cause even though I’m one of them, I don’t think it’s the be all end all of human sacrifice and I really think that once we stop sentimentalizing women’s work and start looking at it from a rational place- there can be no support for the idea of the traditional stay at home wife.
So how to look at it without getting all misty eyed over our own precious little nose pickers.
1) That children grow up to be productive contributors to society is a vital function without which society would literally cease to exist.
2) When looked at without sentimentality, there is no benefit to parents in having children except for the continuance of their genetic line. Children to parents are a massive financial and time strain with NO material benefit to the parents. Especially in this society where grown children do not stay in their parents house to combine resources for the most part. And especially to mothers who are biologically take all the physical risk of having children and traditionally take most of the time burden of raising children. And in our modern society, mothers take not just the physical risk and the time burden, but most of the financial burden as well, either because they are single mothers who are the sole source of income, or because they will take a hit financially either by staying home with their kids to raise them or by missed work opportunities during post-partum periods.
3) When women choose to stay home with their children for no pay, it devalues the work of women (and men) who do caring work for pay. By having an ideal of the self sacrificing woman who gives up financial independence to care for children or family we continue the idea that anyone with a uterus can take care of children. No education or skills are required. It is not skilled labor, nor is it valuable because there is a HUGE group of people so willing to do it for free. So the people that do caring jobs for pay are seen as unskilled labor and are paid as such. I see no difference between wiping bottoms and being a garbage collector (actually I do- wiping bottoms is much more vital to society’s future) but garbage collectors are paid considerably better. All that is required of them is a driver’s license and enough physical strength to throw a bag around.
4) Women who choose to stay home and justify it as “for the good of the children” might want to check their own skills. Do you have a degree in early childhood education? Have you at least passed an infant CPR class? If you do have the early childhood education degree, you will probably supplement your income by caring for children other than your own. Which makes you no longer an unpaid or unskilled laborer. But most mothers do not have a background in skilled childcare. We learn what we can in stolen moments either from our own mothers or from books and the internet, television, etc. But much like my sitting here and using this computer may make me a skilled user but never a computer programmer, for the most part raising children without an additional education will never make you a childcare expert. It would be infinitely better to have society pick up a larger share of the cost of childrearing in order to have better skilled and educated people doing the daily work of creating productive children. Hell, even parenting classes and paid parental leave would at least look like we actually care about the quality of people raising children, and it would make childcare no longer an unpaid sacrifice for unskilled workers. And make no mistake, as mothers we are a massive unpaid labor force.
We mothers like to maintain this mystique about our child rearing abilities. It is a backwards sort of power, like the idea that beautiful women have power over men in our society. The truth is that most of us are capable of producing children and in our society with minimal effort those children will grow up to be adults. We- for the most part (there are exceptions for the poor) do not have to worry about famine or daily violence or most diseases taking our children before they can become adults. But still we refuse to release the false power ideal, the one thing we can do that men can’t, because it we have been programmed for centuries to believe that it is our job to sacrifice ourselves to do a job that only we can do.
Except that there are skilled people who can and should be paid better to do it, if only we’d give up our monopoly. I am not saying that children should be carted off to be raised in community creches with no parental involvement, because there is one thing that parents- both mothers and fathers- can provide without cost that children absolutely need- love. But if all children need to thrive was love, then poor children would be much more successful than they are. Children need love from parents and skilled carers to teach them. They need to live in homes with enough resources of food and clothing and shelter (and dual incomes form two working parents can provide that better than one), but also with access to teachers who understand how little brains develop. We need to stop thinking of our children as “ours” alone. They are way more important than that. And we, as women are more than just unskilled brood mares, yet we keep clinging to that status in order to hold onto a sentimental ideal. It is not good for children or mothers or even fathers. But so far it has been an extremely cheap way for society to get half the population to do a mountain of much needed work with no pay or benefits.
