Sara at Diotima comments on this Womens Enews article:
Ms. Caiazza brings it back to the tired old argument that all we need is high-quality, universal child care; she “wonders if those women who are choosing between careers and children feel forced to do so by the weakness of the U.S. culture’s commitment to high-quality and affordable child care,” an argument that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given that the women who are leaving the workforce for the home, women like those profiled in the NYT Magazine two weeks ago, are financially well off and presumably would be able to afford good child care. It does not seem to occur to Ms. Caiazza that staying home with the kids is a choice that women might actually want to make.
A few comments.
- “Tired old argument” is a right-wing code phrase for “I have no logical response to this argument, so I’m just going to turn my nose up at it.” Anyhow, criticizing something you disagree with by calling it a “tired old argument” doesn’t even rise to the level of being a tired old argument – it’s just a thoughtless cliché.
- Sara’s argument – that a few “financially well off” women profiled in the Times don’t need access to high-quality child care, therefore the child care issue is moot – is groundless. As Sara must realize, the folks the Times wrote about are not a representative sample. (“If people need money for child care, can’t they just get a grant from the Olin Foundation?,” one imagines Sara’s IWF chums asking.)
- Logically, it is perfectly possible that some women choose between career and home because they lack access to high-quality childcare (for instance, women who choose not to have children, or who delay having children until their incomes are higher).
- Sara’s final accusation – “It does not seem to occur to Ms. Caiazza that staying home with the kids is a choice that women might actually want to make” – isn’t supported by a quote from Ms. Caiazza. This isn’t surprising, because no such quote exists. Of course, making up doubtful claims about feminists is a typical anti-feminist tactic, but I’m disappointed to see it on Diotima.
Moreover, even if there are women who consciously make the choice to stay at home with their kids independently of financial consideration doesn’t negate the possibility that there are women who don’t.
This is just a logical vacuum of an argument, to the point that my head just hurts reading it. I’m disappointed in Sara too.
It’s interesting – Sara and I had the exact opposite responses to the NYT article. I spent most of the article, right up to the last page, complaining to my housemates that it lacked all discussion of relevant social factors.
I don’t think that particular article actually affects the case for affordable, high-quality childcare: for all of those women, paying for, say, a recent graduate of a respected college with a degree in education to take care of their children while they worked their lucrative jobs would still have left them with a net financial gain. (What I mean by this is that I am such a person, and, like my teacher friends, am making a small, small fraction of what these other people are making.) The actual social factors at work there have more to do with social expectations about men’s roles in childrearing and with how US labor works. Men are essentially *never* made to feel guilty if they don’t stay home with their children, and women definitely are; in fact, people are almost always surprised if men (especially high-achieving men) slow or stop their careers for the sake of their children. That’s the gender part: the other part is that high-achieving US executives don’t get much vacation time, work insane hours, and are really really stressed. I’m betting, though I don’t know, that if these women had lived in a country where everyone got at least 5 weeks of vacation and the standard work week was 35 hours, they’d be making some different choices. The author actually points this out in the last page, where she has her limited discussion of social factors: the nature of that kind of work is such that people burn out and get sick of doing it (or doing it so much), and women with partners who make a lot of money have an easy, socially-acceptable out in the form of their children.
sorry to have essentially ignored Sara, the Women’s eNews, and the childcare question. It should be obvious that I think ignoring social factors is bunk.
I saw that NYT article, and like most articles about women and work and children, it focuses primarily on the needs and choices of adults (women). It says relatively little about the needs of children. I’m the biggest feminist on the planet, but at some point I believe we have to stop framing the issue of how families make work v kids choices in terms of adults. Granted, most families don’t have the financial wherewithal to choose to have a stay-at-home parent — consequently, the child care issue is valid. But hardly anyone raises the more important issue: why don’t we make it financially feasible for a parent to stay home full time, at least until the child over a year old (and preferably at least 3)?
My Aunt works a 40 hour a week job at a supermarket to get healthcare for her 6 children. Her family is financially secure enough for her to work only part time – the only thing that is holding her back is the loss of her healthcare plan. If people here are familiar with the current strike of supermarket workers in California (which I am not sure if she is a part of), it looks like her family will lose many of their health benefits because of a major push by the industry to end them. Nevertheless, she, like the rest of my Mormon extended family, votes Republican.
hope, I think that’s an excellent point, though the women involved were making decisions in large part based on what was good for their children. I forgot to mention that I think Scandinavian models of new-parent leave would also help this situation a lot. There are various countries (sorry, I forget which) that have a total of a year’s leave for both parents, with a requirement that at least part of that leave be taken by the father. (Ignores queer families, but they don’t have the same gender dynamics anyway.) Also, I meant to point out that that kind of parenting leave, vacation, and shorter work-weeks are good for children as well as for parents: they let parents work full-time and still actually be seriously involved in their children’s lives.
Hey Amp,
I don’t think I was very clear about what I was trying to say in the original post, or maybe I’m misunderstanding your criticism…at any rate, I’ve posted a clarification here. You’ll still disagree, I’m sure, but I hope I’ve at least managed to express myself better.
That’s slightly better, Sara, but it still begs the obvious question – even if the existence of better affordable child care wouldn’t solve all our problems, it doesn’t mean that better affordable child care wouldn’t help. Okay that wasn’t a question so much as an argument, but still. I’m tired and have grad schools to apply to, so I ain’t fixin’ it!
But, Raznor, I don’t think I excluded that possibility – that some women could certainly benefit from increased access to better quality child care – in my post. Although, tying this into what Hope and Laurel are talking about above, I’m made a little nervous by solutions to the work/family conflict that seem to allow for men and women to be better employees rather than better fathers and mothers, and I worry that an over-emphasis on child care as the solution to this problem is just the kind of solution that benefits employers more than famililes. Increased daccess to child care will also probably lead to two-income families being even more the norm than they already are. Sure it will make it easier for some women to make the choices that will make them happy, but it will also make it harder for other women who want to make different choices. Does that makes sense? I’m not trying to say that I’m always against more and better child care, just that I think it comes with some tradeoffs and that it’s not a complete solution. Some day I will get around to writing a real post on this.
Good luck with grad school apps. Boy, am I glad I’m taking a couple of years off…
thanks for your words of encouragement sara. I’m trying not to panic.
My deal with this is not about how it makes men and women better employees, but rather it makes it easier for both to work toward a career. Having kids makes a woman have to put her career on hiatus if she can’t afford child care, something that doesn’t affect fathers in a similar way, as discussed on this site at length. The short term benefits of being a better employee I think are outweighed by what I mentioned.
Keep in mind also that alterations that don’t help employers are likely to be fought very strongly.
For example, consider how we can help mothers and fathers be better parents. It would be good if they spent more time at home while still providing for the needs of their children (not a PS2, but healthcare, safety, education, etc.).
You could have the government pay for more of these without also taking more in taxes that most directly affect families (income, sales, property), or you could have the employers pay employees enough to afford them without requiring them to work as much as they currently do.
Good luck getting people to agree to either of those.