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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
@ Elisabeth Badinter and Feminism
http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/stay-at-home-moms
Sorry, don't know how to make it clicky because I fail. Anyway, have you seen this? What do you think?
How do you feel about this whole new French (and by extension European) parenting is best wave that is sweeping the US? I find it a bit odd tbh and this article made my blood boil.
Then again I am a SAHM, had an epi-free birth, and CD most of the time, and the moms on my BMB pretty much share my opinion. Thought I'd ask you ladies since not everyone on here is a parent already. WDYT?
Re: @ Elisabeth Badinter and Feminism
I'm still reading, but found this funny:
"Homemade baby food is terrific if you know how to cook and have time to make it. But why demonize commercial baby food, which is balanced, quick, and accessible to fathers?"
I THINK that homemade baby food is ALSO accessible to fathers. Maybe she's trying to make a point I haven't gotten to yet.
Also, your link was a clicky - yay!
It's interesting that she thinks that just because a decision is made to do x,y, and/or z that the father wasn't involved in that decision. Even better, she thinks that just because the parents x, y, and/or z that the mother takes care of it all.
I think it's great if women go back to work right away, but I don't think that just because someone's a stay at home whatever (I know several stay at home dads) that the working parent is not involved in the process of raising that child. She says that women going back to work is what it takes to get the father equally involved and I say talking to the father about his role, having a husband that wants to be involved, going into this decision together plays a bigger role in having the father equally involved.
Also, MOST families (eta: most families I know) who do not use the "convenient" stuff (disposable diapers, formula, jarred baby food) the mother is much more than just the mom. Just because their identity isn't wrapped up in a job, doesn't mean that their identity is wrapped up in being a mom. Not that that's a bad thing (doing either of those things). When I worked, I felt like my identity WAS wrapped up in my job and even though I loved what I did, I hated that so much.
She seems to be coming from a place that assumes if men don't get what they want in their relationship, then the man's going to leave the woman stranded without anything to fall back on. I'm sure that happens to people, but to make the assumption that it happens because of a decision to diaper, sleep, feed, or birth a certain way is silly.
I must be better than I thought! Woot woot!
Yeah, I don't see how homemade baby food ties only moms to the house. My sister's H is a SAHD and he makes all the baby food. Also, once the food is made and frozen in cubes it's just as easy as storebought -- even when you go out. You can just pop in it a tupperware and it defrosts in the time before you are going to use it.
Also, none of these things are all or nothing type things.
I agree with this x1000! My H is still helpful and very involved when he is at home though he works long hours.
Plus, using her reasoning, if you buy jarred baby food does that mean that ONLY the mom buys it? From my own experience, I found the clean-up from baby eating food (regardless if it was jarred, homemade, or something else) a lot worst. Where's the technology to help with that? Guess it's time for me to go back to work and start making it easier for today's women.
I think anyone who touts the viewpoint that women "shouldn't" do something is pretty much the opposite of a feminist. Isn't a modern woman also being able to choose to do what makes you happy? And if that's natural childbirth, cloth diapering, breastfeeding and so on, the so be it.
And I am one of those liberal, emancipated ladies who likes to have the choice to be able to do all those things, and I certainly don't feel restricted in my "liberty and free time."
I'm flagging this post for myself to read it later, when I'm not a harried mother trying to get the kid in the bath, dinner on the table and the kid to bed at a reasonable time.
Just wanted to respond to the tidbits commented on in this thread. I made DD's baby food and I was working outside the house at the time. DH and I would make big batches together on weekends and freeze cubes. It was fun. Also, she only liked purees for maybe 2 or 3 months, then she was gnawing away at meatballs and small pieces of flaky fish and whatnot. Even if I had used jarred food, it's not like I would have never had to cook for DD at some point. (I haven't read the article yet, so maybe she's not implying that?)
I saw this article the other day. I thought the woman was silly but I guess she made a few good points.
If you are going to be a SAHM, then you will become dependent on your SO and that could be a problem if down the road, you break up.That is the truth. It willl be hard to enter the job markert if you have been out of it for a lot years. Maybe, she was just warning women to keep that it mind and maybe study or get a PT job so you can keep your CV fresh over the years. I dont know. I would like to be a SAHM but it is something that I do think about.
Howerve, I agree with Traveling that it is stupid to think that your DH is going to leave you because of BF, CD, or because you decide to make your own baby food. It is important not to lose your identiy and have time for yourself, but become a parent (and I am not a parent so take this with a grain of salt) requires a lot of sacrifices. Things and priorities are going to change.
BTW: LadyMadrid I love the new pic. Your DD is so adorable.
The huge logical fail in this article is that this woman assumes a priori that having a career is better than raising children for all women all the time simply because it allows the woman to have financial independence. Perhaps, though, some women feel confident enough in their marriage and feel that their relationship with their partner is stable enough that they are ok with focusing on their children instead of preparing for the event that their partner will leave them and give them no financial support?
Bah. Can I also just say that either moms or dads can be doing these things (except the BFing, of course, but mom can pump so dad can give the BM bottles if he's a SAHD)? So really, it's a matter of focusing on the child instead of being career- and finance-oriented. What horrible people. How could they do something like that and think of someone other than themselves?
Freaking nest just ate my last post.
The gist of it was:
dulcemariamar: I agree that being a SAHM is a risk, but I don't think that is her main point. Her main point, from what I can tell, is that women who do things she mentioned are basically sh!tting on the memories of the pioneering feminists and going back to the way things were before. I disagree with this in a big way. I think feminism (which imo should be called something else like gender equality-ism or something) is all about women and men being able to choose what they want to do with their lives. I like to include men because they are still in a box in many ways as well by gender stereotypes ie all male nurses must be gay. Well, we all know that's not true.
