Reply to NYT: Forget Pancakes. Pay Mothers.

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "NYT: Forget Pancakes. Pay Mothers."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am conflicted about a payment specifically for housework and child care to women. It’s great as an idea but implementing it is not easy. Some countries provide monetary support per child, other countries subsidize maternity leaves for parents. Economists are toying with the idea of universal income. To me these would be more palatable than paying women for housework. On one hand it returns housework back squarely to women as a duty and responsibility: “You get paid to cook and wipe butts”, on the other, how amounts be decided for women who stay at home vs those who work and still do a big chunk of housework and childcare, and 2 parent households who both work, what about grandparents and others? What about stay at home childless spouses? Do they also get paid something? I think it’s more straightforward to either provide support per child or just go for the universal income.[/quote]

But when one woman decides to work out of the home, some other woman IS paid to "cook and wipes butts" in her home. So why not she herself? The worst line in that article was the author saying she worked out of the house and paid others to work in her house "out of a need to feel like a full human being." In other words, she viewed the women who worked in her house as less than full human beings. What a terrible person![/quote]

And why not her husband or partner? This is what I meant that attaching it to women rather than to the child, would pin women back into the housework and child rearing responsibility. If both dh and I receive a supplement per child, we’ll decide whether he or I or both at 50% would stay home care for the child. If the payment comes conditional only if I, the woman, take care of the child, then you are disincentivizing women’s participation in the workforce and then my DH would view this more as a job I am doing rather than a shared responsibility. I am all for universal income and for supporting families through extra payment, but not making it conditional that the work is done by women.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics