Feminism Friday - moms get pay raise
May 6, 2007 by thinking girl
Yes, this is late. I was working an 11 hour shift on Friday, and when I got home I basically had a bath and fell asleep in front of the TV.
A recent report estimates stay at home mothers are doing the work of 10 different jobs (housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist), work on average a 92 hour week (that’s 52 hours of overtime), and all this work, if it was paid, would be worth $138,095 USD a year. Women who work outside the home full-time would be paid an extra $85,939 for their domestic labour.
And instead, they are paid $0.
Now, I dunno about all those jobs - some of these (like psychologist, early childhood educator, and CEO) require a lot of formal education that many stay at home moms just don’t have (hat tip: DBB, who has a very different view on this than I do). Some of these I think are pretty accurate: laundry, cook (DBB didn’t like this one because he thinks it’s based on “chef” and that people who cook at restaurants don’t get paid to feed themselves, which is bogus because I know for a fact that many people who work at restaurants eat there for free everyday, sometimes twice a day, and also it really depends where they get their figures for this salary, because not all cooks are chefs with formal culinary training) driving, facilities manager - these all sound about right to me. Also, I think they could have added personal shopper and personal stylist in there, considering that most parents who stay at home end up doing all this sort of work as well.
However, I do want to talk about this a little bit. First of all, the report is framed as “stay at home MOTHERS” rather than “stay at home PARENTS” - which is reflective of reality in the majority of cases but doesn’t exactly help matters. There is nothing about any of these jobs that are gender-specific - just as there is nothing about ANY job that is gender-specific. More men are staying at home with their young children, and that leaves them out of the equation here. But I do wonder if stay at home DADS would be worth more money, seeing as men still get paid more for the same job as women. Just a small, tongue in cheek point, but perhaps one that shouldn’t go unnoticed.
Which brings me to my second point: none of these jobs are gender-specific, but many of them, and certainly all of them together under the name “stay at home mother” are naturalized as female jobs. Cooking and cleaning and childcare and laundry are all still seen as women’s work, and the argument is that women are “naturally” better at these things than men, because women have something inherent about them that makes them well-suited to this kind of labour (whether paid or unpaid).
But the main point I want to discuss is how domestic labour, the work of reproduction, is left out of the capitalist economy of production. Production work is the only work that is assigned a value in the capitalist system, but reproduction work is considered to be very different. It is considered to be a duty, an obligation, and thus undeserving of pay - a labour of love. This is work that we are supposed to be happy to do, to be grateful to do, in the name of our families and despite deep personal sacrifice, and doing that work is supposed to be fulfilling in and of itself. Indeed, this is work that is inherent to women, work that women are born to do. And so, many balk at the idea of assigning it a monetary value. That just seems so callous, so “unnatural”. By assigning this loving labour a value, a price, it suggests that perhaps this work is not “natural”, that these workers are not happy and grateful and fulfilled to do it, that perhaps the personal sacrifice is not made willingly.
But, truth be told, this is a heavy expectation. Every job has value to someone, and raising the next generation of people is a pretty important one, I think, on a broad social level. It’s time to start recognizing that mothering is a job, it is work, and it is difficult. Recognizing the “labour” part doesn’t automatically negate the “love” part - it simply gives credit where credit is way overdue.
And so, I support this report, despite my hesitations with a few of the items included. I support it in principle because I do not believe any role should be naturalized, nor should anyone be made to feel like they must play a role to be a “real” woman (or man). This report helps to identify institutionalized gender essentialism, and I’m all for breaking that shit apart.
The problem I have with it is assigning a monetary value to it, because it simply makes no sense economically. Nobody PAYS you to mow your own lawn. That’s your responsibility. You are the one who gets the value out of it.
Why would I want to pay someone else to raise their own kids?
But if you really want to get right into the economics of it, where you have a couple living together and one of those two people stays home, the stay-at-home parent IS paid, in essence, room, board, and 1/2 (or more) of the salary of the working partner. I’ve seen previous economic studies which show that in such situations, often over 50% of the income is spent at the direction or discretion of the stay-at-home parent. So, in essence, they are paid, though it is by the only party who would have a stake/reason to pay them - the other parent of the child.
There are a lot of things in life that have almost infinite value in the sense of how much we enjoy them and make life livable that have zero monetary value. That’s my main objection to the article. It attempts to put a monetary value on something using very flawed methodology that ultimately detracts from any point it may make.
(For instance, I drive myself to work each day and pick up my daughter from daycare after work (my wife usually drops her off). So even though I’m not staying at home right now, should I add that to my salary as money I deserve for doing that? ) It just makes no economic sense. You don’t pay people for doing something they want done. If I drive myself and my wife to the movies, since I am acting as a chauffeur, should I get paid for that?
And now if you somehow did agree that stay-at-home parents should be paid $138,095 a year for staying home, who would pay it? Where would that money come from? What if it is a single parent? Does it go up for more kids? What if you are paid that much and decide you can just then have 10 kids - after all, you are being paid to have them, and kids are pretty wonderful (well, my daughter is to me) so why shouldn’t I just have 9 more like her and then get paid $1,380,950 a year? Will you pay for me to have kids? If you won’t, then we’re back to ‘where does the money come from’? See, putting money into it and all these ‘jobs’ just derails and loses the original point.
If you really want to know what the problem is today, it is probably that both parents have to work so no one can afford to be stay-at-home. And part of the reason for this is jobs being shipped overseas. Probably another part of it is executive compensation increasing to 500 times the average worker while worker wages stagnate. I don’t pretend to have the answer there. But it isn’t about stay-at-home parents not being valued.
Oh, thanks for the h/t - and here is something else I posted in response to what you posted there:
That just doesn’t make sense - claiming it is unvalued because it is unpaid? Nobody pays me to clean my own toilets. Does that mean janitors and maids are unpaid? In fact, Domestic work is valued GREATLY - nannies can make well above the median salary in this country. The only hitch is, you ONLY get paid to take care of other people’s kids, not your own. So if you want to take care of kids and get paid for it, you become a nanny.
And you ought to have fun with tax law, then. Say you mow your own lawn - if you really assigned a dollar value to that, then you have in essence enriched yourself by the cost of the service of ‘mowing the lawn’ - and therefore, you would owe taxes on that value. So if raising your own kids at home was worth $138,095, not only would you NOT get the money (you gave yourself the equivalent service) but you would then owe probably $50,000 in taxes for it if the logic of the article were adopted as an economic reality.
I certainly don’t feel like anyone owes me any money for taking care of my daughter. I was happy to have time with her when I did so, and the only payment I got was her love and the support of my wife (which did, in fact, include her salary).
As I mentioned over on your blog, DBB, the greatest sacrifice a stay at home parent makes is in the differential of income foregone (opportunity cost) by not working outside of the home.
Society depends on this sacrifice and yet there’s no real way to measure it, hence value it, with our increasing obsession with monetization.
IBTP
;o)
In the G8 countries, one solid contribution made by unpaid, feminized labour is the “marriage premium”. On average, married men earn more than unmarried men as a result of having an unpaid wife (working or not) who monitors the more banal yet necessary aspects of their life such as eating, grocery shopping, keeping the house clean and both partners in good health. This premium disappears after a divorce, suggesting that it is not just a case of correlation (richer men more likely to attract a spouse).
Women who are married, on the other hand, pay a marriage penalty for the same reason. Even a woman in a 100% equal modern marriage, if such a marriage can exist in our society, will not receive the same privileges as a married man-she can only hope for a freedom and earning ability equivalent to an unmarried woman.
While concerns over “who would pay this money” and “what about the wife getting to share the husband’s earnings” are valid and complicated questions, I would encourage a deeper look at this topic. If you go to a Third World country and witness the incredible burden of unpaid women’s work without the sick pleasantries of industrialized home economics, it is undeniable that this slavery is the duct tape holding together our jerry-rigged global economy. I challenge you to imagine a working man in a dry African country surviving without his wife and daughters fetching his water from the well, spending two/three hours cooking his meals, spending two hours to handwash his laundry, and countless other household tasks that are both time-consuming, and utterly crucial to day-to-day survival. There are simply not enough hours in the day to do all this. Development economics is often misguided in its attempt to get women to “participate” in the economy-economists are ignorant of the prohibitive level of housework for a woman in rural poverty and gender development schemes fail.
The argument is not necessarily that housewives should be paid high salaries for their work. It is not about imagining a sci-fi future where all of a sudden governments dish out princely sums to the nation’s mothers. Instead, try to imagine what the world would look like if women stopped doing all this unpaid labour. If women simply quit all housework and went out into the formal economy to find paid jobs, a large proportion of the previously unpaid labour would have to be replaced by professional labour. (Not all of the women’s work hours would be replaced because I think professionals would do it more efficiently. Nevertheless, a large proportion would need to be filled in with paid labour).
