Ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America, please raise your right hand a repeat after me. “I do solemnly swear to volunteer my time as a non-wage earning laborer for the future of our economy? I now pronounce you able to be parents.
I know this oath sounds funny, but when you actually think about it, it is true. I recently read some of the inserts from a book for class written by Ann Crittenden, the Price of Motherhood. Now I understand why I felt worthless, that of second class person-citizen. As a mother (and a divorced one at that), I felt non-productive. Yet in most cases I couldn’t understand why. The rules that I was raised by were rules written by someone else. My parents followed them and so must I. This is learned behavior but not just from my parents, but from 100 of years of learned behavior. Part of this behavior is due to the interpretation of the modern evangelical world – which is spearheaded by men. Now I am not bashing men, so do not interpret what I am saying that way. (I love men. I gave birth to an adorable, to what is now a man/child—21 years ago. They are a gift from God above.) But what I am saying, Crittenden couldn’t have put it more plainly, “…..American mothers are their own worst enemies; and that this explains, more than anything else, why caring labor is so undervalued in this country.” We are undervalued as female parents.
I feel that corporate America and learned environmental behavior has a lot to do with the way that mothers/women are treated in the country. But who allows this? Women and why do we allow it? We do not band together to do anything about it as a strong collective group. I often wonder if the sanctity of care-giving is a “women’s territorial thing.” I have seen women, as Crittenden mentioned, that “do the power/position trip” when women in their employ need to spend time with their family. I had a boss that always put her children first. I had another boss whose children were her “dogs” and they were put first. I asked for a day off to be with my children at a function. I was denied because my job comes first. I was not needed at work on that day that I was told I couldn’t take off. A good leader is by example. A poor leader is I can do what I want and you can’t because I am the boss and you aren’t. That company lost their highest paid hourly wage earner for that department and performer. Also from experience, I have been told by women that an education isn’t that important after all I am 51, and what good would it do me? Women also tend to see women paying for food with food stamps and tend to think the worse about that woman without knowing the facts. So yes, America mothers are undervalued but I will add so are women in general. It has been that way for years and it will not change overnight because learned behavior has to be changed.
Crittenden studied what is called “Swedish Custom.” It was a fascinating study. In Sweden, with government backing through corporations, men are being trained to bond with their children in a more active role. (Looks like Sweden understands the concept that it takes a man and a woman equally to reproduce a baby.) Men are given more an opportunity and encouragement to take off from being the “bread winner” and participate more equally in the home life responsibilities with the woman. In the long run, their children are more productive and happy. Swedish men and women both are equally happy. Women are able to pursue their career choices easier. According to what Crittenden wrote men may divorce their women, but since they have a deeper bond with their children they aren’t absent fathers in time or support. I have to ask and wonder, though, if my ex-husband would have taken a course like this, maybe he wouldn’t owe $92,700 in back child support. He hasn't seen the children since 1993. He has always known where we were just a phone call away. He's absent--MIA in south Alabama.
FYI—mother’s generally raise boys to be men. If mothers do not want to feel undervalued anymore, then raise your boys to fix the non-paid labor situation of the American mother/care-giver. P.S. I don’t feel worthless anymore. I broke with learned behavior-- a long time ago.
FYI—mother’s generally raise boys to be men. If mothers do not want to feel undervalued anymore, then raise your boys to fix the non-paid labor situation of the American mother/care-giver. P.S. I don’t feel worthless anymore. I broke with learned behavior-- a long time ago.
