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It's better than it was, but it's still the case that mothers need to work full time and do everything at home, while fathers just have to work outside the home. The burdens aren't shared equally.
Only if you have a broken picker. Anyone who puts up with this is doing exactly that... putting up with it.
My grandmother was born in 1911. She started picking cotton (and other crops) with her family when she was about three years old. You want butter? You make your own butter - including milking the cow. You want milk, or cheese - go milk the cow. Speaking of the cow - there's some maintenance there. Milking, cleaning out the stall in the barn. Oh - the barn - you want a barn? Build one.
You want to wash clothes? Build a fire. Boil water. Put clothes in water. Add lye. Stir with a stick. Wring clothes out. By now your hands are raw. Hang clothes on clothes line. Oh, they're cotton, so they need to be ironed. Build fire in stove. Heat up cast iron, heavy iron. Iron clothes at night by the light of a kerosene lamp.
You want a new dress? Make it. That is, if you have time after dinner to sew on something so frivolous. You're probably going to be busy darning socks or making necessary clothes for the baby.
Speaking of fires - go chop some wood.
My grandmother got an 8th grade education - in a one room school house. They went to school barefoot. They had no books. They had no TV. They had no phone, no car, no electricity.
One evening right before she was supposed to get married, my grandmother was trying to put on her shoes, standing by the fire trying to keep warm. She fell over backwards - into the fire. There wasn't any ambulance to call, or hospital to go to. The country doctor came out to the house, slathered butter all over her back, behind, and legs, and wrapped her up with gauze. No antibiotics, no IVs, no nurses. On top of the rest of her family's demands, my great grandmother took care of my grandmother for about six months, as she lay on her stomach in the bed wrapped in butter and gauze. When she pulled through, she went ahead and got married. Her mother splurged and bought her a dress for $3 from a magazine. They had no big wedding - who could afford that? It was during the Depression.
My grandmother delivered my dad - a ten pound baby - at home, with her mother by her side. The doctor came out a few days later to check on Mom and Baby.
My dad ate well as a child, because they grew everything on the farm. Peas, turnip greens, fruit, squash, corn, you name it. Hogs, chickens, cows. All of that had to be grown, harvested or killed, prepared, stored.
My grandmother and her mother worked from sun up to sundown, meeting the most basic needs of their families. My great grandmother loved to read, but she didn't have any spare time. She figured out a creative way to do it though - she would walk the lunch (in pails) out to the men in the field every day. It was a mile out and a mile back in on a dirt road. She would sling the pails over her arms and hold a book and read it all the way there and all the way back. It was her only "free time." If she spent time with her five kids, it was as they were working alongside her.
Oh, and the cemeteries are full of the graves of children - because there weren't vaccinations or many medications and certainly no trauma units. If you had five or six kids, you could expect to bury one or two of them before they reached the age of ten. And women had a 1 in 5 chance of dying in childbirth.
I feel like the Internet, social networks, blogs, even forums like this one have given us all way too much opportunity for navel gazing. No previous generation sat around examining how busy they were. Perhaps because they were...busy?
I honestly feel like the WORST thing we did was move to a duel earner household. Elizabeth Warren did a video on this topic demonstrating how the increased household income caused an increase in housing prices because families could bid higher on homes. This caused all other associated costs to increase and set a new bar per se. Now your families that (choose) to remain single earner are punished because they are priced out of housing. Its a mess.
We also need to get out of mindset of measuring things from the bottom up. FOr instance kathrynaragons comment stating women should suck it up because its not 1911 and you dont have to churn your own butter. We shouldnt be measuring ourselves that way, we should be setting goals to better ourselves and to reach new heights. We shouldnt be looking at cavemen and saying "be grateful you dont live like that!"
I honestly feel like the WORST thing we did was move to a duel earner household. Elizabeth Warren did a video on this topic demonstrating how the increased household income caused an increase in housing prices because families could bid higher on homes. This caused all other associated costs to increase and set a new bar per se. Now your families that (choose) to remain single earner are punished because they are priced out of housing. Its a mess.
We also need to get out of mindset of measuring things from the bottom up. FOr instance kathrynaragons comment stating women should suck it up because its not 1911 and you dont have to churn your own butter. We shouldnt be measuring ourselves that way, we should be setting goals to better ourselves and to reach new heights. We shouldnt be looking at cavemen and saying "be grateful you dont live like that!"
