Women don't HAVE to work.

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For most parents (or, for that matter, couples without children), work is an economic decision rather than a philosophical one. If one partner makes enough that the other can afford to stay home (thereby sacrificing his or her career), then that one should pay alimony/palimony in the event of a divorce.

+1

I don't think the philosophical question is open to many people.

I do not think so. At least I do not consider having sex to be a job, unless you are a prostitute.

First of all, I am not one of the straw people that according to the OP think that women should not be allowed to do housework if they want to. A lot of people would rather stay at home and deal with things like cooking, and that includes plenty of men too.

But I highlighted a part I have problem with. People (specially the successful ones, the ones likely to have that sort of money) work not only for money but for some sense of accomplishment and legacy. It sounds a tad unfair for one of the partners to give it up. If they win money well, they could both work mid time instead of one working complete shifts while the other stays at home and then each will do his/her share of housework. That way there is even the benefit that the children will get to know both parents rather than one.

In my social circle, I do think it is mostly a choice, but many things are done that rapidly can move a family from "choice" to necessity: buying a house, buying a bigger house, choosing to be an all organic family, believing your kids need private school ... Or music lessons ... Or? Sometimes the women in my circle forget just how many choices they made before getting to the point of "needing" to work. But there are also the women I know have no choice ... The woman who cleans the office building, whose kids have to come with her at 9 at night, and behave like angels because mommy is working.

Overall, Economics in this area seems to say that if you can pay someone to watch your kids while you work, odds are good you don't "have" to work: childcare is expensive here, you are the second salary and taxed higher, etc .. I've run the numbers: you keep very little of what you make. But if you are in a licensed profession, as most women in my social circle also happen to be, you do have one more choice to consider: keeping your license and keeping current, so that whatever happens in the future, you can go back to it. Also worthy, and a driving force behind my part time work for many years.

Just ... I wish people were a little better at recognizing how choice A leads to B which then leads to C, so that they could do better at keeping more doors open. It's hard to do best by your kids when you've locked so many doors in your life, and I know that from personal experience, too. And ... I think that failing to look at the decisions honestly distorts the debate, leads to false policy, etc. We all have to take responsibility for our choices,and for the values that led us into them.

So there is a ramble that doesn't really argue for much, but such is the nuance of real life.

Back to the OP's post ... Still don't know where you get the impression there is disdain for the stay at home mom; no one I know holds any. Or is it coming from men who don't want a lower family income they feel restricts choice? I don't know them, either, but since I'm not a guy, am I missing something?

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 24 Jul 2011, 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

+2

This decision was purely financial in my family. My husband was making more money when we had children. We were lucky that one of us could afford to stay home, but I was unlucky in the respect that my career path has been nearly completely shut off.

We made that choice and I still stick by it (my kids are awesome and it was so worth it), but the gender issue never really came into play. If I had been making more at the time, he might have been the one to stay home.

I didn't get a lot of grief for being a stay-at-home mom, but I did get a lot of "must be nice" comments. Many people have no idea how hard it is. There was also a lot of financial sacrifice on our part. We couldn't really afford convenience anymore and keeping to a tight budget can be a big challenge.

@ Vex & DW: I agree that both career (keeping one's licensing up, etc) and personal fulfillment are incredibly important aspects of having a job; I personally would'nt ever want to work a paid job less than half time, and I've read lots of testimonies from women who gave up their careers to stay at home and then were left in the lurch when their husbands left them in their 40s or 50s for younger girlfriends - and were shocked, SHOCKED! that they couldn't just slip back into the careers that they had left 15 or 20 years before.
However, telling women that they're too dumb to make decisions for themselves is just as paternalistic when you're saying 'you have to work for your own good' as when you're saying 'you must stay at home for your own good.'

But who says that? I haven't heard it. People here are by and large respectful of different choices.

Well, you know, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence

Very true.

It is occasionally implied in feminist circles; it might have been implied by the interviewer in the video, though that might have been explained in the section that was cut out.

It's a straw horse, actually, and it's the straw equivalent of a pulp:

1. Dream up caricature-esque offenses of socio-political movements you're blindingly-ignorant about, or nod vigorously to other people doing the same
2. Invoke the comradery of shared outrage at & condemnation of said conjured phantom
3. Circle-jerk one another's stupidity for ten pages whilst failing to indict a single specific event, person, organization, or cause

Therein lies the rub. For the statistical vast majority, the very thread title is erroneous.

I, too, find the thread title both provocative, and erroneous. The sense that I first took from the title was, "There is no need for women to take up paid employment." While that might not have been the author's intent, authors are responsible for expressing themselves unambiguously, and for readers' misconstruction when they fail so to do.

The only people in this society who are not obliged to work are those who are incapable of doing so by reason of total disability, or those who are capable of completely providing for their needs through personal wealth. Everyone else must work--even if that work is unpaid labour to support the provision of food, clothing, shelter and the care of children.

If, on the other hand, the sense that the author intended was, "There is nothing wrong with a woman who chooses not to take up paid employment," then that sentiment is much closer to (though still not fully aligned with) my own view.

Where parents have the means to permit one of them (of either sex) to remain at home, unpaid, whether through private income or the high earning power of one of them, then that is all to the good. But that should not suggest a failing on the part of parents who lack those means.

Last edited by visagrunt on 25 Jul 2011, 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So i'm just tired of women acting like they make babys by themselves. and its there body, naturally all the responsibilites&descision making should be shared by two people. not one

thats it.

please dont attack me.

You're tired of women "acting like" their bodies belong to them, as do decisions affecting them?

Come again?