Posts tagged mothering
Reply turned post: What is ‘work’?
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I left this rather long comment on Catherine Redfern’s post on The F-Word, which was about the Conservatives’ proposed tax break for married couples but quickly turned into a bit of commentary on whether the ideal of one parent at home with the children is harmful to women. In the post, Catherine included a poster from a 1947 magazine encouraging women to “try to free yourself for work” to help the economy and wondered if, with the idolisation of motherhood, the reverse would soon be true — posters extolling us to stay at home where we belong.
While I understand and agree with Catherine’s dislike of the tax break for married couples, which, as she rightly says, would be largely irrelevant and, even worse, ignores the diversity and complexity of modern families, I do take issue with the idea that one parent (usually the mother) being at home with the children is undesirable, unattainable or even unnecessary. Is it, as it stands, an unfair and flawed system that puts women at a disadvantage? Yes. But I don’t think the answer is simply making working outside the home unavoidable and staying at home some kind of insult to the sisterhood (not that this is what Catherine insinuated; this is what many stay-at-home mothers have told me it feels like).
It’s such a complex issue and one that I’ve been thinking about a lot as I’ve been reading this fascinating analysis of the value of ‘women’s work’ in economic journalist Ann Crittenden’s 2001 book The Price of Motherhood: Why the most important job in the world is still the least valued. I’m only halfway through and it has already challenged and altered the way I’d been approaching the solution for the modern mother’s dilemma of combining work and family. I still have lots more reading and thinking to do on the subject but I’m seeing things from a slightly different angle for the first time in ages and it is wholly refreshing. I’ll be doing a review of the book once I’m finished with it.
My comment on The F-Word post is below [altered slightly for clarity].
I have to say, it can be a bit tiresome hearing all about how incredibly privileged and wealthy those who stay home, even part of the time, must be — I stay home with my children and work a part-time job from home (as do many of the working and middle class women in my area who can’t afford full-time child care but must work to some extent, though not many are able to do their jobs from home and instead work nights or weekends) and while there are undoubtedly some privileges in that, they certainly aren’t economic. My caring labour is worth absolutely nothing in economic or social terms because what I do is supposed to be a ‘labour of love,’ not worthy of compensation. There’s an awful lot of talk about how important raising children is and how motherhood is so great, blah blah blah, but talk is cheap when actions belie the opposite.
When I do re-enter the ‘proper’ workforce my skills will be considered outdated, unpolished and worth even less than they were before. I will earn much less over my lifetime than a man, a woman without children and those mothers who returned to work when their paid maternity leaves (if they got one) were up. I’ll be more at risk for poverty when I’m retirement age as my pension will have suffered greatly in the years when I was ‘not contributing’. While I might be privileged in staying home with my children now, I am paying a ‘mummy tax’ that will have a knock-on effect for the rest of my life. Again, that’s not to say I’ve got it rough because lord knows I’ve got it easy compared to so many women working their fingers to the bone night and day, but merely to point out that even those of us ‘privileged’ enough to stay at home are paying for it one way or another.
One can’t put raising children or managing a household on one’s CV as it is seen as irrelevant. And it will continue to be seen as irrelevant, even undesirable, as long as only labour that falls outside of the domestic sphere is treated as “real” work. Women who stay at home ARE working. It’s just that our contributions to society aren’t counted in economic terms, even though they are great.
Saying that a child would be better off with one-to-one or small group care (which doesn’t have to be a parent) isn’t judgmental, it’s a pretty indisputable fact. That so many families are forced to put their children into cheap, large-group care where they aren’t given the individual attention they deserve (even though the care may be adequate for its purposes) is not acceptable or at least desirable. If women are expected to be proficient consumers and workers as well as primary caregivers, we need much better caring systems, heavily subsidised by the state, and with much better-paid and trained workers, along with more flexible working options for both parents. Don’t forget that one of the demands of the second wave movement was free 24/7 child care. We seem to have let that one fall by the wayside, leaving individual mothers in the lurch to fight that battle on their own.
Counting on men to step up the plate and start doing an equal amount of childrearing and housework hasn’t worked so far and, short of an economic and social revolution, doesn’t look likely any time soon, no matter how many baby steps have been made. Men are also constrained by long-established economic pressures and gender stereotypes. I fear that placing all of our hopes for change on fathers’ ability to break though rigid societal structures is going to leave us, and our children, waiting in the wings for a very long time. We can and should work towards a more equitable division of household and caring labour, not to mention an overhaul of gender stereotypes, but it has proven to be a slow, arduous process. In the meantime and in concert with those efforts, we should be working to value (both societally and economically) women’s work as primary caregivers and essential parts of our communities. We should make it easier for women to work, yes, but we should also make it easier for them (or their partners) to stay at home when their children are young if that’s what they want. And there’s nothing ’1950s housewife’ (read: derisory) about that.
Mindful language: what does ‘mothering’ mean?
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I’ve been thinking a lot about the language we use when discussing issues pertaining to equality. Take, for example, the use of ‘mothering’ as opposed to ‘parenting’ and vice versa. When I read an article or website that continually refers to mothering (or parenting, or fathering) exclusively, with no mention of the context or meaning, it can be confusing. Which is appropriate to use and in what circumstances?
A site called Only Dads recently sent me an article they’d written about why they believe we should not call ‘Mothering Sunday’ (what it has traditionally been called in the UK) ‘Mother’s Day’ (what some people have taken to calling it as of late, perhaps due to American or corporate marketing influence). Mothering, they argue, can be done by both mothers and fathers and there are a significant number of men out there performing the mothering (i.e. sole care provider, nurturing, etc..) role. Whilst I appreciate and applaud their efforts to normalise and encourage nurturing, responsible parenting among dads, I think the language used is potentially counter-productive.
‘Mothering’ will always be associated with women because only women are mothers. And right now in our society, mothers are the ones who take on the bulk of the caring and domestic roles. ‘Mothering’, therefore, is synonymous with the way women care for children. A father who takes on the role that has traditionally been filled by the mother isn’t ‘mothering’, he is ‘parenting.’ A man caring for his children is not exactly the same as a woman doing so because they are not working within the same societal structures and paradigms. They operate under different pressures, expectations and with different challenges due to cultural beliefs.
According to Andrea O’Reilly, director of the Association for Research on Mothering and the author of Feminist Mothering, “the word ‘mothering’ refers to women’s experiences of mothering that are female-defined and centred and potentially empowering to women” (pg. 3). Mothering is, in and of itself, a valid term because it addresses these differences and acknowledges that women are expected to parent differently than fathers. It doesn’t mean it is always appropriate to use it in preference to ‘parenting’ though.
When speaking generally about the responsibilities of parents to their children and not specifically about how women experience childrearing, I believe it is essential to use ‘parenting’ rather than ‘mothering’ and to understand why these terms are not interchangeable. That leads, then, to the question: what, exactly, is fathering? A look at the dictionary definitions for both ‘fathering’ and ‘mothering’ reveals the cultural bias present: ‘fathering’ is defined as “acting as a father (to a child)” or “acknowledging responsibility for.” What it means to actually father a child (beyond the physical act of procreation) is anyone’s guess, it appears.
Mothering, on the other hand, gets a more specific definition. It is, according to many sources, “the nurturing and raising of a child or children by a mother.” So we know what is expected of mothers but, aside from ‘taking responsibility’ (which is a pretty vague, subjective phrase), fathering isn’t clearly defined. What exactly is expected of a man who is fathering a child? Does ‘taking responsibility’ mean simply acknowledging its existence and providing financial support? Does it mean providing guidance, love and discipline? Is it a father’s job to care for a child’s day-to-day needs and perform the less-abstract and more mundane tasks associated with that child’s care, or does that fall under the ‘mothering’ category, which is the domain of women? By using the term ‘mothering’ to mean ‘caring for and raising a child’, we are cementing the idea that these things are only done by women, or should be.
Have women historically been the primary caregivers for their children? Yes. Should that be discounted or ignored? No. But if we want parenting to be something equally performed by and invested in by both men and women, we need to use language that indicates that desire. As stated above, mothering is a very valid term but usually only in a political context when discussing how gendered expectations influence the way we parent or how we operate within a system prejudiced against women in general. It has a time and a place to be used, certainly. But continually calling play groups ‘Mummy and Me’ or school social events ‘Mums’ Coffee Mornings’ says to fathers that they are not welcome, that they are not really meant to be there (and says to mums that they should). Even if they are a minority in those groups, fathers need not be discounted. Perhaps more dads would become visible in the community, actively parenting their children, if the language used wasn’t so explicit in its belief that only women do these things.
Likewise, involved dads needn’t co-opt the term ‘mothering’ to indicate that they are taking an active role in raising their children. Their experiences as fathers, even those who are the sole care providers for their offspring, are going to be different to mothers’. What they do need to do is think about better defining ‘fathering’ and invite discourse among men on how that role fits into the societal frameworks already present. And if the role they play (or would like to play) doesn’t fit within that framework? Tear it down and start again. Challenge the stereotypes of what a father does. Don’t be afraid to ask for more mindful, inclusive language at your child’s school or at the community centre. Don’t be afraid to do the tasks more commonly associated with ‘mothering’. Don’t let society’s narrow view of masculinity affect the way you care for and interact with your children.
So my response to Only Dads’ article is this: dads don’t need to be included in Mothering Sunday, they need a radical overhaul and fine-tuning of what it means to father. Perhaps campaigning for Father’s Day to be renamed ‘Fathering Sunday’ would be a start? Or maybe, just maybe, we could do away with these his-n-her’s divisions and focus our energies on making parenting a word that brings to mind members of both sexes, performing a variety of roles within their individual families and communities.