Anyway, I am getting off topic, but I do agree that being a SAHM is a risk and it seems odd sometiems for a woman to have a degree and not be using it -- but it is her choice to do so and that is what feminism is all about. Also, glad you like the new pic! She is growing so fast!
Kelly: you made me lol. Yes, how dare people think of their children and not of themselves! Crazycakes!
Yeah, I love how she blames breastfeeding for decline in sexual intimacy. Uh, no, having a baby waking up 5 times a night is what causes a decline in sexual intimacy -- if there is one.
Two sides to every story.
As a non-parent... I think she made some interesting (although exaggerated) observations-- i.e. kids taking over parents (she styled it as mothers, but I think parents is more appropriate) lives. Not just that you're kids are important and/or key, but that you (parents not just moms) can get so caught up in modern parenting "requirements" that you don't have time to do anything else.
That said, I agree with the points, she's too focused on working moms v. working families. Also, I sharply disagree with the simplification of working v. stay at home parenting (again, for both parents, not just mothers). I know awesome 2 working parent households and I know awesome stay-at-home parent households. I don't think either approach is universally better.
WRT to feminism specifically, I will say, I do find that some of my sahm friends who worked for 10ish years and then left to stay home do tend to have what I would consider an over-compensation complex. As in they always need to explain that they're 'doing something'... Dude, never said/thought you weren't.
Of course, I think some working moms do the exact opposite-- need to over-compensate as to 'why' they work.
Darned if you do, darned if you don't.
This is what happened to my MIL.She was not well educated before having children. So as a divorced women and mother of 4 she was relying heavily on alimony and child support. Now as someone who should be pushing towards retirement she is close to being on welfare and still getting money from FIL when (3 of 4 kids are out of house). It's hard for me to watch and hear her struggle. But it doesn't help she isn't highly motivated herself for change now.
FYI I haven't read the article yet.
2012 Reading Challenge
Now Nesting from Chicago, IL My nail blog:
This!!!!!!!!
People are going to judge you for whatever choices you make. As long as you are happy and your family is happy, then I say great!
I fully agree with this.
VABeach: I see what you are saying about children taking over parents' lives, but really, having kids is an all-in type thing. If they don't take over your life I feel you're not doing it right. I don't mean you can't have conversations about other things or go out without them and things like that, but sometimes I think people without children give people who have children a lot of crap for being so wrapped up in their kids (not thinking about you -- snippy comes to mind though) when I'm not sure how else parents should be. I understand being so wrapped up in your children that you can't separate yoruself from them for one afternoon/night could be a bit too much, but why is it such a bad thing that people's lives revolve (more or less) around their children?
Nest ate my response.
Basically, I said that she doesn't make much of a case for working moms either. What's wrong for wanting to work because it's enjoyable?
It's too late and I don't remember the rest of what I wrote.
No kidding. It's like the only real reason women should work is in case their husbands run away (obviously as a result of the cloth diapers and on-demand breastfeeding ::shudder::). As a PTSAHM who also works PT and plans to continue to do so because I enjoy it, I sort of feel both attacked by all sides of this debate. Like I need to defend myself for even working PT to some people and defend myself for SAH PT to the others. Thankfully there are also a few moderates out there who either support me or just don't care how I choose to live my life. :-)
Finally just read the article this morning. Gaaaaaa! This is actually really typical of the French woman's take on American mothers. There is so much I question in the flawed logic of the article itself, but I'll leave most of that aside except for to say WHAT IN THE HECK does going epi-free have to do with "going backwards" in the feminist movement? (This is a hot point for me as it's one of my mother's arguing points as well and I don't get how a woman's choice to give birth med-free is anyone's business but her own.)
Anyway, I am reposting much of what I said in a MM discussion recently about a SAHM article which painted those particular SAHMs in a very negative light. I don't get what the press has against SAHMs specifically, but the French seem to have the same thing against them. The reigning notion is that American women are too lazy to want to keep working when they have kids or that they're doing a "disservice" to feminism. Yes, it is in a way a choice to stay at home, and not everyone can afford to do it economically. However, I still have to say that the whole situation for working mothers in the U.S. pi$$es me off even more now that I am living in France. In the U.S., SAH seems to be a choice that is highly encouraged by all the parties involved- workplaces that don't offer flexible schedules or long enough maternity leaves or any kind of paternity leave, the ridiculous costs of child care, the fact that free education doesn't even begin until age 5 or 6 in most states, much less government-subsidized care for children of younger ages, workplaces that treat working fathers differently than working mothers, etc. Free, full-day education here in France starts at age THREE. And before that, there are all kinds of government subsidies for the creche (daycare) system. You pay according to your income and the maximum amount a family would pay is capped, even for a family who makes a very decent income. That alone would make a ton of the SAHMs I know back in the U.S. consider continuing to work at least part-time.
It really riles me up to constantly hear about how American women are lazier than their European peers. In my opinion, it seems like American mothers are lacking in a lot of the advantages I've seen firsthand here and this has NOTHING to do with cloth-diapering, breast-feeding or going epi-free.
It's the same in Germany, and I agree with you that it's a big contributing factor to some American women staying at home. I know several who have said (especially with 2+ children) that it would cost them more to send their children to daycare than they would earn by working during that time, so it makes no financial sense to work.
Maybe she doesn't do either. That might explain the uptight judgmental attitude.
I agree with this too. In the US it is very hard to be a working mother -- things need to change in that respect for sure.