I dunno - that's a pretty simplistic and rose-colored way to look at it. I remember before dual incomes were the norm. In particular I remember when women stayed with abusive husbands because they had no choice financially. Or, if their husbands left them and the kids, there was little in the way of economic protection or help in getting on their feet. No daycare either. Personally, I think it's a much better time to be a woman now. We are as busy as we choose to be.
I work FT and my husband is the stay home dad. I like having the option and honestly would kill myself if I had to be a stay home mom. We made the decision early on since my husband didn't really like his job, and was paid less than me. I like my job so it just made sense. He is also much more patient and really enjoys staying home. He knows he has the option to go back to work any time if he feels like it. But it works for us.
It's better than it was, but it's still the case that mothers need to work full time and do everything at home, while fathers just have to work outside the home. The burdens aren't shared equally.
Speak for your own husband. I do plenty around the house and for my kids.
I honestly feel like the WORST thing we did was move to a duel earner household. Elizabeth Warren did a video on this topic demonstrating how the increased household income caused an increase in housing prices because families could bid higher on homes. This caused all other associated costs to increase and set a new bar per se. Now your families that (choose) to remain single earner are punished because they are priced out of housing. Its a mess.
I didn't see the Elizabeth Warren piece but I've been making this argument for years- dual income families have ruined the economy. Everything costs twice as much as a result of most families being dual income families. It sucks.
The only way around it for me, a man, to give my wife the option to raise our kids is to focus on earning at least twice as much as the average individual. I just hit that mark a couple years ago, and my spending power is now roughly equal to a dual income family. It's extremely rewarding to support my wife and kids, but it is a lot harder now that everything costs twice as much.
It's just simple economics, but sometimes it really bites!
Mothering babies is hard. It's not a new discovery. There are pros and cons to working when your children are little. Every mom needs to make the decision that's right for her and her family. This essay is a lot of whining but it's also typical of the overwhelming feelings that accompany young motherhood.
Well, it's true. Trying to do it all sucks. Big time. A very wise woman I met on a plane told me (when I was 6 months preggers and on my way to a conference), "You know, you can do it all -- you just can't do it all at the same time." Never knew her name, but I became convinced that woman was some sort of angel. She was immaculately groomed, in her 50's, on her way to a business meeting, extremely chic and calm. When she said that, I just stared at her, because, as a young woman growing up in the 70's, I was told that not only COULD I do it all, there was something wrong with me if I DIDN'T do it all. Well-educated, great job, a husband-and-wife team of high-performing professionals -- of COURSE I was going to hire a nanny and just keep on keeping on!
Until the moment my son was born.
At that point, we looked at our finances and our baby and said, "Screw it, I'm staying home." Was it easy? Not really. Bored out of my mind sometimes, and desperately wishing for another fantastic review and raise to have someone tell me I was doing a great job. I went from managing multi-million securities to barely managing to take a shower in the morning.
Do I regret it? Not one minute. It was MY choice to be a stay-at-home mom and teach and care for my child(ren) full-time. Lots of people didn't understand it, and in fact, my boss gave me hell for six months until he accepted that I had made a choice and moved on. Did I miss the fast pace and the glamour? Oh, yeah -- wiping up baby poop comes in a poor second to sipping champagne and celebrating an offering. A month after the baby was born, the Porsche got traded in for a Honda Accord. Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted. :-)
But it was MY choice. It was the right choice for me, my husband and my kids. And once I got the hang of it, I think I was a pretty good mom, too. Arts, crafts, playtime, museum trips, walks along the river, music, naps, lots and lots and lots of books, learning how to cook, learning how to take care of themselves -- basically, every day was something new and exciting to discover (even if it was to discover just how foul a temper a 2 year old can have!) Kids are young adults now, well-educated, well-employed, and seem to be happy adults who manage relationships successfully -- we didn't have any "issues" with DUIs, alcohol, drugs, pregnancies, etc. -- just a really boring family (as my daughter commented later, after hearing some horror stories of "family" life from friends in college, "Boring is GOOD!")
It's all about choices, both for yourself, and for your family. We were ok with an income that was 40% less, but I eventually segued into forming my own company, which I grew as my time became more and more my own. So now that the kids are launched, I find myself taking on interesting projects and being able to devote more time to it. We might have had more money in the bank or been able to afford more exotic vacations and cars -- but oh, well. My life, my choices. AND NO ONE ELSE'S
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