Since these jobs are mundane, messy and unappealing, and in very high demand, the wage required to fill these positions would be fairly high. What would Canada’s economy look like then, if every unpaid mother devoted those unpaid hours to a paid working activity, and a large proportion of the work was suddenly taken on by a paid worker? We would certainly see quite a bit of economic growth based on wages alone.
More importantly, what would Canada’s and the global economy look like if all of a sudden, men and women started doing their unpaid slave labour equally, leaving them equal room to participate in the formal economy? I can think of a few efficiency arguments right off the bat. This is the implausible sci-fi future I would like to see.
This is also why I would wholeheartedly support a global women’s strike. Anyone who doesn’t think the unpaid work has economic significance can see what we look like after a week without it.
RG - I think what you are missing is that these women ARE paid already - through their husbands, who support them monetarily. That was the economic model here for a long time as well. Labor was divided into women doing work at home, raising kids, with men doing work at work, earning money to support the wife, the kids, the house payment. And wages for men were thus paid with the idea that they had to be high enough to support not just the man, but his wife and his family. Of course, what this means is that the compensation a woman received for her home-work was based solely on her husband’s ability to earn money. In practice, this meant that, since most men were (and are) still relatively poor to middle class, that most women who stayed home then were “paid” half of a poor to middle class wage. Those who were well off (had wealthy husbands) - they probably didn’t work at all, and instead hired nannies, cooks, and chauffuers. So the net result was that the women who actually did the work never would get “paid” that much for doing it because of those circumstances.
Also, here’s an interesting thought experiment - if the system is set up so that only men work, but because of that, they are paid higher wages in order to support families (which allows them to then be at the work site all week instead of at home) - what happens if the system changes and now the woman eneters the workforce. First, the change is, you no longer need to pay the man enough to support two people plus kids - just pay him enough to support himself plus half of his kids, and then the woman can make a likewise half amount. So wages are depressed (also likely wages could be depressed by doubling the size of the workforce, thus increasing the supply and reducing the demand for workers). Now, you have a system where both parents work and there is really nobody to take care of the kids or the household while they work. And even if you somehow agreed that a paid replacement stay-at-home parent was worth $138,095, well, only probably 0.5% of the working public could actually afford to pay anyone that, so you’ll end up with lower cost, mass alternatives, like day care (which is rather expensive - we pay about 850 dollars per month for day care for our daughter, and that is dirt cheap compared to elsewhere).
I do take issue with the comment that women raising their own children are doing slave labor, especially where they share the income of the man who is working. Isn’t that sharing of income pay? I still got to enjoy the benefits of my wife’s salary when I was stay-at-home with my daughter. Was I a slave? What kind of a parent would I be if I “went on strike” to protest that I wasn’t getting paid money in addition to what my wife brought in?
What if the men in a society where the men worked just “went on strike” and stopped brining in the dollars to the household and decided to stay home and share the housework. What would happen then is everyone would starve, and what exactly would it prove? That you need both parties to do their part, but then, we already knew that.
Believe me, I share the frustration of that notion somewhat - at times when I was staying at home, my wife would work very long hours, would get home late, would sometimes be gone for days, and so she’d get home tired, irritable, and at times would even tell me I should have no say in anything because I don’t contribute (since I earned no money), obviously ignoring everything I did to maintain the house and take care of our baby. That is a frustrating feeling. But even when she was tired and irritated enough to say that, I was still spending the money she was brining in and I was still enjoying all of the benefits of her salary - so while I didn’t feel appreciated, but I was “paid”. I still point that out to her sometimes when she suggests that maybe I should stay at home with our daughter instead of working (she makes far more money than I do, even now as I work as a lawyer) - remind her of that value.
I don’t necessary think household work is “slave” labour, but when a stay-at-home mom/dad does all the “unpaid” housework and his/her partner “pays” him/her by providing food/accommodation etc,
the relation is that of employer/employee; if someone is completely dependent on her/his partner for their living, it’s hardly an equal relationship! But of course, it’s not “slavery” because we’re talking about loving relationship; oh but let me see, every day four women gets killed by her husband/boyfriend in the USA alone…
There is something sick and scary about the suggestion that women don’t need to have their economically significant yet unpaid labour recognized in the formal economy, because after all hubby is bringing home the bacon. Anyone who has worked in the field of domestic violence knows what’s wrong with that. JK Galbraith, one of the foremost economists of the 20th century, also knew.
Wages are set by labour supply and labour demand, and sometimes regulated by minimum wage and taxes. Neither men nor women are allocated wages on the basis of who they must support-although years ago, the family argument was a justification for having a higher minimum wage for men than women. Yet, if supporting a family was the major mover behind wage, single mothers would make more than career women wouldn’t they? Wage is allocated (or mis-allocated
by the market. This raises the question of why then, the market does not provide wages for mothers? Yes, the household efficiency argument is one possibility though it ignores the limitations placed on women’s career options and opportunity cost of staying at home. Another answer is that there are market wages for domestic work- when it’s in someone else’s home. These domestic worker wages would be a smarter place to find the “market value” of women’s work, than would “CEO, child psychologist”, etc. But what did you expect from MSN.Com?
As for the “what if men stopped working”, my god, what in the world would we do? Here’s a question: why would men stop working? Why would you want to stop getting more recognition, at every educational level, for equal work? Men sometimes DO go on strike, it’s usually over a matter of wage. The biggest sector that would be hurt by all men stopping work would be men who are even richer and rely on your labour. I like how guys think they can just scare those errant feminists into submission with those arguments. OH MY GOD, what if men stopped wanting to work, HOW WOULD I EAT oh wait, I’d do it myself just like everything else.
The 138,000 debate is a red herring. What is significant here is that unpaid women’s labour is a crutch for the global economy and it goes unrecognized (and don’t give me that crap about ‘well I stayed at home once too’, women are heavily overrepresented in unpaid labour, this is a women’s issue and you know it). Incidentally, I am not pro-housewife. I think most stay-at-home moms need to get out and stop making excuses. Nevertheless, there is an economic contribution that goes unrecognized, as in most female-dominated, “caring” fields.
No, you and your wife doing the occasional dishes is not slave labour. Carrying wood several kilometres a day, carrying more water than you weigh on your head, working in fields that do not belong to you because you are a woman, and working from dawn till dusk to maintain a household from the age you can walk till the age you can’t IS DRUDGERY. In a world where it is still legal to be beaten if you do not fulfill these tasks, IT IS SLAVERY. This happens to women because THEY ARE WOMEN. 70% of the world’s absolute poor ARE WOMEN. There is a reason I am focusing on the global economy here and not your little first world suburban picket-fence social experiment. Look outside. You trivialize the burden of unpaid women’s work by focusing on what you have experienced as a First World man.To not consider the injustice of life for a woman in the Two-Thirds world is nothing short of intentional ignorance.
TG, I’m breaking my own rule of “blog comments should not exceed the length of the original post”.
…sorry…
I can only comment on my own experience. I was not intending to justify or comment on the relative merits of the way things have been here regarding the economics of wages and such, merely describe them.
I cannot comment on the third world. I don’t live there. There’s really nothing I can do about it one way or the other. Though I imagine that life in the third world is horrible for both men and women, relatively speaking. Then again, I’m sure they have their happiness there as well. Who am I to judge never having walked in their shoes?
But then the article wasn’t about the third world at all, it was about the first world, our world.
You are right, wages are set by the market. However, one factor in the market is sustainability. If you don’t pay a wage that allows a family to survive in an economy where only the male works, then the family dies, there are fewer workers in the economy, and the price of wages will go up until you reach an equilibruim. That’s the theory, anyway.
I don’t dispute that having your income dependent on your SO does make you dependent on them in a bad way if it is an abusive relationship. That is a potential problem with a one-earner family. But that is a separate issue than the economic value of a stay-at-home parent.
And you didn’t not really deal with the core issue with this - exactly who would pay for stay-at-home parents - who would pay wages for people to support their own families? Would you pay me to stay at home with my own child? Where exactly will this money come from? You realize that if there is no one who will pay, then the market value of a stay-at-home parent then really is zero.
DBB - we’re talking about things that have value to the economy, and under capitalism, the only thing that has ‘official’ value is productive work, not reproductive and domestic caring work. Even though, if it were not for the women who stayed at home and did all that unpaid work during the era of industrialization, the whole capitalist economy would have failed miserably. When we moved from a largely agrarian economy to an industrial-complex one, where people actually left their homes to go out to work, guess what? the work still needed to be done in the home - work that was assigned to women. Domestic labour has propped up, and continues to prop up, our economy. Because, someone has to do it, and it’s WAYYYYYYY cheaper to just get a wife than it is to hire professionals to do all this work for you. And that is the point of the study.
