobbyist.
It could be the easiest thing in the world and it would still be infinitely more valuable than, say, being an RIAA lobbyist.
Motherhood is not a "job." A child is not a product. A home is not a factory.
The above makes a really good case for not framing the terms of the choice to be an at-home mom in language that doesn't suit it.
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| Beryl loved choices but she didn't love her hair. |
I also mentioned a long quote in the comments section of the other day's post from G.K. Chesterton. He has more to say that I think bears reading if you'll excuse some of the out-modedness of expression as he draws the line too brightly for current sensibilities for keeping women out of the world of specialization. But he makes an important case for the broadness of domestic life rather than narrowness:
Our old analogy of the fire remains the most workable one. The fire need not blaze like electricity nor boil like boiling water; its point is that it blazes more than water and warms more than light. The wife is like the fire, or to put things in their proper proportion, the fire is like the wife. Like the fire, the woman is expected to cook: not to excel in cooking, but to cook; to cook better than her husband who is earning the coke by lecturing on botany or breaking stones. Like the fire, the woman is expected to tell tales to the children, not original and artistic tales, but tales--better tales than would probably be told by a first-class cook. Like the fire, the woman is expected to illuminate and ventilate, not by the most startling revelations or the wildest winds of thought, but better than a man can do it after breaking stones or lecturing. But she cannot be expected to endure anything like this universal duty if she is also to endure the direct cruelty of competitive or bureaucratic toil. Woman must be a cook, but not a competitive cook; a school mistress, but not a competitive schoolmistress; a house-decorator but not a competitive house-decorator; a dressmaker, but not a competitive dressmaker. She should have not one trade but twenty hobbies; she, unlike the man, may develop all her second bests. This is what has been really aimed at from the first in what is called the seclusion, or even the oppression, of women. Women were not kept at home in order to keep them narrow; on the contrary, they were kept at home in order to keep them broad. The world outside the home was one mass of narrowness, a maze of cramped paths, a madhouse of monomaniacs. It was only by partly limiting and protecting the woman that she was enabled to play at five or six professions and so come almost as near to God as the child when he plays at a hundred trades. But the woman's professions, unlike the child's, were all truly and almost terribly fruitful; so tragically real that nothing but her universality and balance prevented them being merely morbid. This is the substance of the contention I offer about the historic female position. I do not deny that women have been wronged and even tortured; but I doubt if they were ever tortured so much as they are tortured now by the absurd modern attempt to make them domestic empresses and competitive clerks at the same time. I do not deny that even under the old tradition women had a harder time than men; that is why we take off our hats. I do not deny that all these various female functions were exasperating; but I say that there was some aim and meaning in keeping them various. I do not pause even to deny that woman was a servant; but at least she was a general servant...
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| Betty sometimes wondered if she was simply a tool of the patriarchy... |
And that IS how I feel about it--that active and interested parenting/homemaking requires skills that I had not even thought of developing, spanning a range of talents. It's only as narrow as I make it and as my husband likes to say, I'm 'broad where a broad should be broad'.
Anyway, I hope all of this is taken as I meant it--a clarification for the reasons and meaning that goes into my...well, after that, I'm not about to use the word 'job'...vocation and not a degradation of the considered decisions of others.
Sincerely,
The Management
3 comments:
I like the part about developing our 'second bests'. That's pretty much the way I roll.
I've never heard it put like that. It makes sense.
From a historical perspective, it's very unfortunate that society has painted "women's work" as somehow secondary, and servile. The truth is, it never was. Historically, there were two reasons that some work became "women's work".
First, it was work that could be done while tending to children who needed nursing. The simple fact is, men cannot nurse no matter how many equal rights laws are passed. So the very first "woman's job" is established by nature.
But the second, overlooked, is that as you point out, work is really divided into "inside" and "outside" work. A family needs both, but if we all chose randomly, it would mean half of all potential marriage partners would have the wrong set. Two partners with the same skills are of no use to each other.
The ultimate example of this is the traditional culture of the Inuit Eskimo. The man learns from his father to hunt and fish. Without his hunting and fishing, the family will starve. But the woman learns from her mother how to make and maintain the man's kayak. Without the kayak he cannot hunt and fish, and the family will starve. Because in the arctic families are often isolated by weather and distance, each family needed to be able to survive alone. Two kayak makers or two hunters would not survive.
Ben
I've never heard it put like that. It makes sense.
From a historical perspective, it's very unfortunate that society has painted "women's work" as somehow secondary, and servile. The truth is, it never was. Historically, there were two reasons that some work became "women's work".
First, it was work that could be done while tending to children who needed nursing. The simple fact is, men cannot nurse no matter how many equal rights laws are passed. So the very first "woman's job" is established by nature.
But the second, overlooked, is that as you point out, work is really divided into "inside" and "outside" work. A family needs both, but if we all chose randomly, it would mean half of all potential marriage partners would have the wrong set. Two partners with the same skills are of no use to each other.
The ultimate example of this is the traditional culture of the Inuit Eskimo. The man learns from his father to hunt and fish. Without his hunting and fishing, the family will starve. But the woman learns from her mother how to make and maintain the man's kayak. Without the kayak he cannot hunt and fish, and the family will starve. Because in the arctic families are often isolated by weather and distance, each family needed to be able to survive alone. Two kayak makers or two hunters would not survive.
Ben
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