St. Albans and working moms
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Anonymous
| PP here. Just wanted to clarify the above post. The down to earth, unpretentious people I seek out include both SAHP and working parents. But if they are SAHP, they rarely have nannies. |
Anonymous
| Who cares? Do what you want and befriend nice people, whether they work or not. Not too tough to comprehend. |
Anonymous
| Right. That was the point. But if you prefer to hang out with status-conscious, social climbing types, don’t be surprised if they have nannies even though they are SAHP. |
Anonymous
| Really, the nanny thing shouldn't be an issue. Go by the person's actions and how they treat others. It is not any of your business why they have a nanny. I could give a shit, as long as they treat my child well. |
Anonymous
This no longer exists. We're all Trump Republicans now! |
Anonymous
+100 us too and my spouse does not feel comfortable at the school |
Anonymous
You don't get it, do you? "Choice" feminism applies primarily to wealthy women--which in DC often means white, as well, bc race and class are highly correlated--and excludes the vast majority of women who cannot afford to stay at home, with or without a nanny. You are a feminist if you support gender equality, and I'm sure you do, but please do not define feminism as primarily about choice and free will. BTW, a lot of women I know who decided to SAH after kids decided to do so because their husbands worked such long hours or had to travel that SAH made life easier for their families. Both parents couldn't have intense careers and so the woman--and 95% of the time, it is the woman--leaves the workplace to focus on her kids and supporting herself. And while you may be independently wealth, the majority of SAHMs give up independent income, retirement savings, and the ability to re-enter the marketplace at the same level as women who worked continuously. |
Anonymous
That is just weird. Parents and their politics have almost zero impact on what happens at the school. |
Anonymous
This is a strange post. Sounds like a lot more is going on here in this post that has nothing to do with this school. Not sure if you are angry about having to work or what the issue is but it has nothing to do with this or any other specific school. |
Anonymous
I am a SAHM with a child in school. I manage my household (don't outsource any cleaning or other chores, do 90% of the cooking and meal prep), manage a rental property for my parents, do all of the coordination of school and and kid activities, spend lots of time with my child plus I volunteer at child's school and 2 other orgs, one is direct service with an at risk population and the other is on a board of a small nonprofit. I spend about 15 hours weekly volunteering, evenly split between school and the 2 other orgs. I'm liberal and a feminist and very educated. Would not trade my life for anything. I am incredibly fulfilled. Sometimes I get tired, with the juggling and shuffling from place to place, but I'm incredibly happy. I find that my friends who volunteer are the happiest and those who don't are the ones who seem less content. Sorry to get preachy, but if you're a SAHM with some time on your hands, give back! It makes everything much better. I swear I need less therapy the more I serve others. |
Anonymous
Maybe they don’t like capitalism. |
Anonymous
But their son is AT THE SCHOOL not the dad. For good, bad or otherwise, parents at STA don’t have a huge role inside the school. This does not sound like an STA parent to me. |
Anonymous
I'm going to assume you're joking, for many reasons. I still know many proud never-trumpers. They held their noses and voted for Clinton, or some didn't vote. I'm also assuming you're joking, in the sense that, yes, Trump has taken over the Republican Party because republicans in congress have let him out of fear of the super-conservative base. That doesn't mean that every fiscally conservative, socially liberal republican that tended toward Reagan and HW Bush is in line with Trump's ideas, message, or even his re-election campaign. If you're not joking, I presume you mean that many republicans who disagree with trump and find him abhorrent pinch their nose the other way and support him because, well, over time some of it's been normalized. People have gotten tired. Jobs in the administration aren't complete career suicide if you keep arm's length. That's been the sad part. But I still wouldn't call those people Trumpers. For what it's worth, I think there ought to be all voices (within the bounds of civil discussion), including those of Trump supporters. But I don't see some massive collection of die-hard, true believers at STA. More than that, I don't see the clearest connection between this point and the SAHM point, except that if one were to generalize and say that super conservative families might have more SAHM's, one is likely to find data to support that. So it's not totally unconnected, but it's not some perfectly reliable straight line between the two things. |
Anonymous
Earlier poster and later poster: You're both over-conflating feminist theory and social justice/poverty theory. Are there intersections between the two? Yes. But at bottom, the choice you lambaste is largely a wealth disparity/social justice issue. Choice to take a chance on a risky venture. to change a job. To take time off. To explore a passion. To start a business and fail. To take more vacations. To take more flexible hours. When those "choices" overlap with feminist issues, it isn't coming from the presence or absence of choice as determined by wealth, it's coming from the persistence of a reality that women still do the lion's share of "home" and "family" work--no matter how lucrative or exciting or beloved their careers. If men and women equally took on those burdens, you would no longer call the choice to stay at home or not a feminist issue. You would call it a wealth issue/poverty issue. That's because, principally, it is. I'm not saying all is equal. Wealth disparity disproportionately affects women. Many, perhaps most, feminist issues disproportionately affect poorer women. No doubt poor women typically getting the very worst of both gender problems and problems of poverty. That reality, however, doesn't transform primarily economic problems into primarily feminist ones; further, a wealthier woman's access to certain choices because of her economic status does not transform her, if a feminist, into a non-feminist on that basis. Indeed, poverty and lack of choice about childcare does not transform a non-feminist into a feminist either. Maybe a woman is a feminist, maybe she isn't, but the poverty and wealth issue won't answer that question, no matter how hard you try to make it do so. It's especially rich to hate on women with "choices" when you face the reality that the "choices" many wealthier women make are frequently the result of the very conditions feminists of all economic stripes would like to see improved--equal pay for women, safe/non-harassing workplaces, paid maternity leave/family leave, gender equality (particularly at home), etc. Honestly, this scorched earth approach to any woman who isn't living your definition of a feminist is approaching a level of moral superiority reminiscent of the ideologically opposed confinement--but confinement nonetheless--of the cult of true womanhood and other such anti-feminist nonsense. So by all means, pp's, fight gender inequality. Fight wealth inequality. Fight it all. But keep things straight. And maybe, just maybe, try to be a little more supportive of fellow women. (and just in case you care, I work full time. No I do not have to. I am a feminist. No, my choice to work when I don't have to does not make me a feminist). |
Anonymous
Hey privileged white woman, every heard of intersectionality? Feminist theory is inseparable from economics and race. Black women and women of color (do you SEE of all the Central American and Philippine nannies in the area watching white babies?) have long, long supported the domestic lives of wealthier white women. So when you ask people to "be a little more supportive of fellow women" who do you have in mind exactly? And from which lofty perch do you speak? |