I agree with RG in everything she has said in response to you. And coming back to the point, again, that domestic work is ’supposed’ to be a labour of love and therefore somehow not worthy of pay (or perhaps held above paid labour as priceless or some such) - that seems to be what is really sticking in your craw here. It seems to me more than a little bit of shaming these folks who came up with this study, and the women who inspired and support it, into feeling guilty about wanting to have their loving labour recognized as labour. and that stinks.
heliobates - IBTP, too.
RG - thanks. exactly. and don’t worry about comment length, I don’t really care about that. I figure the comment sections are where thigns really get hashed out properly, anyway! I certainly can’t claim to represent anyone but myself in my posts, so please do feel free to express your POV as well.
Bringing up the global aspect of gendered domestic labour is important, I think. We can tend to be stuck in our little western bubbles sometimes, and it is so important to recognize that other situations exist that are vastly different in kind and degree.
LL - thank you for bringing up the point that gender relations are unequal, whether in the public sphere or the private sphere, and that all that ’spouses who stay home share the income of the working partner’ talk assumes that the relationship is one of equality and respect. Which, when you consider that wifery has traditionally been, and in some cases continues to be, indentured slavery, and the society in which we live has institutionalized women’s oppression, I’m not sure why one would presume that state of affairs.
Did you ever read that “happy slave” argument? I’ve blocked out the philosopher, sorry- I want to say Locke, or Hume maybe. Anyway, the argument was that one could not authentically and autonomously choose to give up one’s freedom and be a slave. Seems like that’s exactly what has been expected - and is still expected - of women in the domestic sphere.
DBB - looks like we posted at the same time.
regarding what *you* see as the *core issue* here - funny how you didn’t seem to address *my* core issue of ‘domestic work being seen as a labour of love and so undeserving of a wage’ as being a ridiculous false binary, but whatever - actually, if you take a look outside your own little fucking US border, you’d see that lots of countries do pay parents who stay at home, with tax breaks and even - gasp! - with actual money. yes! some countries think that having children and being able to afford to raise them is an important thing for society as a whole, and actually give women money when they do it - lots of money, like, tens of thousands of dollars.
Sorry, I’m just sick and tired to DEATH of the fucking US-centric mentality I see everyday, pretty much everywhere I look. the US system is not the be-all, end-all - far from it. more socialist countries have got it going on all over fucking amerikkka.
I would be happy to see stay at home parents get paid for the work they do. but then, I am not a capitalist - I’m a socialist. I think we have a responsibility to one another as a society to provide for everyone and make sure that everyone has the best possible standard of living available, including housing and food and education and health care and child care and clothing. and part of that is making sure that people have enough money to make those ends meet for their families.
It is also a total cop-out to say “I don’t know the Third World experience and therefore do not have to take it into account”. Going to have to call you on that. Recognizing the human cost of the injustices third world women and, to a lesser extent, men face, does not take some special standpoint epistemology. You can do your research like any other global citizen.
Oh baby oh, I am currently writing a paper about Betty Crocker as a simulacrum and marketing technique and the notion of women’s work as a moral obligation, a spiritual labor of love, has been on my mind a lot. TG, you might enjoy reading Captains of Consciousness by Stuart Ewen (the creation of the consumer and the home as a place of consumption and production) and Feeding the Family by Marjorie DeVault (the construction of caring labor as gendered work) if you are interested in exploring the subject further–assuming you haven’t already, as at least Ewen’s book seems to be widely read. The desire for recognition of the importance of unpaid domestic labor is not a new question in the US (Betty Crocker’s birthplace and hence the focus of my research), and Betty’s respect for and support of homemakers was one of the reasons for her early success. Pay has not been historically demanded, but the recognition that in-home work has to be done, it leads to isolation, and it’s neither fun nor intrinsically satisfying is so hard to wring out of people as we can see in the comments above. One result of widespread industrialization in the developed world was treating the individual as the primary economic unit rather than the family–in formal employment, wages are paid to a person rather than an entire household, and in the “free market” system (as if such a thing actually exists) wages are determined by scarcity value, not the individual’s situation. Wendall Berry also writes very eloquently about his distaste for capitalism, consumerism, and any sort of system which shows no regard for the family, preferring to consider the income of the household rather than the individual.
No point here, just ramblings and author-dropping. Carry on.
RG - thanks for that - exactly. While I argue for standpoint theory, I do not argue that it is an excuse to stay wrapped in one’s own little bubble and think the world revolves around them.
Shannon - thanks for the info! That paper sounds very interesting…. if you’d be interested at all, I’d love to offer you a guest post so we could hear more when your research is done?
Capitalism undermines the domestic work; GDP doesn’t include all the domestic work at all. The market doesn’t pay for work done within the family, so the market fundamentally doesn’t value the domestic work.
But also I point out that overrepresentation of women in domestic work and undervalued domestic work are different issues, though both are interrelated and concerns to feminist economics.
NZ has government income programme for all families with child(ren) except the richest 10%, as well as benefit for a sole parent for raising the child. Our govt. is far from perfect but I’m thankful that we have a decent centre-left government with an intelligent and competent Prime Minister. I’m not anti-American at all, I mean the US has historically made so much contribution to the world, but I believe that its excessive capitalism and fanatic belief in the market are disastrous.
I had never heard of the term “happy slave” but I suppose it’s the myth that the ruling class utilises to keep slavery. In regards to stay-at-home mum it’s what was done in the fifties and had been successful until Betty Friedan…
Ok, I understand now. You want me to pay you to raise your kids and to clean your house.
But tell me, what happens if you pay people not to work, to stay home? Why would anyone want to go to work if they could just stay home and be paid $138,095? Hell, that’s well over twice what I make. Why bother going to law school and getting a job if I can make better money sitting at home doing my laundry (which I already do anyway)? I might be bored, but then, I could probably find something to watch on TV or maybe I could play video games or blog all day. That sounds like a sweet deal to me. I’m sure it would be equally compelling to other people as well. So then what happens when a large chunk of our population just stays home and gets paid out of the income of the few who still go to work? What if the number of people who decide not to be stay-at-home is so high that there aren’t enough taxes paid by those who work to cover their salaries?
So really, how could that possibly work? I’m a capitalist - not because I’m in love with money, but because I am practical and I think it is the only system that works. Socialism is nice in theory, but it is not self-sustaining.
Now - the labor of love theory of domestic work - I don’t think that it isn’t paid because it is a ‘labor of love’ - I think it isn’t paid because no one will pay you to take care of yourself. Why should you be paid to take care of your own house and your own children? Would you expect a stay-at-home parent to come up with rent money to stay in the house paid for by the working parent? Should they have to pay to eat the food put in the refrigerator, should they have to pay to use the car? And what if the working parent takes care of the kids on the weekend when he or she is home, should the stay-at-home parent now pay the working parent for those two days of work as well, at inflated rates because it is weekend work?
Why shouldn’t I go out and have 100 kids if you will pay for them and I can just stay home?
And now, what if the stay-at-home parent has no kids to take care of? And thus, laundry is done say once a week, maybe a little vacuuming once a week? And the only meal shared with the working parent is the occasional dinner, often take out, picked up by the working parent? What, exactly, is that stay-at-home parent doing that would even justify, economically, covering the rent? If you are going to pay someone to stay at home, then why shouldn’t that person be paying rent to the one who paid for the house, even if a spouse? And while we’re at it, why shouldn’t spouses pay for sex from each other, depending on who is in the mood or not? If the working parent one day picks up the kids from soccer practice, then should the stay-at-home parent pay the working parent for that service, then, to make it even? What if the stay-at-home parent gets sick, and so the working parent takes a week off, takes care of the house, and takes care of the sick parent. Should the stay-at-home parent be docked a weeks pay, plus have to pay the working parent for doing their job on top of that, plus paying for the working parent for providing nursing care?
See, this is what annoyed me so much about the article. The economics are ridiculous and make no sense whatsoever.
As for taxes - well, we do get tax breaks for having a child here. And given the massive diversity of living arrangement, cultures, economics, and everything else if you include the entire planet in the discussion, I think it seems prudent to stick to what I both know and have some (very limited) input for - our country. It isn’t about being US-centric. It is just dealing with the situation before me. If I lived in Uganda, I’d have to deal with how things were in Uganda. That’s just the reality of life. The article was only about the US, and clearly so, given that a wage of $138,095 is probably ridiculous for anyone in most third world nations where people live on pennies a day.
I never claimed that all was perfect in the US, or that the US was the end-all-be-all of nations. I simply only deal with the US because hey, that’s where I live, so that’s what I have to deal with every day. One thing at a time. You are not going to simultaneously solve all the problems for all women (and men for that matter) in the world all at once.
Can you elaborate on this, RG? I ask because my partner would do almost anything to be a SAHM—well that and run a part-time business.
She feels that she’s paid her dues after 16 years of working with abused women and children.
Presumably, you’re not talking about her, so I’m trying to understand the context for your comment.
