A Rock and a Hard Place: Women in the workforce and family
September 20, 2009
by Monica Jean Alaniz
|My experience with “women in the workforce” is rather diverse. I grew up in a household where my mother was a stay-at-home mom. My older sister also has chosen to stay home with my nephew. I also have a best friend who was never a stay-at-home mom.
An article by the New York Times shows that women who have chosen to stay home in the past are now re-entering the workforce due to financial hardships brought on by the recession. My mother faced a similar situation and was forced to enter the workforce after fifteen years away due to personal and financial circumstances.
Right now my younger sister is in a similar situation. She gave birth on Monday and though she would love to stay home with her newborn daughter that will not be a possibility due to the recession. Her family needs to be a two income family.
I know it’s not easy for her, as a first-time mom, to think about her impending return to work; after all, she did grow up in a household where her mother was always home. She’s seen my older sister choose to do the same thing. She wants to stay home, but can’t.
I ran into another friend today who told me that she wants to return to work, but the high cost of daycare for her two children meant that the majority of any income that she brought into her household would be directed towards childcare.
Women all over the country seem to be finding themselves in these types of situations.
I do not believe that staying home or working is a bad thing. After all, staying home with children all day is hard work. I also believe that women in the workforce set wonderful examples for future generations of girls.
What I found particularly sad in this article is that even as these women re-enter the workforce they face other obstacles due to their absence. They have trouble finding jobs. They get paid less and never really “catch-up” in terms of salary.
Considering that we already know that women don’t get paid the same amount as men this means that women are getting less and less.
We also know that women don’t face the same constraints as men when it comes to the expectations placed on them in terms of family.
While women have come a long way in terms of their presence in the workforce and we obviously have more choices open to us in terms of employment than our grandmothers did, there is still a long way to go. Our culture has set this double standard and we still have people arguing that children are better off with a stay-at-home mom, but I don’t ever remember hearing about a significant move towards stay-at-home parents, whether that is a mother or a father.
Perhaps we not only need to change the perception of women in the workforce, but the perception of women in their roles as mothers as well.
There is a way for moms to find happiness between work and family. Moms are now turning their passions into professions due to the economy. Love tennis? Teach kids how to play. Love spinning? Become a certified spinning instructor or a personal trainer! Corporate is only one option. The former suggestions give us more flexibility and allow for more time with the kids.
Was it Bacon (not Kevin) who wrote: “He who has a wife and child has given hostages to fortune.”? What was a sexist comment, as though women’s lives aren’t changed when they had a child, is now-with the recession- even truer for women. When we have a child, we have given a hostage to fortune: depressions, wars. and more.
Hm, that quote could depend upon the context… I can see it being very appropriate in a non-sexist way such as a man has his wife and child but he neglects them while making his fortune. By neglecting them, he has made them hostages to fortune.
Karen-yes, that is one interpretation and an appropriate one.In keeping with your interpretation, but interpreting “fortune” as a larger entity/symbol –ncluding the one you cited–fortune is then a reference to the life decisions one makes and how those decisions are influenced/restricted by those children
who must be considered first with each decison.
On the news yesterday, a woman and her five children were murdered, perhaps by her husband who sought refuge in Haiti. Social workers and the public kept asking what prompted her to remain with him for that time as he had been violent from the beginning. Perhaps the answer was her hostages to fortune–her five children. If one considers how a woman might take a child (or five) from a home and find a safe place to live from that point on, the phrase “hostages to fortune” takes on a broader meaning.
Please do not interpret my observations on “fortune” as placing the blame on women. I am saying, though, given the level of male on female violence in the US and around the world, protection of women and children is paramount. In order to accomplish such protection, we need to offer opportunities for women, as well as protection. And understanding how to achieve safety for women and children is an extremely complex issue.
I’m interpreting that comment differently. A wife and child in those days — and these days — is really an unstable place to be. It just is. Especially if you don’t work or don’t make enough to live on.
I remember getting labelled a mommy-hater by a woman on a thread once when she was waxing eloquent about how lovely it was to be a stay-at-home mom and how it was so a feminist choice (whatever the hell that means), and I replied by telling her that she was playing Russian roulette with her future. Suppose her husband leaves, cheats, or simlpy dies or becomes terribly ill or unable to work? It’s nice to not have to work — hell, I’m single and I wish I didn’t have to work — but if you are married and anticipate that you and your kid will be taken care of indefinitely and stably, you are definitely making a hostage to blind luck or yourself and your kid. Sacrificing self-sufficiency, no matter what side of the feminist fence you fall on, is just not a wise thing to do. You and your kid are one heart attack away from penury.
Janis said, “I’m interpreting that comment differently. A wife and child in those days — and these days — is really an unstable place to be. It just is. Especially if you don’t work or don’t make enough to live on.”
I think we are all saying the same thing. The phrase “hostages to fortune” resonates our experiences. We wager–gamble with– our future when we have a child. Our futures become more precarious. We have given “a hostage to fortune”–lessened our chances of achieving what we thought we could. We are no longer as much in charge of our lives. Life becomes more of a gamble, less assured for us and for our children.
I would put the emphasis elsewhere — that we wager with our futures when he stop working and let someone else support us. Any nonworking partner — and it’s most often the woman — is playing games with her ability to sustain herself. We are all ultimately hostages to fortune, but that’s a very, very dangerous gamble to take, to let someone else support you, whether you have a child or no. With a child, the stakes simply become much, much higher.
Janis, I like the concrete way you express the larger metaphor of “hostages to fortune.” You are including what has changed since Bacon wrote those words–a woman is no longer a man’s hostage to fortune unless he is supporting her; if that is the case, as you pointed out, the woman’s hostage to fortune is her inability to sustain herself financially. And a child or children raise the stakes. And at that juncture, physical violence can easily enter the equation.
Do you think we, especially working class women [speaking for myself], understand the our need to be self-sustaining and able to sustain our children with or without a man to help? Is it possible this issue is not addressed in exactly this way to young women at the juncture of the decision for more education or a child/marriage? Do young working class women think that way?
It seems so obvious, but the cultural barriers to understanding and discussing this still exist and are not always recognizable.
Marjorie, I just wish there were a way to talk about this. If a woman isn’t working herself and has a child, she may not realize it, but her tolerance level for abuse, cheating, and other forms of bullshit skyrockets. “It won’t happen to me” only goes so far. Everyone who is in that situation thoguht the same thing. And if you are married to a man who isn’t a rat-bastard, he could still die suddenly and leave you up the crick.
But try to say this to a woman who blithely sails on with her fingers in her ears going, “I’m a stay-at-home mom!” Try even hinting, “You’ll probably still want to at least freelance or work part-time to keep your hand in just to be on the safe side.” Instantly, you’re a feminazi baby- and mommy-hater. I’ve had this conversation so many times, and I’ve tried to approach this so many ways, and it all just ends up with the SAHM running away and not wanting to hear it.
Sometimes there isn’t a choice. A special needs kid can require someone home all the time, and infants in general also require a lot of direct care before they start school. (I’ve got no problem with latchkey kids; I was one. I liked having a quiet house to myself before everyone else started coming home.) There’s problems with daycare and child care costs, some women live in areas where they don’t want to leave their kids unattended, some women can’t find good care near their houses or places of work.
But even talking about this is mommy-hatred in some people’s eyes. Rarely to never the women who do have to juggle a myriad of issues, though — usually it’s young women with no kids or infants who can’t imagine that their senior-level VP husband will ever cheat on them or become a mean drunk. A middle-aged SAHM with teenagers is often a lot more clear-eyed about it, even if her husband and she get along great.
But sometimes it feels like saying, “Put on your seat belt,” and getting back, “Are you insinuating that I’m an unsafe driver?!” No, I’m insinuating that nothing in life is guaranteed. Christ, don’t hand YOURSELF over as a hostage to blind luck!
Anyhow.
This is one of the reasons we have to keep fighting for decent, affordable daycare and flextime. People can’t afford to work part-time because there are so few part-time jobs with benefits. I really wish now that I had stayed home a little more with my daughter and she resents me because I didn’t. Our forty hour work week is based on the idea of one person working and one person staying home. Society needs to change to make it easier for women to work and have children without sacrificing so much.
Roberta, You are correct, of course. We may have gotten a bit off topic, but not much. Janis and I are writing about women who live in the world of violent men and women with little or no protection. However, decent affordable day care is an important consideration.
Janis, it has been interesting and challenging exchanging ideas re: these issues with you–although I believe we are on the same page.
Until another post strikes a chord with us,
Marjorie
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