I am not talking about unpaid housework, nor did I ever mention parental leave from work/ a pause in a career. I am talking about paid work. Running a general store and baling hay is not housework. Most poor women have always worked. I read the autobiography of Grandma Moses a while back. You’d probably label her a housewife, but she worked a dairy farm like a dog for years with her husband to sell milk and butter. If she’s working to make money and provide, she’s not a housewife who is free to spend her energies only tending to the family’s needs. That is a luxury.
Further, when you mention the European stat… Which I’ll take in good faith since there’s no citation… You are confusing the first five years of life (preschool) with the original comment which seemed to be about grade school kids as well as your other comments about helping with homework, etc, that also imply grade school age kids. Maybe I could buy your argument about small children, but not school age children.
My point is not to penalize people who choose/have the financial ability to stay home. My point is that it was only really ever economy viable for the wealthier people. For the left to sit around and demand it makes them seem as coddled and out of touch as when they demanded student loan repayment. You are asking for subsidized luxury goods on the backs of people who can barely provide food and shelter for themselves. And maybe you think the whole system should be restructured for the wealthy to pay for it and/ or for us to cut back on military spending to pay for it, etc. but that’s not what people lead the argument with. They lead with this expensive, privileged demand.
Most poor women did the work they knew how to. This was often housework. It was common for women to do laundry, dishes, and general cleaning for others. This was also work unless we are going to ignore its value.
I totally understand your poor women angle, but a lot of poor mothers lived in poverty without jobs taking care of their family. Sometimes it was by choice and sometimes not. I am not going to stand in moral judgement of women who were dirt poor and stayed with their family.
I get it, your stock was hard workers. They struggled despite working hard. This is pretty common as my mother’s side was literally the Grapes of Wrath because their farm went under during the dustbowl.
I am not sure you understand the struggle of raising children as you stand in judgement to trivialize other’s experiences. My wife stayed at home for several years raising our kids and we survived on one income.
Tens of millions of people who are not wealthy choose to stay at home with their children. 20% of stay home parents are men in the US. People are doing what you deny every single day and making it work.
Society and the wealthy benefit greatly from parents raising kids. The problem with the US it is extremely exploitive taking that value and not giving back with garbage childcare, uncaring employers, inflated housing, insane medical costs, etc.
I think people are crazy to have kids in the US. So that makes me insane I guess.
I am a married working mother of two. Don’t tell me what I don’t understand. I am not trying to uphold my family as some paragon of virtue. They were the most accessible anecdotes I have on hand. My point is women always worked, and the view that they didn’t is just a rewrite of history to erase them and their contributions by conservatives, and now this fake history is being repurposed by liberals as some achievable ideal. Why do you think all the early women’s rights advocates were demanding equal pay for equal work? Because they were working!
I was going to throw out anecdotes about the folks I know now where one parent has stayed home, but it didn’t help to paint the picture of how things “used to be”. But as far as what people I know do, the picture remains that it is largely a luxury of the well-off: in households where I am fairly sure the husband makes >$250k/yr, I think they do/did fine (past tense for the mother’s that still chose to go back once the children were school-aged). They don’t live extravagantly, but there is no hardship. I know a couple where the Dad stays home, unemployed not by choice. The mom makes (I think) between $200k-$250k/yr, and their finances are tight. They are managing, but it’s not great. She actually took an assignment overseas where their money would go further and more expenses would be paid by her company, but this administration ended that opportunity and they are back. The last couple I know, the husband makes maybe $100k, and it is a hardship that she thinks her role is at home and will not work. They are constantly struggling to pay rent, to pay their bills, and to buy vehicles. They frequently seek financial help from everyone they know.
Anyway, go read some Simone de Beauvoir. Historically most people were poor and most women worked. She called the women in the upper class who didn’t work “parasite women”.
No, your point is only wealthy people can stay home and that those who do are lazy. The first is objectively false and the second is a shitty judgement call you have made. Parasitic women!? Wtf is that victim blaming bullshit.
