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Thoughts on stay-at-home motherhood
Jan. 6th, 2009 03:05 pmI was a little surprised to read in the comments on an LJ community post that almost all the women planning to stay home were doing so because if they chose to work, daycare would eat their entire income anyway. Most of the feminist conversation I've heard on staying home with kids focuses on women who "opt out" of high-powered careers, or at least comfortable middle-class incomes, to do it. And these are whole different worlds.
It makes me wonder what the statistics actually are among SAHMs - whether it's an even split between those for whom work/daycare doesn't seem to make financial sense and those who opt out of the working world more voluntarily. The LJ community in question skews young (large early to mid 20s population), from what I've seen, so maybe it's not so strange that so many people there would fit into the first category. I'd be much more surprised to hear the same reasoning from the SAHMs of Barrhaven or Stittsville (whose existence I know of through my sister-in-law, who tells me she's found herself the only working mom picking her daughter up from extra-curricular activities in the area).
On the face of it, financial reasons for staying home make rather more sense than "opting out"; as I think I've said before, I am baffled as to how anybody affords to opt out, short of their husband having more money than God. In this case, the finances don't really change between one scenario and the other, although the SAHM option still involves all the problematic baggage of being completely dependent on your spouse. The only way I can see this being less of an issue is if the husband also takes his turn doing the same thing (which only really works if he makes a similar amount of money; otherwise it no longer makes financial sense for the family).
Otherwise I have to wonder...
- why is it that all these women are making so little money? In the case of the LJ community, the age issue makes this fairly obvious, and I know what a bitch it is to haul oneself out of that income bracket. BUT if age is the only factor, then the man in the relationship should be in the same sort of financial straits; why then is it so often the woman's job that's put on hold? Is there such a huge wage/opportunity gap between men and women yet that women are always the ones who may as well stay home? A couple of sub-thoughts on this:
- Even in those cases where men and women are making approximately the same pay, sadly I think it is still true that family-related gaps in a resume are much harder on a man's career than a woman's, unless you're working in one of those rare sectors (e.g. government) where provisions are explicitly made for it. But at the daycare-eats-whole-income level, it strikes me as altogether plausible that employers would look askance at a guy who took a year or more out of, say, a trades apprenticeship to look after his family where they would take a similar gap in stride as normal for a woman in a retail or secretarial job.
- I wonder how much of the disparity between husbands and wives on this front has to do with an expectation that the woman will eventually be a SAHM, so there's no point in her climbing any ladders? If the prospect of SAHMhood was not on her horizon, would she be in the same financial position? Is it may as well not bother with the $10K job if I'm going to be a mom, or is it may as well not bother with anything BUT the $10K job if I'm going to be a mom? This is not to accuse people of laziness/lack of ambition or any bullshit like that; my question is whether SAHMdom is a (gender-specific?) response to a (gender-specific?) glass ceiling or if the prospect of SAHMdom comes with a special glass ceiling of its own.
- Like everything else related to this subject, I suspect this dynamic is hugely affected in the states by the lack of useful maternity leave, never mind parental leave, and lack of useful (i.e. universal) health care. When the choice between staying at home and going back to work has to be made when your child is 3 months old (or even younger), that makes it much more black and white, to say nothing of it being vastly more difficult and expensive in terms of daycare at that point.
It makes me wonder what the statistics actually are among SAHMs - whether it's an even split between those for whom work/daycare doesn't seem to make financial sense and those who opt out of the working world more voluntarily. The LJ community in question skews young (large early to mid 20s population), from what I've seen, so maybe it's not so strange that so many people there would fit into the first category. I'd be much more surprised to hear the same reasoning from the SAHMs of Barrhaven or Stittsville (whose existence I know of through my sister-in-law, who tells me she's found herself the only working mom picking her daughter up from extra-curricular activities in the area).
On the face of it, financial reasons for staying home make rather more sense than "opting out"; as I think I've said before, I am baffled as to how anybody affords to opt out, short of their husband having more money than God. In this case, the finances don't really change between one scenario and the other, although the SAHM option still involves all the problematic baggage of being completely dependent on your spouse. The only way I can see this being less of an issue is if the husband also takes his turn doing the same thing (which only really works if he makes a similar amount of money; otherwise it no longer makes financial sense for the family).
Otherwise I have to wonder...
- why is it that all these women are making so little money? In the case of the LJ community, the age issue makes this fairly obvious, and I know what a bitch it is to haul oneself out of that income bracket. BUT if age is the only factor, then the man in the relationship should be in the same sort of financial straits; why then is it so often the woman's job that's put on hold? Is there such a huge wage/opportunity gap between men and women yet that women are always the ones who may as well stay home? A couple of sub-thoughts on this:
- Even in those cases where men and women are making approximately the same pay, sadly I think it is still true that family-related gaps in a resume are much harder on a man's career than a woman's, unless you're working in one of those rare sectors (e.g. government) where provisions are explicitly made for it. But at the daycare-eats-whole-income level, it strikes me as altogether plausible that employers would look askance at a guy who took a year or more out of, say, a trades apprenticeship to look after his family where they would take a similar gap in stride as normal for a woman in a retail or secretarial job.
- I wonder how much of the disparity between husbands and wives on this front has to do with an expectation that the woman will eventually be a SAHM, so there's no point in her climbing any ladders? If the prospect of SAHMhood was not on her horizon, would she be in the same financial position? Is it may as well not bother with the $10K job if I'm going to be a mom, or is it may as well not bother with anything BUT the $10K job if I'm going to be a mom? This is not to accuse people of laziness/lack of ambition or any bullshit like that; my question is whether SAHMdom is a (gender-specific?) response to a (gender-specific?) glass ceiling or if the prospect of SAHMdom comes with a special glass ceiling of its own.
- Like everything else related to this subject, I suspect this dynamic is hugely affected in the states by the lack of useful maternity leave, never mind parental leave, and lack of useful (i.e. universal) health care. When the choice between staying at home and going back to work has to be made when your child is 3 months old (or even younger), that makes it much more black and white, to say nothing of it being vastly more difficult and expensive in terms of daycare at that point.
