Mothers don’t want equality with men, they want much more
OUR Constitution says (shamefully: let me put my cards on the table) that women’s place is in the home. Members of the various women’s movements and feminist groups say women’s place is wherever they want to be. And unfortunately there is not enough contradiction between those two statements.
According to women’s groups (let’s call them feminists as a useful shorthand), women should have the free choice of staying at home full time with their children or joining the workforce.
Not only should no barriers be placed in their way whatever their choice, but special concessions and arrangements should also be made for them that do not apply to the other half of the population, ie men, in supporting their choice.
That, feminists admit, is an ideal situation. Though they don’t really expect it to happen, they argue fiercely that we should work towards it as an ideal.
Initially, they claim, at the very least (and right now) women who choose to stay at home full time with their children should have equal financial status with those who choose to join the workforce as well as rearing their children. Ideally, they should be paid a wage by the State when they make that choice.
The latest twist in that situation is the emergence of whinging at the Labour Party’s latest election raffle-winner: to reduce childcare costs to €2 per hour. But what about the woman in the home, is already the cry – she should get the subsidy as well if she has made the choice to be with her children full time. After all, she’s probably made huge sacrifices to be there.
First, let’s just point something out: parents are supposed to make sacrifices for their children. And most of them do. It may be the financial sacrifice of a lower standard of living because there is only one income coming in. It may be the emotional sacrifice of sharing your small child with another human being when you want to be the only centre in their little lives.
BUT these sacrifices can equally apply to fathers as well as mothers; although men, being less emotionally articulate than women, are less likely to admit to beating themselves up about the long hours of work that keep them away from home, and often leave them exhausted and snarling when they are at home. (This last can apply to working mothers as well.) In addition, men have been conditioned to regard themselves as the huntergatherers, and they see no alternative to buckling down, paying the rent/mortgage and putting food on the table. And if that absorbs their time and energy to such a degree that it makes them semi-strangers to their kids, well, they’ve learned to put up with it. They don’t have a choice, you see.
Women are different; they want, and feel they should be entitled to, a choice. But when they have made the choice, very many of them complain bitterly.
They complain, as I’ve already said, about the fact that their household doesn’t have as much money as one with two working partners. Or they complain about the emotional wrench of being away from their children for at least part of the day. When wellknown women in the public eye are interviewed, they are frequently asked about ‘guilt’ and ‘juggling’.
This week it was TV3 presenter Lucy Kennedy’s turn. ‘We’re all tired, worried, guilty parents,’ she said. And even though she works only four hours daily, she still misses bathtime and bedtime, ‘so I feel guilty about that. I think you’ll always feel guilty when you’re a working mum even though we’re doing it for them.’
It’s a guilt she says is not shared by fathers, who see no clash between work and parenthood. Lucy was being up front about her own situation – she was, after all, just answering a question.
When they’re not asked, many women bring up the subject themselves. They really want to be with their children, they whisper shak- ily, and they spend hours battling guilt for leaving them.
And tough on the sisterhood it may be, but there’s an answer to that. Go home and be with your children, rather than talking about it. And along with that choice, accept that you are living an unequal life. Because the women who contribute to the workplace as well as bringing up their children are doing two jobs; stayat-home mothers are only doing one.
There’s even a subliminal pecking order among mothers of young children: I’ve met quite a few stay-at-home mothers who say in unguarded moments that anyone who doesn’t stay at home full time is a bad mother.
Frequently, these are women who, prior to motherhood, were strong advocates of combining motherhood and full-time working. But they’ve copped out when the going got tough. They seem to have expected that the going wouldn’t be tough, and now excuse the cop-out at the expense of their sisters who grit their teeth and get on with the double jobs.
When stay-at-home mothers are married to high-earning men, society calls them ‘lucky’ to be ‘able’ to choose to stay at home. Once again, there’s the unconscious judgement that a woman’s place is in the home, and that only financial necessity takes her out of it….or should take her out of it. And if she is taken out of it, this is unnatural, and society is exploiting her against her nature.
It is a subliminal acceptance of the De Valera 1937 Constitution and the infamous clause that a woman should not be forced by financial necessity to join the workforce ‘to the neglect of her duties in the home’.
IT is an attitude that sometimes encourages women in the workforce to exploit their gender.
A few years ago, I talked to a group of women attending a pre-natal exercise class. I recall there were nine of them, all, to my admiration, working women. They must be bloody tired at the end of the day, I suggested, but obviously it was going to be well worth it when they had their little bundles of joy and their secure place in the working world at the end of it. They smiled…a little smugly. And then, at the end of the session, which of course they were attending during working hours with the agreement of their employers, and without losing pay for the time taken out, four of them announced they thought they’d take the rest of the day off, citing talking to me as the reason. It was 12 noon. But motherhood should grant privileges, right? The Constitution says so.
The Constitution doesn’t mention the man’s role in society.
It’s taken for granted. Nobody suggests that every man should have a right to choose not to work and provide for his family.
The logical conclusion is that if equal rights are granted to men and women in family matters, then both should have a right to choose to be with their children full time. Or else, of course, that both have a duty to provide financially for their children, to whatever extent their qualifications, and therefore their incomes, allow.
So what happens if both feel the emotional pull of family life so strongly that neither is prepared to enter the workforce?
Ask that question, and the reply is usually ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, that couldn’t happen.’ It could, you know. It should, if we really have equal rights. And what happens then? The State steps in and supports the family?
The fact that while it could happen, but is highly unlikely to, proves the point that by saying they should have the choice of whether or not to enter the workforce women are admitting that they don’t want equal opportunities with men – they’re looking for preferential treatment.