Sunday, July 31, 2005
Men and Women
Gender roles have been changing steadily over the course of the last 100 years, and I think we may have done a little more harm than good. Women, in their struggle for equal rights, have missed certain essential truths about raising a family, and men, without realizing what harm it would do, decided that with both parents working there would be more money to take care of the family, which in America, is all you need, right? Everything that a family needs can be bought and paid for, house-cleaning services, nannies, day care, schools, and sports coaching. What cannot be replaced is the constant presence of a parent. Part of that comes from our economy. It's barely possible to raise a family when both parents are working, let alone only one. Part of it comes from our refusal to demand he right to spend time with our families. It's done well in nearly every industrialized country but ours. Many of our social problems come from the absence of parents in a child's life. Does this mean women should give back their rights? HELL, NO! They need to demand more equal partnerships, with men actually picking up half of the work, especially now that many women are making at least half of a family's money. And we all need to spend more time with our children, regardless of money or gender.
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8 comments:
Stupid blogger. I left behind a well-written comment and it said "service temporary unavailable."
Well, hopefully I'll cover the points I left.
We definitely agree that a lot of our social problems are caused by parental absense.
I strongly believe that one parent, whether it be the man or the woman, should stay at home with the kid(s). Of course, that is ideally. We've been in dire financial straits before and Mrs. Zombieslayer had to work. As a software engineer, my jobs are very insecure. I've had my primary job outsourced and her working has helped us not get too buried in credit card debt. But of course at the price of Junior not having a parent at home. No one was able to help him with his homework and he had to eat late dinners because both of us had to work late. That was definitely not an ideal situation.
Just to let you know, I wasn't at all implying in my blog that women should stay at home with the kid(s). But someone should, if you can afford to do it.
Do you not have maternity leave where you get piad for bringing up your child?
We now have it for dad's in the UK and not just mum's. How cool is that!
Zombie - I didn't take any implication from that, I'm just giving my own opinion. My husband plans on staying home with our kids. He was a Chef and I think he is much more capable of feeding them than I am. I also have an intense need to be in the classroom, and I don't think I'll be able to give that up.
I realize that the undertones in this post imply that I believe the only way to do raise kids is to have a parent at home. I believe that is ideal, however, I realize that for most families, this is impossible. I find it deplorable that in the richest country in the world, we can't pay our workers enough so tha only one adult per family has to work. I also believe that single parents can raise great kids as well, especially with a lot of support. But I do believe that an adult needs to be present whenever the child is at home. Both of my parents had to work and I think my sister and I turned out pretty well. But I know my mom always regretted not being home all the time.
Families do tend to accumulate too much stuff. My husband and I have already started setting rules for our future children and writing them down so that we're creating our own parenting manual. We're thinking of every situation we can and how we'd like to handle it. We're discussing TV programs, game stations, and other things now so that we are on the same page when it comes up with the kids. We're putting together everything we've seen, read, and learned, and we amend it as we learn more. We're hoping it will help. We'll keep everyone posted.
Half the work: some stuff I hate, some stuff he hates, and some stuff I like. We each do what we're good at, get help with what we're not, and try not to let things pile up. We do almost everything together when we're at home, so if I'm cleaning, so is he.
We get 30 day maternaty leave, and employers get pretty annoyed if you take it all. Most of Europe is ahead of us on this one.
Well, I agree with what you are saying. However, how many single parents are out there who are trying to do everything on their own? I am one of those and, as much as I'd love to stay at home, I simply cannot. I just think that people don't always remember how many single-parent households there really are out there. As much as I hate the idea of someone else raising my son, there needs to be some "division of labor". It's the idea that, (no matter how cliche this sounds), it really does take a whole village to raise a child. The thing is, if money is made a priority (instead of your child's welfare), then often times, people are left with weak "villages".
Jen,
I have a lot of respect for poeple who are doing it on their own and I don't disagree that you and others can raise wonderful children. I wonder, though, if you would not agree that your situation is not ideal.
I totally agree that being a single parent ideal, but it is what it is and a person does the best they can. :-)
I don't have a problem with single parent families, better than a kid being brought up in a negative relationship.
My eventual goal is to build a community around a school. I want to start a private school and take it from there. It's kind of a commune thing without the craziness or the Stepford thing. I really believe that more communities need to be build around schools, and once we build actual communities, who has two parents and who has one won't metter as much.
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