LL said:
And this, DBB, is what you’re missing. THIS is what I think should change. You are, intentionally it seems, ignoring the point. You need to shift your freaking framework.
By the way, socialism works really quite well for Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, etc… who all enjoy a far higher quality of life than americans with all your capitalism do. Capitalism certainly isn’t the best economic system, considering that it relies on poverty and global economic exploitation to actually sustain itself.
Also, I don’t want to be paid to stay at home and raise children. I don’t have, nor do I want, children. Nice presumption there, though. Based on…. what? my gender? your experience?
AGAIN, the $138,095 figure is a political statement. and you’re using it as a red herring here.
I think stay at home parents should be paid, in actual dollars, for the work they do in bringing up the next generation - the generation, by the way, that will end up supporting your ass and mine when we’re in the nursing home. Parenting is a great social responsibility, and it should be recognized as such, and paid for by the collective. But considering you think you only need to know about your situation in the US because that’s where you live, try this on: you people don’t even have universal free health care. So how could you be expected to *get* an argument like this one, considering your limited epistemology of ignorance based on your standpoint?
You seem to think that stay at home parents don’t do a whole heckuva lot during the day. Strange, considering that you know so much about being a stay at home parent, since you were one. I guess you just sat around watching One Life to Live and playing XBox or whatever the kids are into these days.
Finally, make no mistake: domestic labour isn’t paid because it can’t be sold in the marketplace, and also because it is traditionally women’s work. Regardless of whether *some* men become domestics for part of their lives.
One thing at a time, huh? Well, since it seems like it’s practically impossible to solve the problems of women living in the west thanks to attitudes like yours that completely deny and ignore gender stratification that is built into the system, maybe it’s not such a bad idea to remind you and other western euro-centrics that people actually exist in the developing world and that these problems are actually inter-related. RG has brought up the two-thirds world, and I’ve supported that, because living in amerikkka doesn’t give you a free pass on knowing about the rest of the world. That, my friend, is privilege in action. and, again, it stinks.
DBB, why are you making strawman arguments? Are they just easier?
Can you tell me how many stay-at-home parents have no kids to take care of, out of curiosity?
(Okay, that was being petty.)
Look, I’m not going to argue that the amount of money being tossed around in articles like the one being discussed are extreme. But countries that support stay-at-home parents in significant ways (such as guaranteed parental leave and a job to return to, financial support of some sort while they are being a parent, tax cuts, etc) have a higher birth rate because they don’t penalise people (usually women) for having children.
It just occurred to me that DBB, basically you’re arguing (with your “why should I be paid to look after my own children?” specifically) from the position that children belong to parents, that they are kind of like a product or property that is owned by the parents, or perhaps an extension of the parents, rather than participants in society who both are responsible to society and are owed a responsibility by society. I’ve always kind of thought the whole “children belong to/are extensions of parents” thing to be faulty and narcissistic and a bit maste/slave-ish as a position. children are social beings, and my conception of children being responsible to society lies primarily with the parents, to raise them to be productive and conscientious members of the society in which they live (as well as global citizens). And the corollary of that is that children (through their parents) are owed resources by society to help make that happen. Parents are, I feel, stewards of their children on behalf of society. Society benefits from well-adjusted, well-raised, well-educated, healthy and well-cared for children who grow into adults. So why should society not pay for that benefit?
Thanks Anna! nice to see you!
As far as this article goes, I think the point is *not* that we should be paying stay-at-home mothers 140,000 a year, but that we should acknowledge all the work those women do and maybe even respect them for it. RG said earlier:
“There is something sick and scary about the suggestion that women don’t need to have their economically significant yet unpaid labour recognized in the formal economy, because after all hubby is bringing home the bacon. Anyone who has worked in the field of domestic violence knows what’s wrong with that.”
In a capitalist society, respect = money. Personal worth = your paycheck. If a woman stays at home, and the work she does brings in no physical, tangible cash, then most of society views her as worthless. The point of the article is to show that domestic labor is valuable, is meaningful, and deserves respect. If these stay-at-home mothers are respected for what they do and who they are, then perhaps the rate of domestic violence will go down. Perhaps rape will happen less infrequently. Perhaps the wage gap will lessen. IMO this article was not offering a solution, but rather providing a starting point for a shift in attitude.
Also, DBB - you write that it would be it great to be paid 140,000 to be a stay-at-home-parent, that you might be bored but could watch television or blog all day. However, if you were actually working 92 hours a week in your home and for your family, it is doubtful that you’d have the time to do anything for your own pleasure. As a former stay-at-home-parent, I’d think you’d recognize that.
Heliobates: I realize that sounded as if I thought that about all stay-at-home parents. In fact, there are some stay-at-home moms I know that get way too carried away with how much work they do at home. Kind of similar to the “I’m a child psychologist because I breed” argument-no, you’re not a child psychologist, you’re a parent. No, you’re not a chef, you’re a cook at best (well, I do know some parents who should be considered chefs!)
While parents deserve to take time off work for their own sense of sustainability, especially if they have high-intensity jobs, I do resent hearing how very hard upper-middle class women have it when their kids are all over ten. If your kids are old enough to spend several hours of the day broadening their minds outside the home, so are you. I think many stay-at-home-moms have internalized a lot of the good old-fashioned feminist mystique, and they use it to try to claim they are working so hard when it is the working parents who really have a burden. I see this as lazy, and unhelpful to women as a group.
That said, many stay-at-home-moms make very impressive volunteer contributions too so I am not making the claim that only paid work is valuable to society. Does that clarify?
WHOAH I meant to say Feminine Mystique!!!!!!
Sorry it may be bit off topic but it just occured to me, what are the definitions of capitalism and socialism? I’m a socialist, a great admirer of the Scandinavian model, and highly critical of capitalism but I’m not entirely against capitalism; indeed it works (Sweden has a highly socialised capitalist system).
It may be unrealistic to include unpaid work into GDP stats, but I think what needs to change is the mindset to associate money with virtue, which is so pervasive in the late capitalism. As Chrissy said “Personal worth = your paycheck. If a woman stays at home, and the work she does brings in no physical, tangible cash, then most of society views her as worthless.” It’s not only about stay-at-home parents, but in general, the worth of the job (and even of the person) seems to be evaluated based on its pay not its contribution to the society. Wage determined by the market forces is never the indication of the contribution of the job to the society. For example teachers contribute to the society far more than investment bankers who create nothing, and humanitarian aid workers whose work is vital to development definitely earn less than some executives of corporations who exploit workers in developing countries…
TG: I’d love to send my paper along! It’s just a class project, and I touch on a lot of ideas without expanding them as much as I’d like, but there are a few nuggets of interest which people would enjoy discussing. The focus is Betty Crocker as a simulacrum, which is a little esoteric, and it’s reached 22 pages (double-spaced, of course) and I’m a little tired of looking at it. Not that it’s done–I graduate in less than a week and I am definitely done with it.
Crystal.
My partner has everything all mapped out. She wants to be involved at our daughter’s school, will sit on the boards of several daycares and wants to run a weekend business where she can put her ECE to good use.
If I have to cheapen our relationship by describing it using the language of business, then ours is a true partnership—with her as the managing partner.
;o)
DBB: “Why shouldn’t I go out and have 100 kids if you will pay for them and I can just stay home?”
-you know, this is the sort of thing, in the UK, that you can find in right-wing newspapers that criticise single mothers on the basis that, you know, the welfare state is so generous that many women are choosing to pop babies out rather than work…
guess which single mothers are singled out? Those referred to in Britain as ‘the underclass’…from what I remember, they get blamed for just about everything that goes wrong in society.
Here’s an ‘analysis’ of the situation from a right-wing broadsheet:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/14/nmums14.xml
and here’s part of the government’s solution:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2332020.ece
Of course, this leaves out the part about WHY it isn’t paying women to go out to work: it’s not just that the benefits are so high (I can’t find the exact figures but it seems to be between £50-£80 p/w for one child - in fact here is a document which is pretty accurate on the hardships facing single mothers) http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/SP72.asp
-it remains to be seen whether, in the UK, the punitive measures will be balanced out by the equal pay legislation and accessible daycare, but issues surrounding SAHMs seem class-based to me.
TG - first, I was speaking in the generic “you” - I did not mean to imply you had any desire to have children - in fact, I read your earlier post where you unequivocally said you did not want any children, so I’m sorry if that did not come across.
As far as my framework, my framework is pretty libertarian - I think in terms of economic exchange freely given between parties, trading value for value. Thus, I am against things like welfare because I think that is money given for nothing. I would, however, like tax breaks for children to be higher than they are. That would be nice.
I don’t see my daughter as property. I see parents as responsible for their own children because that is the moral duty they owe to their children - to raise them, teach them how to be good citizens, clothe them, feed them, and everything else that a good parent should do. (And if there is any doubt about it, my 21 month old daughter makes very clear she is a person with a mind of her own, dozens of times a day…
In fact, legally, parents ARE responsible for their children and if they fail to properly take care of them, the children can be taken away and the parents can be jailed for abuse or neglect.
