NYT: Forget Pancakes. Pay Mothers.

[Anonymous]

The 1970s feminists really screwed future generations over by leaving housewives/SAHMs out of the movement.

They were so focused on getting women into formerly male dominated professions. A worthy goal for sure but it left a huge chunk of the problem untouched and unresolved: what to do with the children.

[Anonymous]

This is so stupid. Who do you think is supposed to pay you if you stay at home? It's work, of course it is, but it isn't paid work, and that's the choice some people make. Yes, you can say that some people don't make enough to pay for childcare, and I don't disagree that childcare may be prohibitively expensive for some people. But paying someone to do stuff around their house (whether child care or housework) is ludicrous. I mean, do working parents get paid on the weekends when they're with their kids? What about if I have a maid but clean up the kitchen after dinner? If my husband does it is the cost the same even if our salaries differ?

[Anonymous]

I’m a mother and don’t understand why you would pay mothers a salary.

If the goal is to show we, as a society, care about moms, there are many other ways to do that:

- Improve maternity and pre-natal/post-natal care
- Improve benefits for single moms
- Universal PK

etc.

But paying moms a salary—from where, I don’t know—isn’t the way to do it.

[Anonymous]

Most industrialized countries have a universal child allowance. It is used to help raise the next generation. This could help many families keep one parent at home, something that will be increasingly relevant given that schools will most likely move to a hybrid remote/in-person model for the next year at least.

But not the USA! We'd prefer kids grow up in poverty so as not to incentivize "bad choices."

Mrs. America is a very enjoyable watch!

[Anonymous]

This reads like the essay of a high school sophomore. No, society and taxpayers don't owe you a paycheck because you chose to have a kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This reads like the essay of a high school sophomore. No, society and taxpayers don't owe you a paycheck because you chose to have a kid.

+1. So tired of entitlement in this country. Everyone makes their own choices.

[Anonymous]

This is such a stupid piece that I can't believe the NYT published it. The article proposes that the government should pay all women for childcare and house cleaning. That is about the most anti-feminist thing I can imagine.

If the author is so concerned about the low wages of women who provide childcare and/or cleaning services, why not simply advocate to pay these people better? Instead she (who apparently did not work outside the home while raising her children) thinks she should have gotten paid for that choice. Unbelievably self-centered.

[Anonymous]

I think the point of the article is that "Women's work" is still not valued in this country. Ask any child care worker, cook/kitchen worker or home health care worker about their salary and you will see that we do not value it.

Heck, listen to the way working moms on here routinely disparage SAHMs and call them leeches and drains on society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is such a stupid piece that I can't believe the NYT published it. The article proposes that the government should pay all women for childcare and house cleaning. That is about the most anti-feminist thing I can imagine.

If the author is so concerned about the low wages of women who provide childcare and/or cleaning services, why not simply advocate to pay these people better? Instead she (who apparently did not work outside the home while raising her children) thinks she should have gotten paid for that choice. Unbelievably self-centered.

I totally agree. It's very coddling of women. "There there, pat you on the head, we agree it's hard work so we will give you a little wage to acknowledge it. Now back to childbearing!"

The alternative is that women (and their partners) decide for themselves - a parent stays at home, or they both enter the workforce and pay others for childcare.

Women have the smarts to decide for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the point of the article is that "Women's work" is still not valued in this country. Ask any child care worker, cook/kitchen worker or home health care worker about their salary and you will see that we do not value it.

Heck, listen to the way working moms on here routinely disparage SAHMs and call them leeches and drains on society.

Yes, but the answer isn’t a salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the point of the article is that "Women's work" is still not valued in this country. Ask any child care worker, cook/kitchen worker or home health care worker about their salary and you will see that we do not value it.

Heck, listen to the way working moms on here routinely disparage SAHMs and call them leeches and drains on society.

A lot of us agree. But the leap from "it's work" to "society owes me money" is juvenile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is such a stupid piece that I can't believe the NYT published it. The article proposes that the government should pay all women for childcare and house cleaning. That is about the most anti-feminist thing I can imagine.

If the author is so concerned about the low wages of women who provide childcare and/or cleaning services, why not simply advocate to pay these people better? Instead she (who apparently did not work outside the home while raising her children) thinks she should have gotten paid for that choice. Unbelievably self-centered.

I totally agree. It's very coddling of women. "There there, pat you on the head, we agree it's hard work so we will give you a little wage to acknowledge it. Now back to childbearing!"

The alternative is that women (and their partners) decide for themselves - a parent stays at home, or they both enter the workforce and pay others for childcare.

Women have the smarts to decide for themselves.

And do what with their kids? Leave them to appallingly low paid workers.

[Anonymous]

I thought this article was awful. The author is extremely whiny and entitled. As background, I got my first paid job at 13. I have, among other jobs, worked as a housekeeper and cleaner, a babysitter, a data entry clerk, and other manual and pink collar jobs (as well as eventually white collar). I have stayed home, been a student mother, worked part-time, and worked full-time. I know a lot more than the author does about manual labor and hard work. Yet in that long history of labor I have never, not once, thought something so idiotic as the below passage:

After just six days of sheltering in place, I found myself thinking about all the women I’d taken for granted.

I started with Griselda, who cared for my kids when they were babies, a few hours each week. I thought about Beth and Perrine, and every babysitter and cleaning lady I’d ever used — all the women I’d paid to come into my home over the past 13 years so that I could leave it and do other things.
If someone had asked me why I paid these women to do things that I could do myself — particularly when I made so little money with the time they freed up — I’d say that I did it because I wanted to work, because I needed to work, not just out of economic necessity but also out of a need to feel like a full human being. The implication here was that when I did the child care and housework and cooking and laundry, it was not work but something else.

What the hell kind of spoiled infantile upper class white woman nonsense is this? How dare she? It's clear she doesn't think of her domestic help as fully human, but as someone who has done those jobs she is disdaining, I do not appreciate her late (and conveniently timed for the divorce) realization here.

What is very clear is that the author is spoiled and is largely annoyed she going to have to get a job she doesn't like post-divorce, and she is now throwing a temper tantrum about it. My God, there are millions losing their jobs who would be happy for any work and she thinks she needs to publish this whiny drivel?

She is why people hate wealthy white feminists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the point of the article is that "Women's work" is still not valued in this country. Ask any child care worker, cook/kitchen worker or home health care worker about their salary and you will see that we do not value it.

Heck, listen to the way working moms on here routinely disparage SAHMs and call them leeches and drains on society.

A lot of us agree. But the leap from "it's work" to "society owes me money" is juvenile.

At least someone is willing to point out that it is valuable work in the nation's biggest newspaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the point of the article is that "Women's work" is still not valued in this country. Ask any child care worker, cook/kitchen worker or home health care worker about their salary and you will see that we do not value it.

Heck, listen to the way working moms on here routinely disparage SAHMs and call them leeches and drains on society.

Your point stands, but this article is a perfect example of how not to be taken seriously. Valuing something does not mean everyone else should pay for it.

Should these professions be paid more? Absolutely. So should teachers and a number of other professions whose work improves society as a whole. But that’s not specially a women’s issue.