You need some serious class solidarity and to stop letting wealthy people tell you who is “lazy” and who is righteous.
No, my point is that your demand that everyone be able to do it is entitled and unrealistic. And I think your insistence that almost everyone has always done it does a huge disservice to the majority of women who always had to bring in income.
‘Parasitic women’ is a term de Beauvoir made up to refer to the elite women who did not advocate for their own sex and instead adhered to classist, sexist ideals that maintained their husband’s - and by extension their own - privilege. I just referenced it so you could go look it up.
I’m not interested in your defensiveness. I never used the word lazy. Do I think it’s more important to give your children the stability of a home and consistent heating than to be able to keep them isolated in religious indoctrination (the family existing on $100k)? Yes, yes I do. As a working woman, do I resent the implication that I ought to personally be more devoted to my children while also being tapped for money to support someone else’s ideology? Yes, yes I do. As a working woman, do I want to be shoved back into economic obscurity so that it is easier for my human rights to be trampled upon? What the fuck do you think?
I made no such demand. It is not unrealistic for one parent to stay at home with the kids. Are you denying what ~11 million people do in the USA everyday? Are you also denying my own experience with my wife staying at home until my girls were old enough for school? Are you saying my wife was lazy!? This is not a good look.
You say your a mother of two, who watched your kiddos at age 1-4? My point from the very start was blaming parents who don’t have enough time and money is wrong. Society, particularly in the US, is guilty of not giving enough benefits and pay to take care of a family.
Beauvoir was a misogynistic classist at heart. While some of her work is consider important, because of her era and class the application is pretty much non-existent. You usage of her is not the silver bullet you think it is.
I am not interested in your strawmanning. I never said women should have to stay at home, please GTFO with that nonsense. Also, you definitely implied laziness and I find your denial of this unconvincing.
I am glad you have some self reflection at least. There is hope I suppose. If you stop othering people we could have a real breakthrough.
Again with the laziness. As much as demanding privilege is lazy, I guess it’s applicable? But they’re not really the same vice. Minding young children and the household is very laborious, so I don’t think staying home with young children is lazy. But I do think it’s easier to dedicate the labor of a whole parent to them vs both people bringing in income and minding them.
I am denying your assertion that the majority of women used to not work, that that is the norm for history. And because I am denying that it was ever the case, I am skeptical that it is feasible in the future.
Personally, we are fairly privileged. We are both well-compensated engineers, so we paid for private daycare. And when the daycares closed for Covid, we rotated watching the children with a couple other families from daycare so that all parents could get all their hours in.
Society, particularly in the US, is guilty of not giving enough benefits and pay to take care of a family.
Largely agree with your assessment of the problem, it’s just your assessment of the solution I disagree with… Which I thought I implied earlier. Societally there should be more options for subsidized child care, there should be modifications to the tax code and corporate regulations to achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth, and also we should give children more freedom. As a society we expect parents to keep a close eye on children at all times, and it is oppressive to both parents and children and stifles their development: both their confidence and their decision making abilities.
I never said women should have to stay at home, please GTFO with that nonsense.
Indeed you never said that. And you seemed to think, however misguidedly, that the confinnent of one parent to the home would be born just as equally by men. But history, and the current political climate, clearly show that one end of the political spectrum seeks to disempower women, and here you are making half of their argument for them.
Beauvoir was a misogynistic classist at heart.
What I’ve read so far is exactly the opposite of that, but I’m no expert on her.
If you think expecting society to help out with their future citizens as demanding privileges then there is little hope for you. I am glad you have some reason when it comes to raising children
I never asserted that the majority of women used to not work. I said that in the past a single income could easily support a family and that most families had someone who stayed home to take care of the kids. This is objectively true.
This is you strawmanning again. In fact, I recognize that house work is real work something you seemed to struggle with only recognizing work outside of the home as “real” and “worthy”.
There is so much to unpack with you from garbage puritanical work ethic to constant othering of human beings and their experiences. I am glad you recognize your privilege. The fact that you could afford to have someone else take care of your kids kind of speaks for itself. You are in a class that few people are in. Instead of lifting others up, you are making poor judgements about them.
