In Which I Pull Plato Off The Shelf To See What Socrates Said About Roth IRAs

I haven't paid much attention to Linda Hirshman.  Her name conjured up vague images of incensed bloggers burning through bandwidth in their outrage over her errors, but there are lots of incensed bloggers and lots of scorched bandwidth out there.

Yesterday I happened to read her piece from Wednesday's NYT (hey, Jody, if you see this, how do you do that cool linky thing with the non-expiring RSS feed of NYT articles?) and I had to wonder what I'd been missing.  Why, exactly, should mothers Get To Work?  Is it so we can boost the GDP? so we can find true fulfillment, far away from the annoying barracuda children we are foolish enough to enjoy? so we can retire in comfort, unafraid of our husbands' possible foibles and faithlessness?

I googled around a little, but I have to say, a person who compares herself to the persecuted Socrates sends my Self-Aggrandizo-Meter right into the red zone.  It's been a long time since I read Socrates, but I seem to recall that he encouraged the pursuit of truth, not money.

Hirshman, conversely, says, "Money is the marker of success in a market economy."  She says feminism has failed to be adequately radical, lamenting the decline of views like Betty Friedan's:  "Vacuuming the living room floor...is not work that takes enough thought or energy to challenge any woman's full capacity."  Nowhere, in anything I read before my S-A-M klaxons started going ah-ooo-gah, does she acknowledge the pleasures of time spent with small children, the delights of slow-paced days spent grinding the lenses through which another human being will one day see the world.

How do I reject this? Let me count the ways.

At bottom, Hirshman and I are measuring success with different yardsticks:  I will consider it success when I can say with St. Paul, "I have learned, in whatever circumstances I find myself, to be content."  We have lived on significantly less and on significantly more money than we have right now.  Our goal is not to make the most money possible, but to be responsible and at peace in our situation today.  For what it's worth, I like the middle ground, with less money and more time together.

I have posted before, coincidentally, about how much I enjoy vacuuming.  Does it challenge my full capacity?  Of course not.  But doing it cheerfully is another facet of striving for contentment.  The floor needs to be vacuumed.  I can do it gladly or I can think bitter and useless thoughts about how my husband never vacuums.  (Which he doesn't.  But in the time available to him now that he doesn't work 80 hours a week at a high-paying consulting job, he cooks, tidies, does his own laundry, and takes the kids to soccer on Saturday mornings.)  For me the choice is clear.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about mothers and employment because of my own job -- partly because I am spending a little time away from Pete each day, partly because my job takes me into homes and daycare centers and I talk with mothers, at least superficially as we are scheduling sessions, about their decisions.  I despise the polarization, the pro-employment voices, like Hirshman's, that assume at-home motherhood equals cortical atrophy, and the anti-employment voices that equate any non-maternal childcare arrangements with Brave New World-style creches.  Because (a) my cortex is just fine after those years at home, thankyouverymuch, and (b) there is tremendous variation in childcare arrangements. 

I am using my non-atrophied cortex right now to offer an observation about all childcare and it is this:  caring for small children is not an ergonomically sound undertaking.  The inertia, the entropy, the chaos -- it is a highly inefficient enterprise.  For women with average earning power, employment usually requires an attempt to make childcare efficient -- in other words, reliance on group daycare.  As I mentioned recently, I just don't think it's an optimal setting for toddlers, with the hubbub, the constant competition for toys and attention, the stretched-thin caregivers doing exhausting jobs for little more than minimum wage.  I would like to silence the S-A-M long enough to see whether Hirshman addresses the happiness of young children in between her edicts to their mothers. 

And what about the happiness of those mothers?  Hirshman wants changes to tax law, assuming wrongly that all couples are focused on the bottom line.  What about workplace changes, to increase access to meaningful and consistent part-time work?  I am extraordinarily lucky to have landed in a field in which I can find flexible, fulfilling work that pays me well.  It shouldn't be so unusual. 