I see also part of a responsibility I have as a parent is to NOT have kids until and unless I can afford to take care of them (with the help of my wife, of course, either through her salary or her shared help in the house). I see it as horribly irresponsible to have children when one can’t afford to take care of them. We waited until we were ready, both financially and emotionally, to have a child before we had one. While we would love to have a lot of children, we will likely only have one or two more because that is all we could reasonably afford both financially and emotionally. I really don’t see how any parents could possibly have time for more than 2 or 3 kids - it is hard enough keeping track of one. You can’t properly pay attention to much more than that.
You may think this sounds like I think poor people shouldn’t have children. In a sense, that is correct. But then I think the solution is to have as many people as possible make a living wage so that they can afford to have a family. Ideally, everyone should be able to make at least a living wage (something far higher than the minimum wage, by the way). But going into how one could do that is vastly diverging off topic now (and would likely lead to further debate… not that I would mind - I find this discussion very interesting and stimulating). Thus, I sort of agree that society should help cover the cost of children - but the way I would do it is help everyone be productive enough to earn enough money so they can support their own children. That has so many other benefits as well, which should be obvious.
I don’t see the $138,095 as a red herring - it is, in fact, what annoyed me about the article. It is, in fact, the PRIMARY thing that annoyed me about the article. If it was an article about how stay-at-home parents aren’t appreciated as much as they should be and how what they do is very worthwhile and good for society, I’d have had no problem with the article at all.
I really think the 92 hours of work is an exageration. I was a stay at home parent for six months. I took care of the house, the bills, and my baby for that time. I’ve also worked at a job where I’ve had to work as much as 70 hours in a week, with long hours on a regular basis. My time as a stay-at-home parent was far far far far far far easier. And less exhausting. Not that it wasn’t a lot of work at times, but a lot of it simply isn’t ‘work.’ Given the modern appliances we have, there simply isn’t 92 hours worth of work to do in a house. Cleaning is once a week, or less. Laundry, just throw it in, the machine does all the work. Cooking - well, at the time, that was just bottles of milk or formula. When kids are older, they’ll be in school all day - and I can see there being more laundry (now we have at least a load a day, though part of that is due to my wife’s frequent outfit changes and also because she keeps wanting to give our daughter a drool-free shirt). So I dispute that 92 hour number. In fact, I felt like I worked far less than a 40 hour week when I was home with the baby. Perhaps part of that is perception - at home, there’s no one telling you what to do so you are your own boss. That counts for a lot in terms of quality of life. And yes, there was time to do things that I enjoyed. (And some things that I did not - like studying for the bar exam, though for some of that I hired a babysitter once or twice a week, when I needed a block of hours uninterrupted for practice exams).
Also, as an aside about the article, even if it was 92 hours, anyone who makes six figures is likely to be salaried, so that takes overtime right out of the equation. In fact, it takes getting paid for anything more than 40 hours out of the equation. Sucks, yes?
I think universal health care would be great - I’m not sure how that would work economically, though, without long waits. I have heard that free healthcare often involves very very long waits, with those with money simply coming to the US to get healthcare immediately. But I’ve not really spent much research on the issue because free healthcare in Canada and elsewhere really doesn’t affect me much when I take my daughter to the doctor.
And I did not mean to imply that stay-at-home parents don’t generally do much. I was making a hypothetical - what do you pay someone who is stay at home and actually doesn’t have anything to do because there are no kids? Or would you only pay people to stay home when there are minor children in the house to take care of?
Domestic labor can and is sold in the marketplace all the time. Nannies make decent money. Day care is expensive as well. In short, there is plenty of money paid for domestic care. So it is not that the market doesn’t value domestic care or what you call “women’s work.”
As for the third world - well (1) there’s not much I can do about it, and (2) unless you’re planning on picking up a rifle and are going to overthrow the governments of those places and install a different regime, there’s probably not much you can do, either. Has our foreign policy contributed to the mess? Yes. But again, not my fault. Heck, I hate the current administration and want them gone. It feels to me like you want to place the blame for all that is done to women everywhere in the world at my feet for being a man in the US. Perhaps that is not your intention, but that is what it feels like to me. And in any case, what exactly do you expect me to do about it? I never denied things suck for most people in the world. What do you really want from me in that regard?
And I don’t see personal worth = paycheck, though sometimes I think my wife sees things that way (she makes over twice what I make). I’d be quite happy to make a modest salary if it meant I had more time to spend at home with my family. In fact, that is my situation right now. I think quality time at home is worth far more than any salary I could be paid. I love my daughter more than words can describe and every moment with her is precious. And my wife and I both enjoy spending time together at home.
Shannon - cool! email me when you’re ready, and I’ll post it! I love guest blogger posts! If you don’t want to include the entire thing, feel free to edit it a bit - it sounds very interesting, so anything you wanted to provide sounds good to me!
Chrissy - welcome, thanks for your comment!
RG - what you said sounds about right to me. I wish to the devil my mother had been more active outside the home… or inside it, for that matter. I’ll have to post about that another time.
LL - Capitalism
Socialism
At its most simple, capitalism involves private control over property and wealth, while socialism involves cummunity control over property and wealth.
“Wage determined by the market forces is never the indication of the contribution of the job to the society. ”
yes yes yes.
Brain - thanks for speaking to another perspective! that comment also made me think of that old lazy welfare mother stereotype.
DBB - wowzers.
‘k, thanks for clearning that up about the generic “you”. Nothing I hate more than someone presuming I want children. happens WAYYYY too often.
Yes, I know your framework is libertarian. Believe me, I can recognize it when I see it. And, that’s your problem. Libertarianism is not at all reflective of reality. Libertarians are living in a dream world, and making the real one try to fit.
Glad we see eye to eye on parents as stewards of their children. Although from your comments, didn’t quite seem that way to me. I’m thinking particularly about the “you’re the one who gets the benefit of the work you do at home” deal.
Welfare is money given for nothing? yikes. presumably because those on welfare contribute nothing to society? or at least not in the only way that matters - by earning money and paying taxes? they should just try a bit harder, pull themselves up by their bootstraps? or perhaps society should just allow these people to starve, and eliminate the problem altogether? And you don’t think that paycheck=personal worth? you’re not at all consistent here, DBB. sorry.
Of course, ideally, everyone would be employed, everyone would be paid well for their work, everyone would be valued. But that’s not the way your capitalist society works. Capitalism actually relies on poverty for success. So why punish those who can’t make it under capitalism with your libertarianism? Jeez, so many libertarians are also capitalists and vice versa, but nobody seems to see the conflict between the two. They instead only see how the ideologies support one another’s myths.
So, if stay at home parents’ work had been valued lower than in the article, you wouldn’t have such a big problem with the whole thing? somehow I’m not sure if that’s true, based on your other comments…. And just because that was the primary thing that bothered you about the article - why did it bother you so much? because you don’t think that stay at home parenting is that valuable, should be something that we all do because we want to do it - because it is a labour of love….
The 92 hours of work a week are basically because parenting and domestic work doesn’t ever stop. how many hours in a week: 168. 168-92=76 (number of hours off per week, according to this study). 76 divided by 7= around 11 (the number of hours of the day that are not spent working). assuming an 8 hour sleep cycle (which is generous, and also consider that most if not all that time is spent “on-call” for middle of the night feedings, nightmares, illnesses, etc.), that leaves 3 hours a day to relax. let’s just call those “meal times” and call it even.
“cleaning once a week if that”? sounds like you weren’t the best stay-at-home domestic labourer around….
sorry, couldn’t resist that! but that brings us to the point that sure, not everyone is going to be as conscientious about their domestic work as others. If you’re Bree Van De Kamp, then you’re definitely worth the $138,095. If you’re DBB, maybe not so much. 
You’ll work as hard as you want to work, because essentially you’re your own boss. My mother, for example, is about the lousiest homemaker around. so yeah, point noted.
free healthcare sometimes does involve very long waits. usually not in cases of emergency and/or urgency. but sometimes, even then. but I’ll take it anyday over the system you’re stuck with. I’m a huge supporter of public health care - I believe citizens have a right to free health care, actually. If you’re interested in learning why, here’s a post I wrote about it some time ago.
As for the developing world, what I expect you to do is not simply dismiss it as “not my problem” because “there’s nothing I can do about it”. Rather, it’s more accurate to say “there’s nothing I CHOOSE to do about it”. And, perhaps acknowledging that your libertarian attitude - which, by the way, is what your country is built around - is a major contributing factor to the situation in the developing world.
