If women could go back in time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Something has to break and I think our entire system is unstable.
-Men no longer make enough money to allow women to stay home
-School hours do not match working hours
-Work hours should be 7 hours instead of 8+

I think school hours would be the easiest one to fix, except teachers seem so burnt out these days. I would redesign schools to have several recesses and make them longer, longer lunch break (my kids whine about not having time to eat). Maybe those recesses could be staffed by PE like teachers and be at the end of the day. If school just went to 8-4:30pm, it would take a heavy load off my plate.

My kids go to a title 1 school and so many of their classmates walk home to unattended houses because school lets out so very early.

Ew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The question is inherently stupid, given that the majority of women have always had to work to help their families survive.

This conversation is for a few privileged women to kvetch over. The rest of us know that this world will never be good for women and girls until we crush the patriarchy and stand on truly equal footing with men in all areas of life.

This is often repeated on here. That only white women in the 1950s stayed home.

But I find it hard to believe that all of these women were working full time out of the house jobs. Why? Daycare wasn’t a thing. Didn’t exist. Who was watching the kids of all these moms who were working?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would they still fight for workforce accessibility/equality or accept that stay at home mom is better than working a full time job and not seeing their kids grow up? Did it provide the happiness it promised?

Saw this question being asked and I know what I would choose

Um, not all of us have children; many of us are grateful that the fight for workforce access/equality allowed us what we consider to be a better path. I have had plenty of "happiness" from law school through now -- none of it based on "seeing kids grow up."

[Anonymous]

If I could actually choose, I'd choose the systems they have in some Western European countries, where women have full right to economic participating as workers, but also the state recognize the necessity of providing care to young children and support to families, with lengthy parental leave, subsidized childcare, and often stipends to families to cover childhood expenses. I know people on here will freak out about this, and I also know that system isn't perfect either and that women in those countries still deal with some of the challenging choices between work and family. But I think it's better than we have here and is as close to equality as you can get given the biological differences between men and women when it comes to reproduction.

My ideal situation would be to be able to take a full year of maternity leave, work part time until my child/children is in kindergarten. My DH would also have liked a real paternity leave, especially if it could have come after our kid was 6 months (it is easier for men to bond with older babies rather than infants).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My career field disappeared with the Great Recession and we had very young kids. I became a SAHM. It's worked well for our family. The kids are thriving, my spouse makes good money and is glad I'm at home to handle the home front. When our kids were sick at school, and needed to be picked up, I could be there in 15 minutes. I once apologized for taking 20 minutes and the school nurse said don't worry, you're doing just fine. She had sick kids who sat there all day until the bell rang, and then went to after care...

I always remember that moment. My kids had it pretty good. I have no regrets looking back. Life has been good. Nobody can have everything, all the time, all at once. We all make choices, and have to live with them.

In our house, either my husband or I would be there in 10 minutes to pick up our kids.

That’s nice. Not all of us are married to someone with that type of availability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The question is inherently stupid, given that the majority of women have always had to work to help their families survive.

This conversation is for a few privileged women to kvetch over. The rest of us know that this world will never be good for women and girls until we crush the patriarchy and stand on truly equal footing with men in all areas of life.

This is often repeated on here. That only white women in the 1950s stayed home.

But I find it hard to believe that all of these women were working full time out of the house jobs. Why? Daycare wasn’t a thing. Didn’t exist. Who was watching the kids of all these moms who were working?

In my sample of two grandmothers, they worked on the family farm while also watching the children and keeping the house. Once their children were old enough they also worked on the farm and helped take care of the younger children. I would say grandmas and older siblings helped with that childcare gap quite a bit.

Both of my parents went to college and worked full time. They intentionally chose not to be farmers because they didn’t want that life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a SAHM, I would love it if most women were still SAHMs. There would be more people around and we could do more things during the day like PTO, book clubs, lunches, etc. Also there wouldn't be this pressure to "go back to work" when the kids are older the way there is now. I've managed to work just very part time at a school, but I feel like there is this expectation that because my kids are older I should be back at work. Also, if most families only had one income, there would be less of a competitive "arms race" so to speak on buying kids stuff and experiences. Housing and other prices wouldn't have been driven so high either.

But mostly I would just love it if I were EXPECTED to stay at home, rather than bucking some trend.