I completely agree that children need more freedom and the expectation of constant supervision is overwhelming. Child care is abysmal in the US and making it cheaper is not the solution.
When I went to UNI I had a cohort and one of my colleagues was from an Eastern Bloc country. He came to me horrified after he looked into US daycare. He said in his country daycare had a teaching curriculum, food standards, regular inspections by the government, and was 90% subsidized. It really open my eyes to the shitshow we have in the US.
Beauvoir was a product of her class, culture, and time. You cannot use her words to understand the struggles of the poor because she didn’t experience that. She is very much pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality which is very distasteful in my book. She was also a big fan of othering people. I don’t disagree with a lot of what she said, but it is very situational to middle/upper class France in the 20th century.
If you think expecting society to help out with their future citizens as demanding privileges then there is little hope for you.
I literally said there should be more subsidized daycare options.
You are asking for tax dollars? Forced corporate fees? to cover the cost of half of every family’s income for 4-5 years? I said THAT is privileged. And if that’s not your ask, then you should be explicit about exactly what it is you’re proposing.
I never asserted that the majority of women used to not work.
Also you:
Going back to when one income could support a family and almost everyone had a parent that was at home that they could rely on is not a stupid lie.
If “almost everyone” isn’t the same as “the majority”, then we’re done here.
You cannot use her words to understand the struggles of the poor because she didn’t experience that
This is a logical fallacy. Do you disbelieve historians because they didn’t live in the time period they speak of?
I don’t know what “othering” people is… I assume it’s similar to dehumanizing them? At no point did I do that. And I’m tired of your word soup of all the progressive buzzwords. Someone who made enough money for his wife to comfortably stop working for 5+ years has no right to lecture anyone about class solidarity. You are better off than most and still feeling sorry for yourself about the struggles of parenting and how difficult the US is. It IS difficult for many many Americans, but that ain’t you. You are closer to me than those struggling. If you were going to suggest some kind of welfare payment to people with children below a certain income, I could get on board with that. The majority of the US’s children live in poverty; we should absolutely be addressing that. But you only care about your own problems. A hand up to the already privileged, just like the push for government to wave ALL student loan repayment.
I am not talking about unpaid housework, nor did I ever mention parental leave from work/ a pause in a career. I am talking about paid work. Running a general store and baling hay is not housework. Most poor women have always worked. I read the autobiography of Grandma Moses a while back. You’d probably label her a housewife, but she worked a dairy farm like a dog for years with her husband to sell milk and butter. If she’s working to make money and provide, she’s not a housewife who is free to spend her energies only tending to the family’s needs. That is a luxury.
Further, when you mention the European stat… Which I’ll take in good faith since there’s no citation… You are confusing the first five years of life (preschool) with the original comment which seemed to be about grade school kids as well as your other comments about helping with homework, etc, that also imply grade school age kids. Maybe I could buy your argument about small children, but not school age children.
My point is not to penalize people who choose/have the financial ability to stay home. My point is that it was only really ever economy viable for the wealthier people. For the left to sit around and demand it makes them seem as coddled and out of touch as when they demanded student loan repayment. You are asking for subsidized luxury goods on the backs of people who can barely provide food and shelter for themselves. And maybe you think the whole system should be restructured for the wealthy to pay for it and/ or for us to cut back on military spending to pay for it, etc. but that’s not what people lead the argument with. They lead with this expensive, privileged demand.
Most poor women did the work they knew how to. This was often housework. It was common for women to do laundry, dishes, and general cleaning for others. This was also work unless we are going to ignore its value.
I totally understand your poor women angle, but a lot of poor mothers lived in poverty without jobs taking care of their family. Sometimes it was by choice and sometimes not. I am not going to stand in moral judgement of women who were dirt poor and stayed with their family.
I get it, your stock was hard workers. They struggled despite working hard. This is pretty common as my mother’s side was literally the Grapes of Wrath because their farm went under during the dustbowl.