And, of course, though I swear and rant when faced with an argument I dislike and disagree with, I’m certainly not “plac[ing] the blame for all that is done to women everywhere in the world at [your] feet for being a man in the US.” it’s not all about you, personally. I’m attacking your arguments, not you. Hence: “you need to shift your freaking framework,” “attitudes like yours,” “you seem to think,” and “your epistemology of ignorance based on your standpoint.” I’m a trained philosopher. I typically don’t make personal attacks.
TG: Will do! I’m currently facing finals week, but I’ll send something your way after that.
DBB:
“As for the third world - well (1) there’s not much I can do about it, and (2) unless you’re planning on picking up a rifle and are going to overthrow the governments of those places and install a different regime, there’s probably not much you can do, either. Has our foreign policy contributed to the mess? Yes. But again, not my fault.”
Social pressure, rather than governmental policy, is a major factor in women’s roles in less-developed countries (LDCs). Governmental policy is certainly part of the social atmosphere but I would hesitate to blame governments for forcing women into domestic slavery. Few LDC governments have passed laws specifically opposing domestic violence, for example, and though dowries are illegal in India, enforcement of the law is nearly impossible and women are still abused if their husbands feel cheated by a low bride price. A trademark of LDC governments is ineffectiveness in at least key areas, and women’s rights aren’t really a priority when a nation is plagued by civil war, drought, unemployment, and unstable markets. The 80% of the world living outside developed countries is in a pretty bleak place.
However, the first world can do something about this without picking up rifles. Studies by the UN and various economic and social organizations have shown that when women are able to work for pay (whether selling cash crops or in the formal sector), their families lives improve more in terms of nutrition, health, and education than when husbands experience a similar increase in income. Also, when women are included in decision-making at the household level, a family’s quality of life increases, and a mother who has some education (as in, primary school) is more likely to raise healthier children. (Source: “Women and Children: The Double Dividend of Gender Equality”, a UN publication you can download here: http://www.unicef.org/sowc07/, also Economic Development by Michael Todaro)
Obviously, gender inequity is a very complex problem, but numerous NGOs are chipping away at a grassroots level. For example, Heifer International (heifer.org) gives a young cow to a family in need (the head of the household may be male or female), and in return the family promises to give that cow’s first calf to a friend or neighbor and pass on everything they know about raising animals. Milk may be sold for cash, as can calves, and the family can supplement their own diet with dairy products. Other projects give chickens, and the Lutheran church I attended as a teenager set up fish ponds in Tanzania and purchased shade-grown coffee cultivated by landless farmers in Latin America. Other organizations are devoted to making family planning information and technology available. (I’m a little short on time or I’d drop more names/websites). By supporting these organizations through financial donations or volunteering your time, or even just letting more people know they exist, we can continue to chip away at the problem.
Also, since you are fond of markets, you might appreciate my last suggestion: let your senator/congressperson know that the Farm Bill is bullshit. By subsidizing domestic production of foods like corn and barley, the US dumps massive surpluses on the world market. As the main exports of LDCs tend to be agricultural, the low prices caused by surpluses hurt low-tech LDC farmers and agravate the cycle of poverty. I don’t think a woman’s rights movement will gain much ground in the developing world until bellies are full and people are healthier. In any case, apathy will not alleviate poverty or bring development to the third world.
“It feels to me like you want to place the blame for all that is done to women everywhere in the world at my feet for being a man in the US. Perhaps that is not your intention, but that is what it feels like to me. ”
Oh no, it absolutely was my intention. I should be explicit about that.
“Ok, I understand now. You want me to pay you to raise your kids and to clean your house. ”
Ah, yes. Because this is all about you and your money and all us evil (and lazy!) bitches who want to part the two.
It’s not at all about the division between paid, valuable, manly labor and unpaid, undervalued girly work.
No. It’s ALL about YOU.
And don’t forget, when you’re a woman, cleaning after “yourself” actually means you, your husband, your guests, the kids, and America’s disastrous foreign policy.
thinking girl, I’m staying out of this domestice squabble.
I just wanted to say thanks for the Ressentiment link. Anything that gives me a leg up on those smug theists.
I’ve got a nice long reply coming, but I just wanted to point out that if you’re a stay-at-home parent and you also do cleaning, since you are the person who spends far more time at home than your spouse, you are mostly cleaning up after yourself, not anyone else.
(Of course, my experience has been that I generally clean up after my wife, even when I have gone to work and she has stayed home for a day off or a sick day or whatever - I’m often greeted with a sink full of enough dishes that it looks like there was a party with a dozen guests over - but no, it’s just the dishes she’s used over the day…
I completely beg to differ. I am a stay at home mom and my son is 10 months old. Have you ever seen the kind of mess that even a little one like him can make? He gets into EVERYTHING. Cabinets, bookshelves, bathroom, closets, nothing is safe from his curious little fingers. Just picked up his toys? Yeah, that isn’t going to last long, he will grab them all out of their neat little stacks and throw them all over the place.
Remember that yummy dinner that was made last night? Yeah, those are usually part of the next day’s dishes because the dishwasher is already filled with everybody else’s dishes. Laundry isn’t just my mess either. It’s whomever lives in this house, the guests who stayed the weekend.
Oh and if you have pets? I have two cats and I am the one who is stuck cleaning their litter, getting them more food, filling their water bowl. Sure the hubby will do it if I ask him, but I usually have to ask him repeatedly before I’ll just do it.
If I just sat on my butt all day long, there wouldn’t be a mess, now would there? If all I did was sit here and eat bonbons and watch TV, what would there really be to clean up?
I’m not saying I’m little Miss Suzy Homemaker, but there’s a serious flaw in your statement “but I just wanted to point out that if you’re a stay-at-home parent and you also do cleaning, since you are the person who spends far more time at home than your spouse, you are mostly cleaning up after yourself, not anyone else.”
Well, if you have a tyke, that is true, they can make a mess, though to a certain degree, we have surrendered and we just have piles of toys out that will probably be out until my daughter is older. And yes, I do clean up after her when she eats as well. I should have been clearer that I was talking about someone who is stay-at-home who has no kids at home during the day (which eventually you won’t).
And again, this is an issue of, not is it work, but is it something you should be paid for when it is your own child that you are cleaning up after?
Some comments on a few points from DBB:
I don’t dispute that having your income dependent on your SO does make you dependent on them in a bad way if it is an abusive relationship. That is a potential problem with a one-earner family. But that is a separate issue than the economic value of a stay-at-home parent.
Actually these are far more related than you know. In studies of domestic violence, one of the characteristics they’ve found that is almost universal among abusers is their sense of entitlement that arises from a power differential. Like it or not, in this capitalist society money and power are practically the same thing - “power of the purse”, right? So, in theory we’d hope that the SAHM is paid by her husband 50% of his earnings, that’s a pretty flimsy reason to think this isn’t an issue. (It’s like saying we can cure poverty by hoping the rich give all their extra money to charity). What about relationships in which men take advantage of women? Or what about single moms who get little or no support from the other parent? These are realities, and we can’t ignore them because our ideal of parents is equal, caring, and in-love and all that.
You may think this sounds like I think poor people shouldn’t have children. In a sense, that is correct.
Problem with this statement is that kids require you to be economically stable for 18+ years. A parent could be quite well off during pregnancy, but still experience poverty at some point in those 18 years. Unfortunately at that point it’s too late. Most Americans Experience Poverty Sometime In Adult Life, Study Finds
Given the modern appliances we have, there simply isn’t 92 hours worth of work to do in a house.
Not everyone has those modern appliances, especially the poor. Many of them hardly have a stable home to call their own, let alone a dishwasher and washing machine. When you have to haul your kid’s cloth diapers (again, not everyone can afford disposable) to the laundromat on the bus… well, I’m sure you can see how many extra hours that can be.
Domestic labor can and is sold in the marketplace all the time. Nannies make decent money. Day care is expensive as well. In short, there is plenty of money paid for domestic care. So it is not that the market doesn’t value domestic care or what you call “women’s work.”
Not sure where you’re getting your info, but these kinds of jobs are usually paid far below the median. Women are highly overrepresented in these pink collar jobs, and pay is usually far lower than for jobs considered “men’s work”. The market absolutely does not value domestic care. Why is being a lawyer worth so much more than being a nanny? Certainly not because of the relative benefit to society. Is it because of the training required? Somewhat, but partially that is because law training is formal and expensive (therefore considered valuable) while most of the training for child care is informal (taught by one’s relatives for example). “Women’s work” is most definitely undervalued, and it is the skewed value system that is exactly the problem.
Companies normally don’t set wages based on supply/demand. The actual practice of setting wages involves tracking what other companies are paying for the same job, same experience, etc. and adjusting based on a number of factors. The most important factor in wages is market expectation - what people are used to paying and being paid. It has very little to do with value in any sense of the word.
Nobody is saying, hey, let’s start tracking all of our self-care and demand pay for every hour. It’s about recognizing all the invisible and unequal contributions that women make that keep our system going.
Perhaps a guaranteed minimum wage, proper subsidized child care, better labour laws, etc etc etc might be a thought.
