I was very pleased this morning to read Judith Warner's op-ed in the New York Times , "The Choice Myth." In it she discusses why the majority of working-class women make up the Stay-at-Home-Mom (SAHM) population and that this group also suffers from the ability to make ends meet. Warner wrote Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety (2005). She was candid in her book about how she focused on affluent-professional women who were SAHM's, and it is nice to see her give some attention to women of the larger class. As a white, childless-by-choice, historical materialist woman, I have always felt like motherhood, which is considered a gift by many, would be a trap for me. The "choice" for moms to work is fraught with more than just guilt; it is complicated by how the time demands threaten the quality of life for the children themselves, something I knew that I could not live with.
I do not always totally agree with Warner on everything, but I liked seeing these two sentences:
"Last week, The Washington Post ran a front-page story that said most stay-at-home moms aren’t S.U.V.-driving, daily yoga-doing, latte-drinking white, upper-middle-class women who choose to leave their high-powered careers to answer the call to motherhood. Instead, they are disproportionately low-income, non-college educated, young and Hispanic or foreign-born; in other words, they are women whose horizons are greatly limited and for whom the cost of child care, very often, makes work not a workable choice at all."
Peace to all you moms out there; I'm sure that you are doing your best!
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Not only that, they are usually the women who have children at very young ages, often get married before they are out of their twenties, and frequently end up with multiple kids to support and are further saddled by a husband/boyfriend who may or may not be around much or even in existence.
It's also part of that whole birth control debate, whereby working class women are the ones who could benefit from contraception most, but often are the ones who use it the least. Lots of misinformation and lack of education out there, for sure.
Yup. I've always said, if someone really wants to be a SAHP and feels that's a role in which their talents would be best used, great! There's nothing wrong with that.
But if someone's staying home because they don't have the education to get a job that'd pay for daycare and work-related expenses, or because they don't get adequate help from their partner with housework, it's not really a choice is it?
Kevin, your comment about contraception concerns me a little. There is a history a forced sterilization on poor and nonwhite women that you should be aware of, even if that's not what you're suggesting. ANYWAY...
Certainly, staying at home vs. going back to work becomes an economic decision when you consider how much childcare costs. This is the thing most prospective parents don't consider. Children themselves are pretty cheap to raise - a little extra food, a little extra clothes - but when nannies pull in $20/hour, or after-school care costs upwards of $500/month, there's a minimum salary the mother would have to bring in in order to afford to work.
In my situation, I found that working part-time for $17/hour would bring me the same (low!) monthly income as if I worked full-time for $40,000/ year. With those wages being unattainable by many parents, I'm not surprised at all that there are many forced into SAHM-ism.
50 years ago, there was much more shift-work and seasonal work available, offering livable wages. These days, a career often demands 40+, 50+ hours per week, and regardless if you have children or not, it's an unnecessary work expectation, and forces us all to make unreasonable sacrifices. So I think the current work environment is unhealthy for all people - it's just that we see working-class female parents getting hurt most - as is typical.
wow, i was just doing research on this exact topic. glad to see it getting recognition.
it's a pretty bad situation - a lot of mothers can't afford NOT to work but working itself has all these hidden costs, plus, the kind of jobs women without much education are likely to get are frequently very stingy on benefits and not very understanding of their needs regarding taking care of their kids. it's a lose-lose situation.
also, i don't have children but i'd imagine that they can be pretty expensive.
personally i think a LOT more pressure has to be put on employers for policies that respect that their employees have children to take care of.
Single mothers have it even worse. It's absurb how women are expected not to go on welfare, or frowned upon as "parasites" if they do, yet the minute they try to get off the carousel they face paying up to twice as much as they earn, in clothes, transportation and child care, than whatever they bring in. For example, if you need child care, you might pay up to $500 per child per month, which works out to $1500 for 3 kids. If you make $8 per hour, which is still above minimum wage in some jurisdictions, you only *gross* $1280 per month for a standard 40 hour week (assuming you're paid for lunches) - so that's before paying taxes. There is no way you can put your kids in day care, never mind pay for transit and work clothes.
Too right. It's been a dilemma for years, how to get single parents off of public assistance, when minimally adequate childcare costs more than their monthly income.
In order to qualify for low-income assistance, a single parent's income would have to be SO low, that I really can't figure out how someone with two children can even exist. Certainly, it doesn't provide enough support for her to be competitive in a job with career potential.