Awhile ago, I read with interest on Albert Mohler's blog (www.albertmohler.com) about Linda Hirshman and the interview she had on Good Morning America. She has now come out with a book "Get to Work: A Manifesto for the Women of the World." Mohler wrote an article on it here: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/202/story_20236_1.html In it, as in the aforesaid interview, she counsels feminists to push women into the workforce, and eliminate the choice of a woman choosing to raise her children over staying in her career or profession. She says that those of us women who have chosen to be housewives are not interesting, and are doing tasks that are below women who are educated and competent, or in her other words of a "complicated and educated person." As one can imagine, this has ingnited a firestorm of controversy with women who are choosing to raise their children. Apparently, according to Hirshman, we are comparable to the untouchable caste in India, for deigning to do the degradable job of wiping our children's backsides.
First, I would like to know what sort of childhood Hirshman had. Did she have a mother? Did her mother stay at home to raise her? Is she grateful (I think I know the answer to this question) at all for her mother's role in raising and rearing her?
Secondly, I would like to know what Hirshman would recommend that we women do with our children? Is she prepared to pay the bills for women to put their children in daycare from day 1?
Thirdly, I don't know about you women out there, but I grew up believing that one of the tenets of feminism was that women have the choice: to raise their children themselves, or to work. Now, it seems, the rules of the game have changed mid-game (didn't you hate that when you were a kid....going to a friend's house to play a game, and finding out in the middle that there was a "change" of rules?)....and the only choice we have is to go to work, sacrifice rearing our own children, and make money.
I have to ask, to what end is this all for? I understand that there are certain situations where a woman must work and put the raising of her children in the hands of others. But is sacrificing our children on the altar of our careers, our accolades, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, and more often than not, our desire to have and to have more, really worth it? Do our children care if they are driving a new car or an older one? Do they care if our house is 3,000 square feet? Or, at the end of the day, would they rather have Mom & Dad spending time with them, and have their mother raise them? It's called sacrifice, and delayed gratification, something our society knows little or nothing of. It's called making do till you can replace or get something new. It's called saving up for that new this or that. It's called deciding if that new thing is a need or a want.....and if it's really a desire to keep up with the Joneses. It's called living within your means and making some hard personal decisions about where and how we spend our money.
I don't know what Ms. Hirshman thinks I do all day, and other women like me. Perhaps she has the skewed notion that we sit around all day watching soaps and doing our nails. We don't. We manage our households. We buy the groceries, the clothing, we do the laundry, we do the housework, we make the meals, and we teach our children, we toilet train them, we feed our children wholesome food, we teach our children responsibility and morals...constantly throughout the day we teach them by our direct interaction with them, and by what we say and do, and by the decisions we make. We are constantly providing our children with learning opportunities. This is our job....this is our profession, and it is every bit as important as what our husbands do. The difference? We don't get a pay-cheque, we don't get a pension, and we don't get sick days or stress leave or what have you. It has been said that housewives do the equivalent of 2 fulltime jobs during the week....for those of you counting, that is approximately 80 hours/week.
What if I did work? Well, most of my income would be spent in childcare, in a work wardrobe for myself, for meals out (let's face it, we would be eating out more), for transportation and gas costs. What would happen to the rest of the stuff? The housework and all would get done, but we would have little time together as a family to do things we enjoy doing, and my husband and I would get precious little time for just the two of us to spend together. And we wonder why the divorce rate is as high as it is.
Lastly, but not leastly, for those of us who are Christians, this is more than our job....it is our calling, it is our "spiritual act of worship", to quote from Romans 12:1. We are living sacrifices in this area, as much as our missionaries or our pastoral staff are. We are setting aside things that are important to us, things that mean something to us, to see to the wellbeing of our children and the management of our households. We are, in effect, the COO of our "corporations." We are the upper management and VP.
Ms. Hirshman has a low view of mothering, and by her opinions, I would have to say she has a low view of young children as well....that they are not worth the best of our mothering and womanly influences.....that they are not worth the sacrifices we make continually and daily....that our future generations are not a valuable gift to be handled carefully. We may think this doesn't matter, and we may think that how we raise our children doesn't matter, but my friends, it does....it matters to God, it matters to our husbands, and it matters to our children and to our world. These children will grow up and go out into the world one day, and be responsible adults (or so we hope & pray)...let's see to it that they get our best, not our leftovers, that they get our sacrifices, and that they are prepared to be responsible citizens of the world. Remember, we are not raising children, we are raising adults...which begs the question, how was Ms. Hirshman raised? I wonder what her mother thinks of her opinions and the things she's written....
