Geeky Mama: June 2006

I encountered this bit of information from a wonderful blog that I read frequently: http://thehomesickhome.blogspot.com/

This lead me to the ABC news story and an excerpt from Linda Hirshman's newest book. I say "book" in the loosest sense of the word here, because I find it to be mindless regurgitation of old 1970s feminist propaganda with no relevance for the year 2006.

Here are some quotes that stick in my craw:
"In "Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World," she argues that a new revolution is needed to reform the sexual politics of family and to make women realize that full participation in the work force and the public sphere is their only path to becoming self-actualized human beings. " (ABC news)

"Their husbands won't carry enough of the household to enable them to succeed fully in the public world. Glass ceiling? The thickest glass ceiling is at home."
- excerpted from LH's book "Get to Work"

"- Never know when you're out of milk. Bargain relentlessly for a just household."
- excerpted from LH's book "Get to Work"

"Child care and housekeeping have satisfying moments but are not occupations likely to produce a flourishing life. Gender ideology places these tasks on women's backs; women must demand redistribution."
- excerpted from LH's book "Get to Work"

First of all, I must go back for a historical explanation regarding my own personal circumstances.

My mother was a SAHM mother. She was college educated, but all she was encouraged to get was her MRS degree. She had wanted to major in Spanish and move to Latin America, but her parents encouraged her to follow the path available to her: to be a nurse or a teacher. So she became a Kindergarten teacher.
My father was her great "catch" - a young pre-med student when she met him in college, she worked and supported him through his medical school and residency, and later had the comfortable "privileged" life of a doctor's wife for about a dozen years (before they divorced).

I was raised hearing one message, my younger sister another. What I heard was: "You'd better get good grades and get a good education because you'll need to get a good job to support yourself..because we're not sure if anyone will ever find you attractive enough to marry you." My sister heard: "You're so pretty, it's nice you have so many friends. Don't worry about school, just find a rich husband."

So, I was the "smart but ugly" one and she was the "pretty but dumb" child. This message was reinforced by our parents and extended family for all of our formative years.

How f'ed up is THAT? That is not feminist or anti-feminist, that is some messed up parenting. Period.

Still, both my sister and I grew up to be happily married women who have had satisfying careers thus far in our life.

How did this come to be? Well, let's side step that question for a moment and go back to what is so very very wrong with the central arguement of "Get to Work".

The central arguement is that women are not fulfilled unless they are using their minds in the working world. At this point I must insist that if I had the financial means to be a stay-at-home-mom I assure you I would be JUST as fulfilled, and perhaps even more so than I am now as a full-time working mother / slash-career woman working my way up the corporate ladder in America.

Probably the single largest change that LH misses is that her thinking, so 1970s-centric at it's core.. no longer applies in this era of "no spanking" and "kinder, gentler" child-raising.

The same societal messages pushing women to breastfeed, hand grind fresh organically grown vegetables, co-sleep and wrap our babies' behinds in only re-usable hemp diapers washed in bio-friendly non-chemical laundry detergent cannot also be simultaneously pushing us to be "super woman" and use our advanced degrees and dump our babies in day care, can they? This just doesn't jive. (And yet.. I swear, I hear both of these contradictory messages...)

As for me, there is no glass ceiling at home. In fact, we are currently pondering a career move that would make me the primary/sole wage earner and would give my husband a few years off as a a stay-at-home-dad ..if I take an international post with my company.
Even if we don't take that particular path, we have an amazingly equal partnership that sounds NOTHING like the quotes from the books above. I earn about the same amount as my husband now, we share all domestic duties, and we both try so hard to balance both work and home priorities. We both share child care duties (who takes the day off when a kid is sick and can't go to day care), we both try to center our work schedules around what is important for our family (time together), we don't overschedule ourselves or our children's activities. We have a truly equal partnership, all the way. He does as much laundry as I do (or perhaps more). We share cooking and cleaning chores. He can do whatever I can do with the children (none of them are breastfeeding anymore), and he'd argue that in some ways he's better with the kids than I am. (He's more easygoing. I'm more into routines and schedules.)

I am "fully self-actualized" - but it has NOTHING to do with who is doing the domestic chores at my house, nor is it because I'm working outside the home! It has to do with the fact that I am responsible for my own happiness and for being a good mother, good friend, good partner, good wife, good daughter, good sister, etc.
I know what brings me joy. Holding my children, playing with my kids, cuddling with my husband, quilting, reading - and I know that my sense of self-worth is not dependent on a JOB or kudos from my boss -- nor is it solely based on how neat and tidy my home is. To boil life down to such simplistic measures is shallow and stupid.

And there we have it. I find Linda Hirshman's diatribe to be shallow and simplistic. It's not relevant to my life nor do I find value in her comments for the current generation of working mothers. She just doesn't get it.

And, not unlike the dangerous messages both my sister and I were fed as young women- this message is not a healthy one for young women in the year 2006 to hear. Your career is not your life! Using your brain isn't a mandate related to your gender! You are not the sum of your reproductive parts, nor do you have a societal mandate to overacheive just because you were born without a Y chromosome.
You CAN have a meaningful life as a caretaker for children if (big if) that is what you find meaning in for you personally. Taking time off from ruling the world to care for yourself, your children or an ailing parent is not a feminine trait, it's a HUMAN trait.