peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (09/09/84)
Sophie Quigley rightly pointed out that I missed an important aspect of mothering: what the mother does when her children have left the nest. Indeed, full-time mothering is not a life-long career and it was an oversight not to delve further into the problems encountered when it ends. Two problems have been alluded to: coming to terms with the end personally, and having others come to terms with it. With respect to the first, I have first hand evidence. My mother intended to go into the work force, in a new job, after undergoing graduate training for it. She embarked on this armed with a BSc. and some teaching and lab experience. Unfortunately, personal considerations intervened and the plans had to be scrapped. She has since expressed herself through some volunteer work, travel, and fitness classes. She made this adaptation without benefit of continuing part-time work during motherhood; while such work would have eased the transition, it doesn't appear absolutely necessary, at least for her. On the other hand, I think it would have made her happier while she was a full-time mother. Sophie, has, I believe, an excessively pessimistic view of the second problem: >[Mothering] is considered a non-job and ... women who stay at home to >raise children are assumed to be, in many people's minds, and certainly in >their future employer's minds, "doing nothing". When it comes to going back >on the job market, mothering skills are usually never considered as valuable >skills; on the contrary, mothers who try to get back on the job market after >a few years of absence to raise children often have to face the attitude that >their choice of motherhood as a first career is not a sign of great >skillfullness but rather a sign of stupidity: "obviously she can't really be >very intelligent, why else would she choose to stay home and raise children?". Agreed, choosing motherhood as a first career is dangerous (and this is wrong). Getting a degree first (degrees do not tend to depreciate) or establishing oneself in a job before becoming a mother seems wise. But I have seen no evidence whatsoever of the attitude expressed in the last sentence. I agree that mothering is undervalued, but not to the point where it becomes a stigma. It should also be noted that mothers with grown-up children offer important advantages to employers: a rather low chance of leaving for maternity reasons and, more importantly, a great deal of experience in "emotional labour"-- the suppression of one's own feelings in order to take care of someone else. This is invaluable in service occupations. Indeed, the "youth is all" mentality stills pervades service industries, but even this is changing as society's demographics change. While I don't think it can assume all the blame, one can certainly state that some of the undervaluing of motherhood is due to the feminist movement. This is certainly the feeling of the woman which I based my first article on. It is thus heartening that Germaine Greer is helping to adjust the balance by extolling the value of mothering. peter rowley, University of Toronto Department of C.S., Ontario Canada M5S 1A4 UUCP {linus ihnp4 allegra floyd utzoo cornell decwrl uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!peterr CSNet peterr@toronto
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (09/13/84)
From: Peter Rowley >Sophie, has, I believe, an excessively pessimistic view of the second >problem: >>[Mothering] is considered a non-job and ... women who stay at home to >>raise children are assumed to be, in many people's minds, and certainly in >>their future employer's minds, "doing nothing". When it comes to going back >>on the job market, mothering skills are usually never considered as valuable >>skills; on the contrary, mothers who try to get back on the job market after >>a few years of absence to raise children often have to face the attitude that >>their choice of motherhood as a first career is not a sign of great >>skillfullness but rather a sign of stupidity: "obviously she can't really be >>very intelligent, why else would she choose to stay home and raise children?". > >Agreed, choosing motherhood as a first career is dangerous (and this is wrong). >Getting a degree first (degrees do not tend to depreciate) or establishing >oneself in a job before becoming a mother seems wise. But I have seen no >evidence whatsoever of the attitude expressed in the last sentence. I agree >that mothering is undervalued, but not to the point where it becomes a stigma. Well, I am not convinced but I don't have too much evidence to support my claim, just anectdotal evidence (mainly attitudes I have noticed around me), so if anybody has any first hand experience, it would be very interesting to hear about it. >It should also be noted that mothers with grown-up children offer important >advantages to employers: a rather low chance of leaving for maternity >reasons and, more importantly, a great deal of experience in "emotional >labour"-- the suppression of one's own feelings in order to take care of >someone else. This is invaluable in service occupations. Indeed, the "youth >is all" mentality stills pervades service industries, but even this is >changing as society's demographics change. I agree, but I don't know if employers do. >While I don't think it can assume all the blame, one can certainly state that >some of the undervaluing of motherhood is due to the feminist movement. This >is certainly the feeling of the woman which I based my first article on. It >is thus heartening that Germaine Greer is helping to adjust the balance by >extolling the value of mothering. I would rephrase that to saying that the undervaluing of motherhood is due in great part to the conjunction of the early feminist movement and the so-called sexual revolution. My opinion is that the greater accessibility and acceptance of both extra-marital sex and divorce changed marriage and motherhood from a lifetime career into a dangerous undertaking for women, something which the feminist movement exposed. This is painting too rosy a picture for feminism though, as it certainly went through a period of overzealousness in its beginnings, in its effort to show that women were as good as men. My impressions from the pre-early 70s writings is that the emphasis was on trying to either emulate men or grab as much power for women as possible without really trying to change the basic patriarchal structure of society. The movement, who was then mainly composed of middle-class educated women, managed to alienate many women who were not able or didn't want to change their position in society. Feminism has evolved quite considerably since, as the basic battle of being recognised as as potentially competent as men by men's value scales has been relatively won. Feminism is now a philosophy which recognises that women's experience as women in traditional women roles are as valuable as men's, and that "feminine" values are as important as "masculine" ones. The most important of these values is caring and love for others. It is a terrible shame that the general opinion of feminism seems to be stuck on what Betty Friedan would call "the first stage", which was the fighting stage, as so much reconstruction has been done since. To anybody interested in recent feminist litterature, I would recommend the following books: "The second stage" by Betty Friedan, "Parole de femme" by Annie Leclerc, "Of woman born" by Adrienne Rich, "Women and children first" by .... Ellsberg (I think) "Motherhood: a reader for men and women" edited by Susan Cahill The last one is a collection of "fiction and non-fiction by psychologists, philosophers, feminists, economists, anthropologists, writers and poets". It contains some of the most notorious anti-motherhood articles of the feminist movement (notably "the mother" by Simone de Beauvoir) from which people often base their opinion of feminism's position on motherhood. Reading these articles, it becomes clear very fast that there is not ONE feminist opinion on motherhood, as there is not ONE feminist opinion on lesbianism or prostitution either. Sophie Quigley ...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley