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Spry
Citizen
Username: Spry
Post Number: 45
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2004 - 9:22 pm: | 
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sac:
Correct: there still aren't many parents at Prospect with two full-time jobs. |
sac
Citizen
Username: Sac
Post Number: 956
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2004 - 10:51 pm: |
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Perhaps I wasn't clear ... there were quite a few two full-time job families a few years ago ... and they all had nannies (except mine, it seemed.) |
Deb G
Citizen
Username: Deborahg
Post Number: 780
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 10:17 am: |
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Hi,
I am also a mom who works full-time (kids aged 3, 8 and 13). Would be interested in being part of a group as long as it wasn't (just) a whine-fest! I'd love to hear practical solutions about how people handle transportation and other logistics. |
Joan
Citizen
Username: Joancrystal
Post Number: 2442
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 11:36 am: |
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About 20 years ago, when I was in Newcomers some friends and I founded a Working Women's Support Group. Does anyone know if it still exists? If so, they may be able to form an off-shoot devoted to the full-time employed with children. If not, Newcomers might be convinced to re-institute it. Note: You do not have to be new to town to join and participate in Newcomer events and activities.
Another possibility is to contact a local parenting center such as the one at TSTI. If they don't already have a working parents support group, they may be willing to work with you to start one.
On the subject of Co-op Day Care: When my son was at Prospect, my husband and I signed up for all the holidays (such as Lincoln's Birthday) which we had off but the school district didn't. Neither of us had to use a single day of vacation time and we had the added plus of being able to spend more of our days off with our child. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2141
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 5:47 pm: |
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I created the group, called South Orange Maplewood Working Parents (somwp). You have to be a member of the group to read or post to it. You do NOT need a Yahoo membership. Visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/somwp/ to join and follow the instructions. Let me know at noglider@pobox.com if you have problems or questions.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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Dave
Citizen
Username: Dave
Post Number: 6401
Registered: 4-1998
| | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 6:16 pm: |
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My hesitance to set something up here is mostly due to the time factor involved in creating and managing new groups, but if Tom wants to moderate it on MOL as a private forum and help people with it, manage signups, etc., that would be fine. The Yahoo! route is good, too, but it may not get as much prominance as a forum on mol. |
Jackie Day
Citizen
Username: Zoesky1
Post Number: 246
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2004 - 8:32 pm: |
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OK,I joined the group that Tom set up. Thanks,Tom! You're a big help. Let's see how this pans out. |
clkelley
Citizen
Username: Clkelley
Post Number: 121
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Monday, February 16, 2004 - 3:58 pm: |
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I've signed up for the group too. Very curious to see how this works. |
Deb G
Citizen
Username: Deborahg
Post Number: 781
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 3:04 pm: |
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I joined too, thanks! |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 422
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 6:07 am: |
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Great article in salon.com on "the mommy mystique":
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/02/19/mommy_myth/
Daddy's often have some other mystiques to deal with, depending upon the degree to which they fulfill prevailing cultural norms (ranging from being the Big Financial Provider to the Involved Dad to the Stay at Home Dad).
Anyway, I really liked the article and though some of you might, too. I've certainly felt some of the things described -- especially as I'm no Catherine Zeta-Jones! And I unfondly recall my travails with the breast-feeding Nazis.... |
clkelley
Citizen
Username: Clkelley
Post Number: 129
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 9:19 am: |
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Hey cynical, thanks for the link. Among other really important points, it implicitly makes the point that if you want to stay sane, turn off the TV. Not only is it a BIG waste of time, but it really @#$%s with your head.
Did you read Ann Crittenden's The Price of Motherhood? I had to put it down before I quite finished it because I was connecting way too much with my rage ...
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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 423
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 1:12 pm: |
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Somehow, my post didn't go! Trying to multi-task here at work. Nope, not read it but will check the library. Also want to read "I Don't Know How She Does It!" |
clkelley
Citizen
Username: Clkelley
Post Number: 130
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2004 - 1:31 pm: |
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I got "I don't know how she does it" on audio-tape and didn't like it all that much. It was abridged, so maybe it lost something in that process.
Parts of it were funny, no doubt about that!!
But the end is a real cop-out. I won't spoil it for you though. Your salon "fantasy" article would apply - 'nuff said. |
marian
Citizen
Username: Marian
Post Number: 106
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 11:22 am: |
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"I Don't Know How She Does It" was one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. (Agree that the ending was unsatisfying, though :-(
"The Nanny Diaries" is a great read, too.
Along the same lines, there’s a really provocative article in the March issue of Atlantic Monthly called "How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement: Dispatches from the nanny wars."
Granted it takes a very upper-middle-class white woman's perspective on childcare, but it's still hilariously biting in its tone. Be curious to get some other people’s take on it. A lot of women in my office have been talking about it lately.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/03/flanagan.htm |
clkelley
Citizen
Username: Clkelley
Post Number: 131
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 1:14 pm: |
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Wow, marian - that's powerful stuff.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I would give my right arm to work in the kind of office where women read the Atlantic Monthly and then talk to each other about it ...
More related: That article really knocks the stuffing out of some aspects of the women's movement that have always bothered me a lot but for reasons I couldn't quite articulate. At least in some of its iterations, the women's movement has been elitist - simple as that. Flanagan's deconstruction of Crittenden is awe-inspiring, esp. the discussion of Zoe Baird and the social security issues - I need to go back and re-read Crittenden now. I still think that Crittenden says a lot of important and powerful stuff, but I need to re-read her book in light of Flanagan's article.
I didn't find Flanagan hilarious - I wasn't laughing. Definitely biting though.
There are some places where I disagree with Flanagan. I never had such huge separation anxiety when I dropped my daughter off at day-care, at least after the first week - contrary to Flanagan's statement "That the separation of a woman from her child produces agony for both is one of the most enduring and impressive features of the human experience". My daughter was OK after a few hours and never looked back. We had a wonderful family day-care provider, and my daughter truly loved her (and still does), and that was OK with me. I wanted my daughter to love her caregiver. It would be unnatural not to.
I didn't take advantage of this caregiver either - which is the central premise of the article - for the simple reason that NOBODY takes advantage of that tough lady! She was a South American immigrant, who started out as a housecleaner and then as a nanny but now has her own very successful in-home day care center and is comfortably middle class. (she may pull down more per year than I do - I'm sure she comes close.) And she's nobody's serf.
But I do get the general point, and I think it is something worth mulling over.
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marian
Citizen
Username: Marian
Post Number: 108
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 20, 2004 - 3:36 pm: |
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Clkelly,
Glad you found it interesting. I couldn't put it down when I read it the first time.
And I couldn't help laughing at lines like: "Betty Friedan had a crack cleaning woman on staff when she was busy writing about the oppression of domestic work."
Not to mention: "[I]n 1971, the typical hippie commune's recruitment ad could have read, 'Wanted: groovy, well-built chick to share apartment and do the cooking and cleaning.' "
Flanagan does indeed point out some major flaws in the women's movement while ironically perpetuating them herself. For example, it's all well and good to make a blanket statement (as she does at the end) that working women who employ nannies should "at the very least" pay their nannies' Social Security taxes.
But that completely ignores the fact that many nannies (granted not all, but many I've met or who've worked for friends of mine) DON'T WANT THEIR EMPLOYERS TO PAY SS TAXES ON THIER WAGES. There may be many reasons for that, first of which being that the nanny herself DOES NOT WANT to declare the income.
And let's face it, not everybody who employs a nanny can afford to pay the taxes without subtracting them from the nanny's income. (And when faced with that choice, many nannies would take the higher take-home pay over the deduction.)
Yes, the early women's movement was extremely elitist. No big news there, though -- I learned that in a women's study course I took in college in the late 1980s.
I guess what bothers me the most about Flanigan's piece is that in the end, she seems just like the elitist, ivory tower feminists she's criticizing.
And like you Clkelly, I don't feel my childcare provider is a serf. First of all, she's making more a year than I made in my first FOUR jobs out of law school. (Granted, I was working in journalism, not law, but still.) Maybe I should write a counter-point for Atlantic Monthly entitled: "My Nanny is NOT a Serf!"
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Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 424
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 7:12 am: |
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Marian, I LOVED THE ARTICLE! I read it in the Atlantic, too and thought it was extremely on the money. I was in college in the 70's, and married in 1976 (for the first time). I started my young adulthood as a bit of a hippy, but rejected a lot of the attendant earth mother lifestyle in part because it was just as sexist (though whole grain) as the straighter middle class norm I grew up in. I, too, have found it worse than amusing how the upper middle class liberated women could bemoan corporate sexism while sometimes devaluing in dollars the nannies and other support workers who helped prop them up. The difference for me -- and I agree that the author didn't go there adequately -- is that I think the nannies etc. benefit both elite men and women. Her article never really addresses fathers and husbands, and their role in the "liberation." Seems to assume the same old status quo.
For a mess of us in the working and lower middle class, nannies and gardeners are not part of the picture. We do fight and negotiate with our husbands about who takes the day off work when school is closed, who makes the lunches, who does the laundry -- can't buy our way out of the "sh*t work." And, don't see all of it as sh*t work.
At the same time, I'm sure Marian is right -- not all nannies are serfs, not at all. But from my persepective, the biggest missing piece in the article is the role of fathers in all of this. Not all fathers are Wall Street tycoons, and while some may be reluctant to be Mr. Mom's or dive into the drool, I think it helps when they do. My family fell into a role reversal situation a few years ago, and while it hasn't always been easy, it's been enlightening for both of us. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 425
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 7:30 am: |
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...just to clarify my circumstances: like CLKelly, we used a family day care initially, and then a day nursery through kindergarten. So, in case my post implied otherwise, we've always used some kind of childcare. And, also like CLKelly, while I had some serious pangs for the first couple of weeks my daughter was in a family care, it wasn't a horrible, wrenching experience -- in part because I had an 8:30-4:30 job at the time.
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tsd33
Citizen
Username: Tsd33
Post Number: 60
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 8:44 am: |
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Does anyone read working mother magazine? It has a great deal of info on the balancing act working parents face. It has a lot of great ideas and addresses many of the psychological issues working parents face. I love it and find it a great resource for me. While it is not a local publication, you do get a sense of community when reading it. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2168
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 8:50 am: |
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Leave it to a weirdo like me, so yes, I've read Working Mother and liked it. I never subscribed to it. I think the advice it gives goes far beyond working mothers.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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clkelley
Citizen
Username: Clkelley
Post Number: 132
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 10:09 am: |
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This converstion is fun ... what a pleasure it is to talk about these issues with like-minded folks.
marian, you're right, there was some funny stuff in that article - when you pointed them out, I admit to having giggled about the Betty Friedan line and ESPECIALLY the hippie line.
You're also right about Flanagan being elitist - her description of BOTH staying home AND having a nanny at the same time was an eye-opener. I could afford neither, let alone both! (I recognize she was a budding writer at the time - but it didn't sound from her description that she was banging at the typewriter too much.)
Her very casual mention of the role of dads in all this is also telling, as cynicalgirl points out.
Haven't read WM in a while. I read a lot of magazines including the ultra-dumb women's magazines ("100 tips for losing weight" followed by an article on "outrageously rich chocolate desserts), maybe I should pick it up. |
Lizziecat
Citizen
Username: Lizziecat
Post Number: 167
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 11:02 am: |
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The article hit home. I was married and had my children in the early sixties. When I went to work full-time, the children were still young--7 and 10. My husband and I had worked out ways to divide the housework, but somwthing always came up when it was his turn. I got tired of fighting and negotiating, so I went on strike. I maintained basic sanitation in the kitchen and bathrooms, and I did my own and the kids' laundry. And I prepared meals, because I like to cook. But that was it. After several months, when the dust bunnies were the size of elephants, and you couldn't see the tabletops because of the junk piled on them, and my husband had hundreds of pairs of underwear because he kept buying new ones instead of washing them, he said that maybe we should hire a cleaning service. Now we have a wonderful young woman who comes biweekly, and who is definitely not a serf. We pay her social security, and give her paid vacations. The kids have gone, but I still cook, and we share the laundry. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2173
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 11:06 am: |
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I read that in many couples, many men feel that they contribute half of the housework but actually do less than that. I guess it's so difficult or onerous for us that we overestimate the quantity.
Lizziecat, if you haven't already joined our support mailing list, and I can't tell, please consider it. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/somwp/
The invitation is for everyone else, too. 
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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Lizziecat
Citizen
Username: Lizziecat
Post Number: 168
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 11:43 am: |
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Thanks for the invitation, Tom, but I'm no longer working, so I don't think I'd qualify. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2176
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 11:48 am: |
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Well, if you have some wisdom to offer from your experience, you'd be welcome. I was a "single parent" for a while and joined some single parents' mailing lists. They asked me not to leave when I got married in May.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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clkelley
Citizen
Username: Clkelley
Post Number: 133
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 5:21 pm: |
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Tom, actually this is a psychological phenomenon commaon to all humans - not just men. :-) You "see" the things that YOU do, process it more deeply etc., but are somewhat less aware of what your spouse / roommate / whatever does. So when asked to estimate how much you contribute to the house, you tote up the things you remember doing, and the things you remember your spouse doing, and you always over-estimate your own contribution and under-estimate your spouse's contribution.
so sure - I could see guys erroneously thinking that they do half when it's less than that, because they really aren't thinking about how the underwear magically ends up back in the drawer (or whatever). But the flip slide is that women may think they do 90%, when in reality it's 75% or something.
I think that women are often their own worst enemies when it comes to apportioning housework. My sister refuses to let her husband or her teenage daughters touch the laundry as she is so afraid of a disaster. She says that her husband does it wrong just so that he can get out of doing it - and you know, I just don't think my brother-in-law is that devious! I do expect that he is a lot less careful than she is - the big complaint that I've heard is that he folds the towels wrong. BUUT ... he's willing to fold the d*** things, right? So they end up in an unsightly ball in the hall closet, who cares? Close the closet door!
This is a woman who has a serious Martha complex though, despite being an AVP at a major credit card bank. But then her house isn't close to perfect - she has two dogs and three kids, so perfection is never going to be in sight. So what's the deal with the d*** towels?
That's just one example, but I hear a lot of that kind of thing. I won't eat my husband's cooking, so I guess I'm guilty of this too. He hates to cook (and it shows) and I love to cook (and he says it shows :-), so that works out OK. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2179
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 5:29 pm: |
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Speaking of divvying up the housework, maybe it's fitting that men spend less time doing it, since we typically do heavy work. If you tally the amount of work as measured by a physicist, it might be equal. A physicist measures work by multiplying weight carried with time carrying it. So if you carry the laundry from the dryer to the bedroom, it's a small fraction of when I carry the firewood from the garage to the fireplace, because the firewood is so much heavier. So I get to drink my beer and watch the game in peace, OK? That's just an example, as I neither drink beer nor watch sports.
And anyway, it's just a theory I'm throwing out there for comments.
Also, the man in a (man-woman) couple usually does most of the driving when both are in the car.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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SoOrLady
Citizen
Username: Soorlady
Post Number: 392
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 5:39 pm: |
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Tom my dear, you left out a few steps... sort the laundry, tote it to the washer, transfer it to the dryer, remove it from the dryer, fold it, tote it upstairs, put it away in appropriate drawers. And you carried a few logs? Please. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2182
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, February 21, 2004 - 5:44 pm: |
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What about chopping the wood? What about all the other heavy work? I didn't mean to make a full tally of anyone's duties. Just that time alone is not necessarily the only measure of one's contribution.
And don't we get extra credit for handling the garbage? And why do men usually end up with that task?
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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clkelley
Citizen
Username: Clkelley
Post Number: 135
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 12:26 am: |
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Well you have to recognize that not all families work like that. I voluntarily do a lot of the "heavy" work due to health limitations in my family.
My mom also always did a lot more of the traditional "guy" stuff, largely because she is the daughter of a carpenter and is a kick-butt handyperson herself. She recently refinished a bedroom in their house. They've had contractors coming in to do estimates on some other work that is just too big for her to handle, and all have expressed extreme admiration at the work she did in that room. I am terribly proud of her! Bear in mind that this is a woman post-retirement age, although she still works full time, and she has some serious health problems. Years ago when I was a teenager, she painted the entire exterior of our house, 100% on her own. My older sister also recently put in a hardwood floor, 100% on her own. She also refinished her kitchen herself. So I'm not used to thinking of this stuff as primarily "guy" work!
But the general point is valid - you need to look at the whole picture when divvying up the work.
But it's not easy. If you like it, does it "count"? I like to cook, so is that "work"? Some days it is fun, others it is a total pain in the butt. I read to my daughter every night - which is extremely valuable to the family. But I adore it every single night and look forward to it. So is that "work"? What about a guy (or woman) who really likes doing handiwork around the house. Such work is very rewarding and can be fun. But it also is very valuable. Is that "work"? I think it's terribly complicated.
Of course, taking out the garbage is definitely work. I think I do that more than my husband, but I'll bet he'd say he does this more than me, so it's probably about 50-50. |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 427
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 7:42 am: |
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The "guy" work is more often the interesting, infrequent stuff!
When the dust settles (!) and if my husband's new job lasts, I wish desperately to get someone in to do the housework I hate: bathrooms, kitchen floor, vacuuming, dusting. What's bad is that I hate doing it -- and I hate having it undone or done badly. I'm sort of a lazy perfectionist in this regard. Now, most of the time I let it get done badly/be undone cuz I haven't the time.
I much prefer painting, big yard projects, etc. to the mind-numbinr routine of picking up clutter/household trash, dishes, vacuuming, laundry, etc. Some folks find it meditative I guess; I find it annoying. Been working on a strategy of all 3 of us keep it up during the week so it's not a big megilla on the weekend.
Having been married 3 times -- though only this last with a kid -- I've experienced a number of strategies for equal division of labor. I do think the best is buying your way out of it, wherever possible. Bear in mind I used to iron in a past marriage (all family "iron-ables"), but now use the cleaner's -- YECK! In our old house, we stopped the lawn-mowing squabble by paying someone, so paying for housecleaning is the next frontier for us... |
Cynicalgirl
Citizen
Username: Cynicalgirl
Post Number: 428
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 7:47 am: |
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'Nuther thought that I read somewhere, and I find to be true: when we divide up work in families, the best strategy is to agree on what the job entails -- just as though you were hiring someone.
For example, to me, "doing the dishes" includes: scraping them, washing them, wiping down the kitchen counters afterwards, putting away all leftovers etc, In other words, complete recovery from dinner. To someone else, it might mean "washing/rinsing pre-scraped plates." Period. I find this most frequently with men, but also to some extent people who grew up in larger families where each had tasks and the goal was to do exactly the task and no more! So, someone might clear the dishes, someone might wash, etc.
For me, most of my family disagreements (aka, fights) have been over task definition....! |
algebra2
Citizen
Username: Algebra2
Post Number: 1633
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, February 22, 2004 - 9:58 am: |
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I do the heavy work and the cleaning lady does the rest (once a week -- laundry, cleaning, vacuum) ... not sure what my husband does -- roto baseball? |
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