Is the gender revolution over?

The NYTimes thinks it's at least dangerously stalled, noting that more women are choosing motherhood earlier, rather than following the feminists "later, fewer kids" model. The article is framed in a very negative tone, tsk tsking those who aren't tough enough to extricate themselves from their needy kids.

Consider Cathie Watson-Short, 37, a former business development executive at high-technology companies in Silicon Valley. She pines to go back to work, but has not figured out how to mesh work with caring for her three daughters.

"Most of us thought we would work and have kids, at least that was what we were brought up thinking we would do — no problem," Ms. Watson-Short said. "But really we were kind of duped. None of us realized how hard it is."

Well, duped could mean two things. Either the feminists duped them, meaning that they said balancing kids and work would be easy. Or pro-family people duped them saying a few kids wouldn't wreck their lives -- and then their hearts got engaged. Either way, it sounds like common sense set in once they undertook eye-contact with their offspring, and priorities shifted unexpectedly.

Most women, even those with young children, need to work. Many more want to. Ms. Watson-Short, the former California executive who is now a mother of three, said that her stay-at-home-mom friends, like her, felt blindsided by the demands of motherhood.

"They had a totally different idea of where they would be," Ms. Watson-Short said. "They thought they would be in the workplace and have someone help them raise the kids."

But those who kept working are also torn. Catherine Stallings, 34, returned to her job in the communications department of New York University's medical center last month because she could not afford not to. Dealing with work and her 5-month-old daughter, Riley, has been stressful for her and her husband, the marketing director of a sports magazine.

"Usually, we are so tired we pass out around 10 or so," Ms. Stallings said. "And my job is not a career-track job. If I were climbing the ladder, it would be a no-win situation."

I cannot speak to the statistics in the article. It seems odd that women who work seek an average of 12 hours a week in child-care. This must include every woman who leaves the house, even for an hour of volunteer work in the local elementary school. Also, the dire proclamations about the economic slump seems odd, given that the US has the lowest unemployment rate in decades and everyone seems to have new cars, I-Pod's, several televisions, and cell phones for all the kids. It's not exactly Carter's malaise of the 1970's.

What does make sense is the reference to the "compression" in women's lives: we'reached critical mass where nothing else will fit in a work-week of seven 24-hour days. Housework is down, family time is down, car-pooling is up, extra-curriculars are up -- and all other chunks of time are spoken for.

Ms. Watson-Short, whose husband is a patent lawyer, expects to go back to some sort of paid work but sees a full-time job as well off in the future. Making the transition back into the work force, even through part-time jobs, will not be as easy as she and her contemporaries once hoped.

"We got equality at work," Ms. Watson-Short said. "We really didn't get equality at home."

Ah yes, there is still the social engineering left, creating hybrid males who will work responsibly, coach the kids, romance the mothers (on the mother's terms) and wash up after dinner. (Perhaps estrogen supplements in their beer?)

Comments

[Teresa]

O.K., I'd like to do my bit to help un-dupe mothers of young children. My oldest child is 16 years old. Those 16 years have gone by in a flash. Even though he still needs me, I'm witnessing his establishment of greater independence from myself and my husband in large and small ways everyday. It has been a priveldge to serve him and his siblings these years and I have every reason to believe that the next few years will rumble by us even faster. I could have filled these past 16 years with a lot more meetings, gained a larger earning potential and grown a fatter retirement package, but I'm really hoping you will appreciate that I'm about to introduce a contented, kind, intelligent and well-adjusted young man to the world. I'm confident the board room hasn't changed too much, and I know of three places who currently want me back. I know even more about a boy about to become a man who has changed a great deal and I'm proud to have been personally present to oversee this important project. I hope this helps to bring you some clarity on your human service project.

[JaneC]

It's probably harder with more than one child, but my mother went back to work a month after I was born. I was with a nanny a lot of the day, and Dad was my primary caretaker when he got home from work (he'd been married before and had other children, whereas my mom was new at this and not quite sure what to do with me). I was in and out of daycare until I went to school. Once I got in school, I'd be in daycare for about another hour after school until one or the other of my parents could come and pick me up.