I get what you are saying. I think the problem now is that you are kind of considered a loser if you “only” aspire to take care of your family, home, etc. And now if you do that without marrying a male 1%er, you are putting your family at a distinct disadvantage financially relative to all the dual-earning families. At the same time, do I want to revert to not being able to own property, etc? NO. I also don’t want to be treated as though I’m a smaller less hairy man. I’m not a man! I have different fundamental desires/drives, and one of them is to be the primary caretaker of my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The question is inherently stupid, given that the majority of women have always had to work to help their families survive.

This conversation is for a few privileged women to kvetch over. The rest of us know that this world will never be good for women and girls until we crush the patriarchy and stand on truly equal footing with men in all areas of life.

This is a bit disingenuous. Yes, poor women have always worked, but in ways that acknowledged their primary role was to care for the children & home. Am I saying I want to be a poor washerwoman with 5 grimy kids in tow? No. But our culture’s insistence that women be men is also exhausting and deeply “not right”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The question is inherently stupid, given that the majority of women have always had to work to help their families survive.

This conversation is for a few privileged women to kvetch over. The rest of us know that this world will never be good for women and girls until we crush the patriarchy and stand on truly equal footing with men in all areas of life.

This is often repeated on here. That only white women in the 1950s stayed home.

But I find it hard to believe that all of these women were working full time out of the house jobs. Why? Daycare wasn’t a thing. Didn’t exist. Who was watching the kids of all these moms who were working?

What we would now call home daycares — someone’s aunt or cousin or grandmother or neighbour or older sister who couldn’t work herself watched the really little kids. But without any licensing or training. Escaping babysitting was a reason (at least in my family) teen girls dropped out of school and got jobs or got married or both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God no!

I’m thankful for the 40 hour week that was fought for as well.

I could not imagine having someone I love with all my heart working more than that, never seeing their own kids, and giving up 1/2 their hard earned money to a cheating wife

Now that we’re getting closer to bring equal at work..

I’m also super thankful men are getting Paternity leave, getting family flexible schedules and gave more opportunities to be equal parents.

Plus I did not miss one thing in my children’s lives.

Also I could not imagine being so selfish as to not fight for women who don’t want to marry /have kids not having those opportunities.

Also … yes I’m very happy! I provide the happiness… it was never “ promised “ its comes from within.

How is that possible if you were at work and they were with somebody else?

Go ask the men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you all not watch Mad Men????

No, I don't want to be Betty Draper. F that.

Yeah, it would be so insulting to wait for your man to hand you spending money and haggle with you. I would rather die.

[Anonymous]

I would go back in time to figure out how to edit out misogynistic language out of some religious texts. It seems that is where so much of this BS started - a scribe with a grudge against women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would they still fight for workforce accessibility/equality or accept that stay at home mom is better than working a full time job and not seeing their kids grow up? Did it provide the happiness it promised?

Saw this question being asked and I know what I would choose

It's a personal choice.

If you are going back in time, you also need to consider not taking up a valuable selective college seat, for someone who might need that seat and degree to advance themselves...working, earning money, providing for a family (thinking of single parents for example).

That is a dumb argument. First, most women work before and/or after the SAH period. Second, and education is not valued just to make money off of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would they still fight for workforce accessibility/equality or accept that stay at home mom is better than working a full time job and not seeing their kids grow up? Did it provide the happiness it promised?

Saw this question being asked and I know what I would choose

Ask my grandma, who had little education, worked as a laundry woman, had to support the family while her drunk of husband spent all his wage on alcohol, beat her and stole food money from the children. Yes, she would have very much like to be able to have an education and a real job with stable income. She used to envy my mother for having a teaching job with salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My career field disappeared with the Great Recession and we had very young kids. I became a SAHM. It's worked well for our family. The kids are thriving, my spouse makes good money and is glad I'm at home to handle the home front. When our kids were sick at school, and needed to be picked up, I could be there in 15 minutes. I once apologized for taking 20 minutes and the school nurse said don't worry, you're doing just fine. She had sick kids who sat there all day until the bell rang, and then went to after care...

I always remember that moment. My kids had it pretty good. I have no regrets looking back. Life has been good. Nobody can have everything, all the time, all at once. We all make choices, and have to live with them.

In our house, either my husband or I would be there in 10 minutes to pick up our kids.

That’s nice. Not all of us are married to someone with that type of availability.

DP.
These threads are always full of people who generally seem to have no responsibility to be anywhere and not a lot of work to do, and yet they make $200.
Surprise. Most of them work for the federal government.


People who do actual work at real jobs where they have responsibilities and people depending on them know that you can’t always just up and leave to get your kid at school within 10 minutes.