[Womoz] [womensenews] IT Jobs Offer Growth, But Women Are Bailing Out

[Tiffney Mortensen]

>> Personally I've struggled with the side-effect of feminism that taking care of your own child >> is seen as disappointing, unambitious, unimportant. I would really love to see a shift in our >> society towards what my swedish friends get to have. 

NO KIDDING. I'm not a mom yet but I am the product of a stay-at-home Mom who lavished a very thorough education on me before I was even at public school. I always bristled when people said "my dad is a lawyer and my mom doesn't do anything. She stays home." Whenever I've had a conversation on feminism or motherhood with younger girls who are enthralled with their recent discovery of feminism and all the fire and brimstone that brings, I often hear them criticize marriage, childbearing and motherhood as "a waste of time," "throwing away your life" and "giving up." After hearing this cute but unfair Feminism 101 rant, I always ask if they will be writing that in their next Mother's Day card. What follows is a stunned silence, followed by a very thoughtful expression as they realize what it is that they have said.

Our society is making progress toward a healthier view of parenting and the immense economic value it has. Companies offer maternity and paternity packages and flex time when they understand that productive workers don't spring out of the earth, and they are paying back the current generation of workers by fostering a good environment for the next generation. In 1970 a woman was expected to resign from her job when she became pregnant, and saying "pregnant" was still scandalous. If she didn't resign, it was legal for her boss to fire her. This is now unheard of and baby showers at the office happen all the time. Men play a much larger part in child-rearing than they used to, and we've abandoned legal terms like "illegitimate child" and "bastard," which stigmatize the child, in favor of "deadbeat parent," which put the onus on those who brought the child into the world.

We'll get there, but the US and Canada are still quite a ways off from the child-focused policies in Sweden. In Ann Crittenden's book "The Price of Motherhood" she discusses the Swedish plan; by having fathers stay home with their babies, the government found that even if the parents never married the fathers stayed involved in their child's life because of this critical early bonding time. Something as simple as paternity leave changed guys who would have simply written support checks once a month into committed fathers.

Tiffney