Ok, here’s the promised long reply.
TG - First, what do you think libertarianism is and why is it a “dream world”? I should say that I lean libertarian, but don’t exactly subscribe to any notion of a libertarian utopia. I just put up a post on my blog about why I’m a libertarian, though mostly it is a rambling collection of thoughts that loosely fall under that umbrella. (See it here: http://disgustedbeyondbelief.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-i-am-libertarian-small-l.html)
I see socialism as a dream world - people simply will not work if it is only to see the fruits of their labor confiscated by the government and given to people who don’t work. That’s a big part of why communism failed. That’s a big part of the huge problems they are having in Europe right now. People need incentives to work because, frankly, work sucks most of the time, even when it is a profession you generally enjoy. Why put up with it if you can just get paid to sit at home on your ass? The best incentive for work is if it is the only way you can function in society because it is the only way to feed yourself, put a roof over your head, and if the compensation is directly proportional to how hard and smart you work.
That’s why I’d be for, for instance, getting rid of all taxes on wages, but would still not have a problem with a tax on investment returns - because wages pay for work and investment returns pay for sitting on your ass, though obviously there is some skill involved in choosing what to invest in.
Yes, we do agree that children are people. When I was talking about “getting the benefit of the work at home” I meant that in the context of, as a parent, you are RESPONSIBLE for taking care of your kids. That is something you are expected to do, as a parent. Just like we are all expected to follow the law. That kind of expectation is not something you are paid for, that is something you do or face the consequences. One way to fulfill this responsibility would be to hire someone to watch your kids for you (day care, nanny).
So when you stay home and take care of your own children, you get the benefit of that work in the sense that you get your responsibility to your children fulfilled, something that you are REQUIRED to do one way or the other. That’s what I meant by that. Not that children were property.
When I say those who get Welfare they get money for nothing, I mean that they are not getting paid for providing a service or a product, they are getting paid simply for existing. That is what I consider money for nothing. If I pay you (warning, “generic you”
) money to do something you were responsible for anyway (like taking care of your own children or mowing your lawn or painting your house) then I get no value out of it. So it is an exchange of something for nothing.
And this is not inconsistent with saying that a paycheck does not equal personal worth, and I’ll demonstrate why. I used to work and make a lot more money than I do now, but I also worked a lot of hours and really despised what I was doing most of the time. Now I enjoy what I do and make far less money. I don’t think I’m worth any less than I was before, even though I make less money. But I did make a choice and that choice has consequences, including having less money, so having a cheaper lifestyle in that sense, and also some positives - having more free time, which I can spend with my daughter. So no, I don’t think my personal worth has anything to do with whether I get a paycheck or not. But that doesn’t mean I think I should get a check even if I don’t do anything but stay at home and fulfull my responsibilities as a parent for my daughter. I would not feel my worth was any different even if I did stay at home all the time. But I would not expect to get paid for it. So yes, there is no connection at all in my mind betwee how much someone is paid and what they are worth.
You are correct that capitalism is about paying people what their services are worth, and if someone is uneducated and poor, there will be fewer people willing to pay much money to employ that person. But then one can go out and get an education. One can go out and learn a trade. I don’t pretend this is easy. One can go out and start a business (which mostly fail but also are the primary, if only way most ever really get “rich”). There are resources available. If public schools aren’t doing the job, we should work on fixing that. We should make sure that everyone who wants to go to college can go, though probably a lot of people would be better served going to a trade school - college is a total waste of time for some professions - and a waste of money as well. We should do everything we can to make sure everyone has the opportunity to be a productive member of society.
Just paying those who aren’t productive won’t do this. In fact, it will encourage people not to be productive, and leave them stuck in a cycle of poverty. This is what welfare has done to many neighborhoods.
I’m really confused by what you think libertarianism and capitalism are. Not that I could describe either well, but I simply don’t understand what you are talking about. Libertarians don’t rely on poverty. If anything, the idea is that interfereing with free exchange is how we end up with more poverty. Capitalism is not built on poverty. If anythng, where it thrives, there is less poverty. Poor people can’t consume much. Capitalism thrives where there are large numbers of people with ready cash to spend.
What bothered me about the article was it used a horrible methodology to calculate the “salary” of a stay-at-home parent. It made no sense. In the real world, there are people are hired to do a bunch of odd jobs together like that in various professions. If anything, they get paid very very little. Then there are nannies, who have a lot of the jobs listed in the article, all in one. But they only get paid about $30-50K depending on the area. If the article just looked at the pay for nannies and used that as its basis for calculating market value, then I would not have been nearly so annoyed. (I still admittedly would have been annoyed with the concept of expecting pay for doing something for yourself - e.g. taking care of your own responsibilities with regards to your own house and your own children). But at least the numbers would not have been so ridiculous.
And I never had a problem with the concept that staying at home was of great value - both for the parent who stays and for the children. I found it richly rewarding in so many ways and I am so happy I had that time with my daughter. She’ll never be that age again and I feel lucky to have had the chance to share it with her, despite the work involved. But despite that great value to me, personally, that doesn’t justify having someone ELSE pay ME for doing it. We all agree there is great value, for instance, in having a nice, long, enjoyable vacation. Vacations can be lots of work too - like if you go hiking in the Andes. But we sure as heck don’t expect anyone to pay us to take a vacation.
The 92 hours bothers me because, first, you are not constantly active in that time - being “on-call” doesn’t count, and the late night feedings and such do taper off rather quickly for most parents. My daughter slept all the way through the night by the time she was six weeks old and, except for rare occasions when she’s been sick, has never looked back. Once she’s out, she’s out for the night. Moreover, the hours themselves should not factor into overtime and such because salaried positions don’t pay any overtime. Any job where you end up working 92 hours per week - well, almost all jobs like that, that pay in the range the article was indicating, are salaried positions. So you get paid for 40 hours and then just work for free for the rest.
Cleaning - you can clean as much or as little as you want. There really is nothing requiring you to do much beyond the dishes and the laundry on a daily basis. With a dishwasher and laundry machine, neither is much trouble. Though I like to gripe about it, in only takes a few minutes to unload the dishwasher and only a few minutes to load it. Same with the laundry. Further, since I knew I would be the one who would be doing the cleaning, and since we had our house custom built (which in some ways is actually cheaper than buying an old house), I designed the house (and the type and arrangement of furniture within it) for maximum effeciency for cleaning. I made the doors as wide as possible. I bought only easy to change light fixtures that don’t have a lot of exposed surfaces to get dusty, and I made lots of easy access for vacuuming. In short, I designed the house to make cleaning take as little work and time as possible. My cousin (and at times my wife) thought I was crazy to pay so much attention to that when designing it, but it has been worth its weight in gold. But back to my point - there’s nothing requiring you to clean much at all if you stay home, so absent some sort of government sponsored home inspection, if you paid people to stay home and clean their own houses, how would you ever know you got your money’s worth?
Long waits is a huge issue. Saying it is better than our system really depends on the wait, doesn’t it? I mean, I have health insurance through work. It isn’t great, but I don’t have to wait and it covers most of what I need. I think we do need a more general health insurance that everyone should be required to pay a premium on that also covers everyone. We sort of have it already now in a backwards sort of way with how ERs treat people and that is just a bad system.
And again, I ask, what do you expect me to do about other nations where there are problems? Isn’t it a little arrogant to even think that people living elsewhere should have to have me think about them one way or the other? Should there be someone in Greenland right now thinking about my problems here in the United States? I still don’t quite get what you expect of me. “Not dismissing it as not my problem” - what exactly does that mean? What does that accomplish? That’s still just a mental attitude. I want to know what actual actions you expect me to take with regard to other peoples’ problems in other nations? If there is nothing specific, then really, what are you talking about here and why do you care what I think? I’m happy when I can get a good night’s sleep, get my daughter up on time, get her to day care, get my work done, pick her up, spend some time with her, get her fed and cleaned up, and get in a little time to watch something I might want to watch in the evening before I have to go back to bed again. It isn’t exactly like I’m eating bon bons and sitting on my couch. So I wonder, what is it you expect me to actually do?
I should point out that philosophers are not immune from the use of ad hominems. Not that sometimes they aren’t deserved. Not that you used any. It was just a general tone, a feeling I got - and that can be a very subjective thing, especially when communicating through electronic text. I appreciate your not attacking the person, particularly when that person is me.
Sometimes I do worry I come across as too strident, but I just really get into discussions and just can’t help but get strident at times.
Shannon - The main blame I would put on governments for the problems in much of the world - in the third world - is for being corrupt and about a handful of people fighting for scraps with large guns while society itself crumbles as there is no infrastructure because all money for infrastructure is spent on things to blow it up. In such a place, no one can thrive, everyone loses, men and women. Men end up being made slaves - taken as boys, forced to serves as soldiers, paid with drugs that they use to keep them high all the time so they don’t worry about getting shot. This isn’t good for anyone.
I’ve heard of the cow program - or programs where small loans are given to allow purchase of a cow. Those are great, and they are a good libertarian solution to the problems - or a start to one. Again, though, none of that does any good if some slave-soldier boy, high on drugs, shoots the cow or takes it away.
And as a libertarian, of course I hate the welfare that is the farm bill.
Renali - Uh, I did not ever use the term “lazy b****s” anywhere in my posting. You, however, did use the term, which sounds rather mysognistic to me. Is that what you think of women???
And it isn’t about “girly” work not being paid - in fact, childcare professionals get paid well - I know, I have to pay an arm and a leg for day care. It isn’t about the nature of the work at all. It is about not getting paid to take care of yourself and your own.
“Renali - Uh, I did not ever use the term “lazy b****s” anywhere in my posting. You, however, did use the term, which sounds rather mysognistic to me. Is that what you think of women??? ”
You must be a lawyer. This level of dishonest spin can only come from lawyers. Grow up, Mr. Sexist. Your continual refusal to own up to reality reveals your misogyny. You pathetic attempt at slandering (or is it libeling?) me reveals your misogyny. Oh, I know, you were a stay at home dad for a while and that means that you’re oh-so-well tuned in to what women experience. I used those words to illustrate to you what you total bullshit argument sounds like. Once again, it’s not about someone else paying someone to take care of themselves and their kids. It’s about the very simple, obvious fact that this economy relies on unpaid and largely female servitude to survive and thrive. Anyone with one foot on reality’s side of the fence would see this clearly.
“And it isn’t about “girly” work not being paid - in fact, childcare professionals get paid well - I know, I have to pay an arm and a leg for day care. It isn’t about the nature of the work at all. It is about not getting paid to take care of yourself and your own.”
A whole lot of babbling and you’re still completely wrong. No, you clearly do not know. You think all the money magically appears in the pockets of the women taking care of your kid? Please. Child care professionals do not get well paid.
Jobs that are gendered female are low(er) paying jobs. Wake up to reality, Mr. Sexist.
Renali - that is a pretty good ratio of insults to words. The fact that you brought the terminology of lazy b****ts to the discussion, the terminology used by mysoginists, is not “spin,” it is a fact.
However, your attempt to pretend otherwise and call it “spin” was quite an attempt at “spin” yourself. If you’re not a lawyer, you should be, except you’ll probably lose a lot due to your hostile rhetoric alienating judges, juries, and opposing counsel.
Apparently having a discussion where one doesn’t bow down and agree with you makes one a misogynist. Perhaps if you stopped the insults, and spent more effort on making a rational argument, you’d get somewhere in this discussion.
“Renali - that is a pretty good ratio of insults to words.”
Hypocrite. Your entire post is pretty much nothing but insults and stalling. How about we factor in the insults to all thinking females in pretty much every post before that.
“The fact that you brought the terminology of lazy b****ts to the discussion, the terminology used by mysoginists, is not “spin,” it is a fact.”
Poor boy - the point flew right over his head. You keep making the claim that this is all about women who want you to pay for their taking care of their families. I added the misogynistic language that such a bullshit argument implies, but that you - being to clever to post them on a feminist blog - omitted.
The spin part refers to you accusing me of mysogyny when my intention was plain and clear. And, to your continued refusal to admit you’re a misogynist while accusing everyone else of such.
Do you understand now, or do I need to explain again?
( snipped irrelevant and pathetic baiting )
“Apparently having a discussion where one doesn’t bow down and agree with you makes one a misogynist.”
More spin. What makes you a misogynist is your belief that because you were a stay-at-home dad for a time that you know all about women’s issues and have the right to tell us how and why we’re wrong about them.
Disagreeing with me would be of no concern if yours were actually useful, well thought out, logical points. They’re not. Therefore I can only guess that your goal is to dictate to women how they are allowed to feel about certain issues, how they can think about certain issues and why yours is the only opinion that is correct. Because you know oh-so-much about them.
” Perhaps if you stopped the insults, and spent more effort on making a rational argument, you’d get somewhere in this discussion.”
You’ve yet to end your insults as well, but it’s only wrong when someone else does it. Hypocrite. Perhaps if you had a valuable argument to make I would not have to keep point out what a big pile of bilge you’re selling.
Renali - Interesting that with all of your quotes, you have not quoted one insult said by me, perhaps because they exist only in your imagination. You even admitted you added them because I apparently “cleverly” left them out.
On the other hand, your tone and your words have been consistently hostile and insulting.
I never said this was all about women wanting pay for taking care of their families. I have always refered to stay-at-home parents, not just mothers, not just women. Parents. You again imagine something nefarious and then project it onto me, then promptly knock down this strawman with more insults.
Given that you haven’t addressed any of my logical points and instead just continue to assualt and insult me with words, it makes me wonder if you have anything useful to contribute beyond your colorful language and apparent enjoyment “refuting” points that exist only in your imagination.
Long waits is a huge issue. Saying it is better than our system really depends on the wait, doesn’t it? I mean, I have health insurance through work. It isn’t great, but I don’t have to wait and it covers most of what I need. I think we do need a more general health insurance that everyone should be required to pay a premium on that also covers everyone. We sort of have it already now in a backwards sort of way with how ERs treat people and that is just a bad system.
Let me point out that what you really mean is not “it depends on the wait” but “it depends on if you’ve got health coverage,” right? I mean, sure, the system works alright if you’re fortunate enough to have decent health coverage through work. But, personally, I think a system that has some waits is better than a system that leaves, what was it? Oh, right 46 million people with no health coverage. More and more employers are cutting their employee health benefits, which means more and more people end up stuck without access to medical care.
So, sure, for you, the current system might be peaches. I can see how having to wait a little bit for minor care would be inconvenient, given that you’ve currently got access to health care. For the, you know, 46 million people who don’t have any access to health care, I think a little wait might not bother them so much.
I just want to point out that late night feedings do NOT taper off rather quickly. Feedings throughout the night are to continue ’til the baby is 3 months old or so. Doctors, pediatricians and all others in the baby business can tell you that your baby is supposed to be fed every 2 hrs or less throughout the day & night and that you are SUPPOSED to wake a sleeping baby to feed. Otherwise my son would have been sleeping through the night since he was a week old.
And for cleaning? It isn’t just load and unload the dishes. That’s more to it than that. When you cook a mess is made. Sauce gets spilled, juice boils over….cooking is messy. So not only do you have to clean the dishes from that, but wash off the counter space that is now filled with your cooking.
As far as overtime in jobs? My husband has an exempt salaried position. If he works even one hour overtime, he gets paid for it. Several of his co-workers are non-exempt and have to work 5 hours of UNPAID time before they begin to collect any kind of pay. I don’t know how your company works, but all the places in my state work like that.
The article isn’t asking the government to pay up to every single person who stays at home with their kids. They are just saying “Hey, look at the many different jobs parents are doing when they stay at home.” Go home and appreciate your wife and the things that she does.
When we first moved into our house, I was constantly annoyed when my husband never seemed to notice all the work I did around the house. NEVER. I had to coax it out of him. And I’m pretty sure it’s because his mom is like freaking Super Mom. So it was a norm for him. But when he had the chance to be for a day (I was sick), he realized how much actually goes in to caring for a little one and keeping up the house.
Gina - I can appreciate what you mean. When I was staying at home, my wife often would not notice even 1/10th of what I was doing and would comment that I wasn’t contributing because I wasn’t working. Even now, when I do work, I also do housework - the dishes, laundry, the garbage, cleaning, feeding the baby, bathing the baby, picking the baby up at day care each day. And I still sometimes get that comment from her because I make 1/2 as much as she does and because she also does some baby care when she is home (which is usually much later than me). Sometimes it isn’t really that she means it as much as she likes to snipe a bit when she’s tired, and hey, I make no claims of sainthood, either. But it isn’t just about “go appreciate your wife” - in fact, that is a rather sexist thing to say because many stay-at-home parents that aren’t being appreciated are men.
My point is that whomever does the work around the house often feels underappreciated, man or woman. But that wasn’t my gripe with the article. The $138,095 was what really got me going. And the list of jobs - CEO - Psychiatrist - Facilities Manager? Give me a break. If you tried to put those things on your resume after only being a stay-at-home parent, that would be tantamount to fraud.
As far as feedings - every baby is different. When I say sleeping through the night at 6 weeks, I meant a good long 6-7 hour stretch of sleep, and our doctor told us that was fine. You do NOT need to feed a child every two hours up through three months. Some children, yes, but not all. One of my nieces needed that. The other one did not, and was sleeping through the night about as early as my daughter. Both nieces turned out just fine. As has my daughter thus far.
Roy - It really does depend on the wait. If the wait to see a doctor is more than a few days or a week, then it precludes ANY care for ailments that only