Based on what some people say, you'd think all this daycare would leave me emotionally stunted and distant from my parents, or something. Yet, my parents always had time for me and read to me before bed every night from the day they brought me home from the hospital until I was about 8 years old, at which point I wanted to read to myself. Our house was almost always immaculately clean, and I did not know the taste of mac and cheese from a box until I came to college--Mom always made it from scratch. I am considered remarkably polite, well-adjusted, and mature (I'm 21, by the way).

Incidentally, my dad loves to cook, he actually likes ironing, and does his fair share of the dishes, laundry, and grocery shopping without my mother ever asking. He occasionally brings her flowers, and always wants to take her (and usually me, too) to lunch on Sundays after church.

[Teresa]

Jane, you seem to be a happy and splendid young woman, you are certainly articulate. You were fortunate that your mother chose healthy people to help raise you. Some mothers do not make great choices in those who will be predominantly caring for their children. Not one of those who cared for you, outside of your father, loved you more than your mother. I recognize that there are cases of abusive stay-at-home mothers. My observations focused mainly on what I would have missed. Jane, I'm going to presume you yourself have not yet had a baby. As you seem to indicate with your mother, I too wasn't quite sure what to do with my first child. In fact, I was downright frightened and bewildered. After looking into several daycares, I just couldn't do it. I know that sounds selfish, and you know what, actually it is. I just really, really wanted to be the one to see him smile, walk and talk for the first time and all the thousands of things that happen spontaneously throughout the day. When I made that decision in 1990, when you were five years old, the venom spewed at me for having decided to do so was astounding. I was told that I was, "driving back the women's movement," "socially retarding my child," and "contributing to a patriarchal society." All of those statements were said to me by angry women. Women with whom I worked. I understood what made them so angry, but I also knew that they were not family -- no matter what the company line says. All the morale boosting, team building meetings, after-work parties put together will not equal your family. When you become less useful to the company, if you are fortunate, you will be given a handshake, a retirement package and nice brunch... and you will be forgotten inside a month. This is not "evil," this is the nature of business. I have been given children in an era where being a stay-at-home mother is frowned upon and I offer my perspective as one to new mothers and those who will be mothers. Having chosen to stay at home with my children has given me the added benefit to be personally present with my aging parents. Increasingly, they are requiring more assistance. I know that the fine folks in the business of caring for the elderly would do a satisfactory job of caring for them, but, because we are family and I love them, I know the small things my father and mother like and dislike (no lima beans!). I know what comforts them and what frightens them. Perhaps I will be called arrogant and selfish just as I was with my children, perhaps I am. I believe I'm the very best one to care for them. God bless you and your family, Jane.

[mark justad]

It is interesting how personal matters get when it comes to choices about work and family life--at least for women. I still marvel at how men and dads remain almost invisible in discussios about these choices. This is not entirely true, of course, but the domestic (home, children) realm largely remains something for women to deal with whether they work outside the home or not. And men mentioned in relation to these topics seem to be regarded as somehow different and therefore not really men. What simply has not happened has been the creation of something analagous to the ideology of motherhood that argues that mom's are necessary for children on a foundational level. This ideology is, of course, exaggerated and not necessarily a positive thing for women or men. Still, the primary pull for men remains the world "beyond" the domestic where they are expected to make their mark, find their identities. I suspect that until the domestic sphere can provide the same "pull" for dads that it does for moms--both good and bad--articles about working moms that ignore the relationality of gender identities will continue to go unchallenged as incomplete.

[gsk]

Interestingly, I don't think men are hard-wired to be pulled by the domestic sphere, unless it is their livelihood, as in the case of a working farm or the like. The "tug of home" for women is a personal "tug of the heart" to persons there. Women are hard-wired to respond intimately to the human person, and that's why there is so much guilt attached. It's not that she's "guilty" per se for her choices (whatever they are) but the "tug" makes her constantly assess the needs of others.

Men who stay home don't do it for the same guilt or pull of the heart; they do it as a sensible financial arrangement, and look at it very differently than women. But it will never be a 50-50 way of life because of the differences in hard-wiring.