I am not sure you understand the struggle of raising children as you stand in judgement to trivialize other’s experiences. My wife stayed at home for several years raising our kids and we survived on one income.
Tens of millions of people who are not wealthy choose to stay at home with their children. 20% of stay home parents are men in the US. People are doing what you deny every single day and making it work.
Society and the wealthy benefit greatly from parents raising kids. The problem with the US it is extremely exploitive taking that value and not giving back with garbage childcare, uncaring employers, inflated housing, insane medical costs, etc.
I think people are crazy to have kids in the US. So that makes me insane I guess.
I am a married working mother of two. Don’t tell me what I don’t understand. I am not trying to uphold my family as some paragon of virtue. They were the most accessible anecdotes I have on hand. My point is women always worked, and the view that they didn’t is just a rewrite of history to erase them and their contributions by conservatives, and now this fake history is being repurposed by liberals as some achievable ideal. Why do you think all the early women’s rights advocates were demanding equal pay for equal work? Because they were working!
I was going to throw out anecdotes about the folks I know now where one parent has stayed home, but it didn’t help to paint the picture of how things “used to be”. But as far as what people I know do, the picture remains that it is largely a luxury of the well-off: in households where I am fairly sure the husband makes >$250k/yr, I think they do/did fine (past tense for the mother’s that still chose to go back once the children were school-aged). They don’t live extravagantly, but there is no hardship. I know a couple where the Dad stays home, unemployed not by choice. The mom makes (I think) between $200k-$250k/yr, and their finances are tight. They are managing, but it’s not great. She actually took an assignment overseas where their money would go further and more expenses would be paid by her company, but this administration ended that opportunity and they are back. The last couple I know, the husband makes maybe $100k, and it is a hardship that she thinks her role is at home and will not work. They are constantly struggling to pay rent, to pay their bills, and to buy vehicles. They frequently seek financial help from everyone they know.
Anyway, go read some Simone de Beauvoir. Historically most people were poor and most women worked. She called the women in the upper class who didn’t work “parasite women”.
No, your point is only wealthy people can stay home and that those who do are lazy. The first is objectively false and the second is a shitty judgement call you have made. Parasitic women!? Wtf is that victim blaming bullshit.
You need some serious class solidarity and to stop letting wealthy people tell you who is “lazy” and who is righteous.
https://poweratwork.us/the-myth-of-the-obsessive-american-work
No, my point is that your demand that everyone be able to do it is entitled and unrealistic. And I think your insistence that almost everyone has always done it does a huge disservice to the majority of women who always had to bring in income.
‘Parasitic women’ is a term de Beauvoir made up to refer to the elite women who did not advocate for their own sex and instead adhered to classist, sexist ideals that maintained their husband’s - and by extension their own - privilege. I just referenced it so you could go look it up.
I’m not interested in your defensiveness. I never used the word lazy. Do I think it’s more important to give your children the stability of a home and consistent heating than to be able to keep them isolated in religious indoctrination (the family existing on $100k)? Yes, yes I do. As a working woman, do I resent the implication that I ought to personally be more devoted to my children while also being tapped for money to support someone else’s ideology? Yes, yes I do. As a working woman, do I want to be shoved back into economic obscurity so that it is easier for my human rights to be trampled upon? What the fuck do you think?
I made no such demand. It is not unrealistic for one parent to stay at home with the kids. Are you denying what ~11 million people do in the USA everyday? Are you also denying my own experience with my wife staying at home until my girls were old enough for school? Are you saying my wife was lazy!? This is not a good look.
You say your a mother of two, who watched your kiddos at age 1-4? My point from the very start was blaming parents who don’t have enough time and money is wrong. Society, particularly in the US, is guilty of not giving enough benefits and pay to take care of a family.
Beauvoir was a misogynistic classist at heart. While some of her work is consider important, because of her era and class the application is pretty much non-existent. You usage of her is not the silver bullet you think it is.
I am not interested in your strawmanning. I never said women should have to stay at home, please GTFO with that nonsense. Also, you definitely implied laziness and I find your denial of this unconvincing.
I am glad you have some self reflection at least. There is hope I suppose. If you stop othering people we could have a real breakthrough.
Again with the laziness. As much as demanding privilege is lazy, I guess it’s applicable? But they’re not really the same vice. Minding young children and the household is very laborious, so I don’t think staying home with young children is lazy. But I do think it’s easier to dedicate the labor of a whole parent to them vs both people bringing in income and minding them.
I am denying your assertion that the majority of women used to not work, that that is the norm for history. And because I am denying that it was ever the case, I am skeptical that it is feasible in the future.
Personally, we are fairly privileged. We are both well-compensated engineers, so we paid for private daycare. And when the daycares closed for Covid, we rotated watching the children with a couple other families from daycare so that all parents could get all their hours in.
Largely agree with your assessment of the problem, it’s just your assessment of the solution I disagree with… Which I thought I implied earlier. Societally there should be more options for subsidized child care, there should be modifications to the tax code and corporate regulations to achieve a more equitable distribution of wealth, and also we should give children more freedom. As a society we expect parents to keep a close eye on children at all times, and it is oppressive to both parents and children and stifles their development: both their confidence and their decision making abilities.
Indeed you never said that. And you seemed to think, however misguidedly, that the confinnent of one parent to the home would be born just as equally by men. But history, and the current political climate, clearly show that one end of the political spectrum seeks to disempower women, and here you are making half of their argument for them.
What I’ve read so far is exactly the opposite of that, but I’m no expert on her.
If you think expecting society to help out with their future citizens as demanding privileges then there is little hope for you. I am glad you have some reason when it comes to raising children
I never asserted that the majority of women used to not work. I said that in the past a single income could easily support a family and that most families had someone who stayed home to take care of the kids. This is objectively true.
This is you strawmanning again. In fact, I recognize that house work is real work something you seemed to struggle with only recognizing work outside of the home as “real” and “worthy”.
There is so much to unpack with you from garbage puritanical work ethic to constant othering of human beings and their experiences. I am glad you recognize your privilege. The fact that you could afford to have someone else take care of your kids kind of speaks for itself. You are in a class that few people are in. Instead of lifting others up, you are making poor judgements about them.
I completely agree that children need more freedom and the expectation of constant supervision is overwhelming. Child care is abysmal in the US and making it cheaper is not the solution.
When I went to UNI I had a cohort and one of my colleagues was from an Eastern Bloc country. He came to me horrified after he looked into US daycare. He said in his country daycare had a teaching curriculum, food standards, regular inspections by the government, and was 90% subsidized. It really open my eyes to the shitshow we have in the US.
Beauvoir was a product of her class, culture, and time. You cannot use her words to understand the struggles of the poor because she didn’t experience that. She is very much pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality which is very distasteful in my book. She was also a big fan of othering people. I don’t disagree with a lot of what she said, but it is very situational to middle/upper class France in the 20th century.
I literally said there should be more subsidized daycare options. You are asking for tax dollars? Forced corporate fees? to cover the cost of half of every family’s income for 4-5 years? I said THAT is privileged. And if that’s not your ask, then you should be explicit about exactly what it is you’re proposing.
Also you:
If “almost everyone” isn’t the same as “the majority”, then we’re done here.
This is a logical fallacy. Do you disbelieve historians because they didn’t live in the time period they speak of?
I don’t know what “othering” people is… I assume it’s similar to dehumanizing them? At no point did I do that. And I’m tired of your word soup of all the progressive buzzwords. Someone who made enough money for his wife to comfortably stop working for 5+ years has no right to lecture anyone about class solidarity. You are better off than most and still feeling sorry for yourself about the struggles of parenting and how difficult the US is. It IS difficult for many many Americans, but that ain’t you. You are closer to me than those struggling. If you were going to suggest some kind of welfare payment to people with children below a certain income, I could get on board with that. The majority of the US’s children live in poverty; we should absolutely be addressing that. But you only care about your own problems. A hand up to the already privileged, just like the push for government to wave ALL student loan repayment.