Good Newsweek article

Emily wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote:
Emily wrote:

P. Tierney wrote:

Given that, the "no" responses don't put me off much. If one
is to answer the question "no", in fact, I'm not sure what other
reasons they could give. What "no" rationale could a parent
give that would be logically acceptable to a working parent?


How about - she is taking the job from a man who is supporting his
family?

Dear Rosalie,

I think that that argument might not make sense in the
context of the sort of jobs in question. That is, we're
talking about the scenario where the family is economically
fine with just one parent working, but the other chooses
to work as well. I'm guessing that it would be very rare
for a parent in that situation to be, say, flipping burgers.

I had two boyfriends who said to me more or less the same thing - no
wife of mine is ever going to work. There was no consultation about
this - although one of them also indicated that I could work to
support him through seminary at the same time attending classes in how
to be a minister's wife. He also said that I would have to beg him
for money. This was a fairly prevalent attitude at the time I was
married, and neither one of these guys had any doubt that I would
praise them for this attitude. Both of them had mothers who worked
BTW.

When my dh and I were dating and thinking of marriage, I asked him
about this, and he said that if I had a job that I loved so much that
I would do it without pay, that it would be OK for me to work, but
that I couldn't work as a salesperson in the 5 and 10. He wanted me
to know that he would be capable of supporting his family, and also
that we should be able to live on his salary.

Of course in those days, women were routinely paid less too.

Most of the folks that I know in academia could be making
more money doing something else. If I'm taking a job from
someone, they could likely be doing something else and making
more money at it. Which isn't to say that there aren't more
people who want jobs like mine than get them, but it doesn't
make sense to talk about it in terms of economic need: the
people who want this job could all be doing something else,
but they want it because they want to be academics. In that
sense, I think I'm as deserving as anyone else, even though
my family could get by on DH's salary.

Emily

Making more money somewhere else isn't IMHO really relevant to the
argument, nor is the venue of academia, which is kind of an ivory
tower situation. I don't mean to dismiss your job, but the vast
majority of people do not work under those situations.
grandma Rosalie

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
Banty wrote:

In article , Penny Gaines says...

Rosalie B. wrote:

Given that, the "no" responses don't put me off much. If one
is to answer the question "no", in fact, I'm not sure what other
reasons they could give. What "no" rationale could a parent
give that would be logically acceptable to a working parent?

How about - she is taking the job from a man who is supporting his
family?

Well, not neccessarily from a man: if the spouse has an above
average income, and the mother's job paid below or at the average
income, then the mother-with-a-well-paid-spouse might be taking
the job which could be done by the mother-with-a-badly-paid-spouse.

But where are we going with this?

IIRC, the question was - what other significant reason could someone
give to the question "Should a mother work if she doesn't need to do
so?" OTHER THAN that she should be home mothering her kids because it
will be better for the kids. I was offering the old
taking-a-job-from-a-man idea as one that could be used in the NO WOHM
argument. Not a very good argument, but better than the idea that
women have to follow their nurturing instincts or they will be
unhappy.


Sorry, I don't think it is a better argument than anything. I think that in
a competition between a man and a woman for a given job, qualifications are
the determining factor. Of course, I think the idea that a woman needs to
justify her decision to work outside of the home to anyone is absurd. And I
think these parenting mag polls are all about throwing gasoline on a burning
fire and are irresponsible. But I think that vast majority of what I have
read in the parenting mags that I have read are crap. Can someone explain to
me why significant portions of a mag named "Parenting" has makeup ads? The
mag is not named "Mothering." There is too much catty bitch festing going on
in the op ed sections of these mags, and the advice is often shallow and
stupid.

Do you think I ought to stop holding back and tell you how I really feel?



How about the single man who 'takes a job' away from a man with two kids?
How about the man with two kids who 'takes a job' away from a man with
four
kids?

Yadda yadda.

Only when it's mothers do we worry about who is 'taking' whose job.

Banty

Right

grandma Rosalie

toto wrote:

Emily on mk-fl posted this url for a response I think is telling.

The problem isn't a new one at all.

http://chezmiscarriage.blogs.com/che...thers_the.html

I adore Chez Miscarriage, and I think her analysis is spot-on. Her
posts over the next few days are also very interesting - she asked for
stories about mothers criticizing each other, and got hundreds and
hundreds of responses.

Rivka
Li'l Critter due 4/3/05

wrote:
"P. Tierney" wrote in message
news:dEhSd.13870$4D6.10058@attbi_s51...
Man, I was having a totally crap day. Thanks for perking it up! I really
needed a good laugh!

Thank you