How Domestic Workers Enable Well Off Women to Prosper

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not seeing the part that is wrong with this. Those jobs - especially nannying - pay much better and off better benefits than most other jobs the candidates could get with similar skills.

This. We did a nanny share in large part to be able to pay a good wage well away from the poverty line. Our nanny had a late model car and owned a modest home in MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not seeing the part that is wrong with this. Those jobs - especially nannying - pay much better and off better benefits than most other jobs the candidates could get with similar skills.

This. We did a nanny share in large part to be able to pay a good wage well away from the poverty line. Our nanny had a late model car and owned a modest home in MoCo.

My income daycare worker makes a good wage too. She works hard for it but she makes a good wage and has a successful business

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not seeing the part that is wrong with this. Those jobs - especially nannying - pay much better and off better benefits than most other jobs the candidates could get with similar skills.

This. We did a nanny share in large part to be able to pay a good wage well away from the poverty line. Our nanny had a late model car and owned a modest home in MoCo.

Was she single? I doubt it. She had someone to help support her. No one can afford to support themselves in this area on nanny wages + plus buy a late model car. How much did you pay her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please, how come lowly paid male workers don't get the same attention? YOu don't think there are deep-sea fisherman who died so that we could all have access to fish? Or construction workers who enable the building of skyscrapers in NYC? These occupations are only occupied by a single gender and are low-wage earning too.

Your logical fallacy is whataboutism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[Anonymous]

Is the conclusion of this really that it's to criticize the well off women though? Do we have to act like all broader inequalities around race, class, and gender are the fault of individuals who aren't virtuous enough? I feel like that's a way of ending discussion, not moving toward equality.

[Anonymous]

I think this is just about awareness, not about attacking women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for sharing. This is often a topic I think about when "lean in" conversations happen all around me but I don't have the data to prove my hunch. Will be reading this soon!

I can't think of anything more cyncically regressive than trying to claim women should not lean in because they should do all the domestic labor themselves. That's some pure bullsh*t.

It's not actually. It's bulls$&# that well off white women (and men) think it's their right to get ahead while those they employ to do their dirty work stay behind. That's worse than regression, that's aggression.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great. Another book that attempts to make successful women feel guilty. But don’t worry, the husband gets a pass. Lovely.

Funny how no one ever puts men down for hiring men for domestic work such as lawn care.
BTW, all of these evil women outsourcing are driving the economy both with their jobs and the other women they hire.

[Anonymous]

I come from a country where people hire maids and it's very common to see them following their employers around holding all the grocery bags without being acknowledged. There is always going to be inequality and domestic work isn't the most upwardly mobile but what is the alternative ?

[Anonymous]

You either pay a living wage,
or you can't afford to outsource.

[Anonymous]

Why is it framed as “women hiring women to do *their* housework”? At least statistically, according to the author, women already do twice the housework then men. So actually, it is men in dual earner households outsourcing *their* housework, ie, the 50% of household work they don’t want to do... The whole premise of this is sexist, let alone the answers.

[Anonymous]

Harnessing?

We pay a nanny a good wage.
It is a fair transaction. We make reasonable money. We wish to spend more time at our demanding jobs. Therefore we pay someone to help us do work that is not job work.

I don’t get it.
When someone goes to a restaurant are they “harnessing” the cooks and servers?
When we take a bus are we “harnessing” the driver?

There are good conversations to be had about fair wages and benefits and employee relations for parents who are not used to employee management.

But paying someone a fair wage to do work is how our world works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harnessing?

We pay a nanny a good wage.
It is a fair transaction. We make reasonable money. We wish to spend more time at our demanding jobs. Therefore we pay someone to help us do work that is not job work.

I don’t get it.
When someone goes to a restaurant are they “harnessing” the cooks and servers?
When we take a bus are we “harnessing” the driver?

There are good conversations to be had about fair wages and benefits and employee relations for parents who are not used to employee management.

But paying someone a fair wage to do work is how our world works.

Are you aware that most parents believe they pay the sitter a "good" wage? They'd never want to admit they pay something that's next to impossible to live on in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for sharing. This is often a topic I think about when "lean in" conversations happen all around me but I don't have the data to prove my hunch. Will be reading this soon!

I can't think of anything more cyncically regressive than trying to claim women should not lean in because they should do all the domestic labor themselves. That's some pure bullsh*t.

It's not actually. It's bulls$&# that well off white women (and men) think it's their right to get ahead while those they employ to do their dirty work stay behind. That's worse than regression, that's aggression.

There is this thing called a labor market.

I too agree that domestic workers have it tough. Our friend, a nanny, has enormous difficulty dealing with the BS paperwork required to get healthcare.

But the problem is not the UMC employers. If the well off people didn’t pay nannies, the nannies wouldn’t have jobs.
The problem is the SUPER well off people who pay politicians to make working people’s lives worse. Conservative billionaires try to take Medicaid away, try to lower the minimum wage, try to make it hard for working people to move up in society. Don’t blame the upper middle class family scrimping to afford a nanny. Blame people like Paul Ryan who took Koch money to try to take away your health care and put a tax cut for billionaires on a credit card while they say we can’t afford better programs for nannies.

[Anonymous]

I mean don’t lower paid workers everywhere enable higher wage workers to prosepr?