cultural contradictions of motherhood and choice
So at this lunch I attended where we talked about motherhood, one of the male participants made this statement about his wife (again, paraphrasing):
I would like nothing more than to be at home all day, being a kept man, but my wife wanted to stay at home with our children. It was totally her choice.
While I am not privy to the inner workings of this particular relationship, I am wondering for how many women is the decision to stay at home or to work truly a choice. For there are competing cultural logics out there, at least for middle-class women. [For working class and poor women, the choice often revolves around money, as in "Can I afford day care, so I can work?" or "Can I afford not to work, so I can stay home with my kids?"]
These logics are pretty simple. One says that a woman’s place is in the home. Another says that as individualistic Americans, everyone should be selfish and do things in their own best interests. Another says that women should sacrifice everything for their children. The first logic has pretty much been debunked by most of society, but the other two truly present a puzzle. Sharon Hays, in “The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood,” does a good job in discussing these competing logics if you want more than my spin on it.
Attachment parenting is all the buzz now. Read Sears, and they will tell you that to be a good mother, you must be there. “Being there” means just that - physically being up in your kid’s face 24/7. Children need the constant presence of their mothers in order to feel safe and secure in the world. Many books urge you to not put your child in day care at least until their second birthday, and then many others say not to do it at all. As for your sanity, your well-being — that has to wait. Children will only be children for a short amount of time and you will be sorry if you miss it .
On the other hand, try to get a job after being out of the job market for several years to “be there” for your kids. Motherwork is not seen as legitimate work with transferable skills to other occupations - studies show that being a mother actually carries a penalty on the job market. The individualistic logic in America is to always be working at your craft, behaving like a rational actor, maximizing your utility - in other words, being selfish. Penalizing a woman for motherwork says that caring activities, where someone else’s needs are put in front of your own, is not valuable in the society.
So then how does a woman truly choose given these competing logics? To me, choice denotes equal alternatives. It’s kinda like how Chris Rock says we shouldn’t praise men who take care of their kids, as if it’s a choice - taking care of your kids is what you’re supposed to do, according to the dominant way of thinking. So when it comes to choice in motherhood, is there really a choice? The competing logics tell you very clearly what you are supposed to do, so depending on which logic most appeals to you, you then do what you are supposed to do.
So much is made about educated middle-class women “opting-out,” as if it were a choice. The link is to Stone, a sociologist who wrote a book about it. Am I the only one who thinks that it isn’t such a choice when the logic of attachment parenting is so strong, especially for the middle class? When class privilege makes the competitive logic less persuasive over decisions? Do middle-class women truly feel like they have a choice, at least one that they can feel good about? The little blurb about the book says this:
They have been unsuccessful in their efforts to find flexibility or… because they found themselves marginalized and stigmatized, negatively reinforced for trying to hold onto their careers after becoming mothers.
So this is my point - it is really such a choice when the social pressures are so strongly pushing that way?
I’m rambling here, as my thoughts are not well spelled out here. Feel free to ignore everything I just wrote.
April 22, 2008 at 12:50 pm
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April 22, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Yes. Unequivocally yes, it is a choice (at least for the middle class). But it’s a complicated one, and one that perhaps too many couples do not openly share with each other.
That said, the first quote above is absurd! If your male interlocutor really wanted to stay home, he’d have figured out a way. And, is that how he thinks of his wife, as a “kept woman”? Sad, really: parenting is an exhausting–and worthy–job.
When our first son was born, I was a graduate student (PhD candidate, so I was essentially done with classwork, just prepping for my exams), and my wife was a gainfully employed engineer. She took the six weeks paid maternity leave, then returned to work 3/4 time, while I served as primary caregiver, toting him along to meetings on campus (as I was active in grad student government and committee work).
After nearly a year, we decided to move back to our old home (in part to tend to my dying father). As it turned out, I wound up with a Fulbright, and we spent a year overseas. When we returned, I worked on finishing my dissertation, but couldn’t find a job as an academic. She made two phone calls, received two interviews, and two job offers in a matter of weeks!
Again, she returned to work full-time, while I was primary caregiver for a while. It’s not the case that taking time off presents a difficulty for all women. (Four years later, and after 150 faculty applications, I still haven’t been able to land a professorship. Being an academic seems to be the harder course.)
Now roles have reversed again. She’s once again the primary (while I work out of the house, trying to eek a living out of being a non-academic researcher). There are always choices in life. We fall too often to our own excuses and society’s expectations to see them.
April 23, 2008 at 6:09 am
AD - in your case, money was an issue, so I don’t think my post applies to you. Your wife worked because money needs dictated that someone needed to work. Your comment implies that the first person who looked for work was you; you couldn’t find it, so your wife then looked for work. So where was the choice?
As an aside, I read you everyday and thoroughly enjoy your honesty.
April 23, 2008 at 7:17 am
Fair enough. You’re right, necessity always plays a role. Yet there is always choice, even if the scope is somewhat limited by circumstance. It’s just we too often fail to accept the responsibility that goes along with that choice. We fall into our own ingrained and society’s expectations.
In our case, as you point out, I did look for work first, but only in academia. That was a choice. I could have returned to waiting tables, or working in a bookstore, or to fundraising (all jobs I’d held in the past). Our choice (my wife’s and mine together) was the path we took, as with our present choice.
Each at their time seemed the best options, but surely not the only ones.