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> Obviously nobody is forcing women to stay at home at the point of a gun. However, I think it can't be discounted the degree to which women are pressured socia

by Dewie 13y ago

> Obviously nobody is forcing women to stay at home at the point of a gun. However, I think it can't be discounted the degree to which women are pressured socially to take on primary caregiver roles. My wife and I (~30, educated professionals) have a 8-month old. My wife as zero interest in staying at home. But from the minute she got pregnant the pressure started. My mom and her mom (both of whom work/ed) suggested that may she should stay at home for a few years when the baby was young. She's constantly bombarded by parenting fads that tell her she's a bad mom if she doesn't breastfeed/wear her baby around in a sling/etc. Those fads are never very compatible with professional working life. And the moment we start talking about married women, the wider discussion of the pay gap (assuming it is only due to working less) becomes less of an apples to apples comparison. Your spouse, at least by law, shares your income (as you do hers), and has alimony in the event of a divorce. I don't know if you were thinking at all about the wider discussion (tangents are of course ok to have), but I thought I should just mention it since it didn't seem to have gotten much mention in this thread. > Meanwhile, nobody has any expectations of me. Nobody wonders why I don't take a few years off to raise the kid. None of the parenting fads are aimed at me. Heck, my own mother gets nervous whenever I have responsibility for the kid. I like how you say that nobody has any expectations of you, and then contradict yourself in the last sentence. Clearly your mother has the expectation that you will have less responsibility for your child than your spouse. That is still an expectation. And people in general are probably expecting that you won't take time off for work to look after your child. That kind of expectation a blessing for somebody, and a burden for others. Maybe you have less expectations in the sense that you aren't expected to do more paid labour than your wife, but I doubt it. What is more controversial: a stay-at-home dad or a mother who works full time? In some ways the expectations put on women are more flexible, or shall I say optional, than the ones put on men.

rayiner 13y ago
> Your spouse, at least by law, shares your income (as you do hers), and has alimony in the event of a divorce. Not anywhere on the east coast (all separate property states). In any case, that's besides the point. I'm as eligible for any property division in case of divorce as she is, but I don't get bombarded from all angles with pressure to be the one to downshift my career to stay at home. > I like how you say that nobody has any expectations of you. You're arguing semantics. I'm just saying they don't expect me to sacrifice my career to raise the kid. > That kind of expectation a blessing for somebody, and a burden for others. Perhaps, but one thing is much less fuzzy: the things that women are pressured to do are much less financially lucrative. And in a country where money is everything, that's a critically important distinction.
comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
The grass is always greener, especially when you remember someone lifting their leg and peeing on your own grass last month. I would bet that ~100% of the women with small children who stay at home sometimes get inappropriate suggestions that they are choosing to waste their potential. I would bet that ~100% of the women with small children who work full time sometimes get inappropriate suggestions that they are choosing to be an inferior mother. Both sting. And there is no polite response. FWIW, the biological mother as the default primary care giver for very small children seems to be a cultural universal. (That is not to suggest that the default should be assumed to be automatically superior.)
- rayiner 13y ago
  > FWIW, the biological mother as the default primary care giver for very small children seems to be a cultural universal. (That is not to suggest that the default should be assumed to be automatically superior.) It's a default that made sense back when men had to go hunt an elk to feed the family. There was some period of time when our daughter wanted her mother more than me, but at 8 months she seems neutral as between us. It helps that she's bottle fed and I do the night feedings, so we've bonded over that. This is all something that makes much more sense in 2013 when I don't have to go elk hunting.

by Dewie 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago

> Your spouse, at least by law, shares your income (as you do hers), and has alimony in the event of a divorce. Not anywhere on the east coast (all separate property states). In any case, that's besides the point. I'm as eligible for any property division in case of divorce as she is, but I don't get bombarded from all angles with pressure to be the one to downshift my career to stay at home. > I like how you say that nobody has any expectations of you. You're arguing semantics. I'm just saying they don't expect me to sacrifice my career to raise the kid. > That kind of expectation a blessing for somebody, and a burden for others. Perhaps, but one thing is much less fuzzy: the things that women are pressured to do are much less financially lucrative. And in a country where money is everything, that's a critically important distinction.

comrade_ogilvy 13y ago

The grass is always greener, especially when you remember someone lifting their leg and peeing on your own grass last month. I would bet that ~100% of the women with small children who stay at home sometimes get inappropriate suggestions that they are choosing to waste their potential. I would bet that ~100% of the women with small children who work full time sometimes get inappropriate suggestions that they are choosing to be an inferior mother. Both sting. And there is no polite response. FWIW, the biological mother as the default primary care giver for very small children seems to be a cultural universal. (That is not to suggest that the default should be assumed to be automatically superior.)

rayiner 13y ago
> FWIW, the biological mother as the default primary care giver for very small children seems to be a cultural universal. (That is not to suggest that the default should be assumed to be automatically superior.) It's a default that made sense back when men had to go hunt an elk to feed the family. There was some period of time when our daughter wanted her mother more than me, but at 8 months she seems neutral as between us. It helps that she's bottle fed and I do the night feedings, so we've bonded over that. This is all something that makes much more sense in 2013 when I don't have to go elk hunting.