What about the needs of women outside the top income quintile?  What about untethering health insurance from employment, so that their children's need for health care isn't driving the job choices of so many mothers?  What about subsidizing childcare workers' salaries, so that the work is more attractive and women can choose it because they genuinely want to do it?  Hirshman would probably reject that idea out of hand, though, because she seems to think that caring for children is work for women who can't manage anything better.

Perhaps that's what irks me most about her writing: its echoes of dated second-wave feminism.  Free to be you and me, as long as you don't want to do anything crazy like spending time with your children.  Girls can too do anything boys can do, biological differences notwithstanding.  But what about those biological differences?  I think about all the oxytocin my posterior pituitary has pumped into my bloodstream over the past decade -- is pumping now, as Pete nurses in my lap.  Oxytocin increases one's capacity for repetitive work, decreases stress responses, facilitates bonding.  I am wired, biochemically, to do the work of mothering my children.  Hirshman's insistence that I should short-circuit the wiring to do work she finds more important is myopic and intrusive.

Here's Hirshman's take on the tasks of at-home motherhood:  "They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings."  Really, I could write another thousand words fisking that, but in the interest of time I'll forbear.  I will point out, though, that last Saturday when I skipped off to the computer lab to  do homogeneity-of-slopes testing and ANCOVAs, it was with a keen sense that I was getting the easy job.  Not that my husband would be doing the drudge work, but that he would be the one thinking about juggling our boys' many needs.

Full-time motherhood stretched me:  sharpened my thinking, shaped my character, satisfied my soul. Hirshman, predictably, disputes the idea that God might have designed the default child-rearing system, but for me the presence of the divine is palpable, when I permit it to be, in the mundane tasks of motherhood.  Which leads me, of course, back to Socrates -- to the Euthyphro, which considers the nature of holiness (in brief: mysterious, but unrelated to masterful money management).  I believe there is an essential and enduring rightness, a quiet sacredness, in the messy work of mothering. Does it pad the CV? Does it beef up the bank account? Does it confer status?  Obviously not.  But a person who compares herself to Socrates might pause to consider what he had to say about such things:  He is richest who is content with the least.

Hirshman excoriates the relativists who say this argument is exclusively about women's choices; she insists that she's a philosopher and philosophy is about what's fundamentally true. And hey, I'm all in favor of public acknowledgment that fundamental truths exist and should shape our decisions. But my observations lead me to believe it is fundamentally true that happiness and fulfillment are unpredictable.  Women's preferences vary; children's needs vary.  What mothers need is flexible options to accommodate those variations -- and not, if you please, any more condescending demands that we disregard what we want and Get To Work.  We've been working.

Comments

[Tall Kate]

Hear ye, hear ye.

This is probably the best entry I've read in the never-ending Hirschman debate.

[Julie]

Wow. Just, wow. Great post.

[rachel]

oh, wow, thanks for this. will be back later - I want to ask something about daycare - but had to thank you for this meaty piece to chew on.

[Arwen]

Oh, I am so glad you are blogging. We need a voice like yours.

[Amanda]

You seriously need to send this around to publishers. It is superbly written and dead-on.

[Sarah]

Thank you for the artfully written rebuttal. It was encouraging and uplifting to read this affirmation of full-time motherhood. I've found that while it isn't entirely thankless work, it is often under-appreciated.

I've noticed that often because "woman's work" is unpaid, it is regarded as having no value. And when we DO pay someone to accomplish these daily tasks for us, we pay them as little as possible. Because a job is repetitive, it is menial, and therefore worthless. Kathleen Norris wrote an interesting short work about this called "The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work"" where she addresses this cultural phenomenon. I haven't read it all the way through yet, though. The laundry tends to get in the way.

[terri c]

This is a lovely post; polarizing never helps anything, does it? because life is more complicated than simple. There are so many systemic contributors to the devaluing of caring for others -- and it isn't only children, look at how our elders are cared for! For me, the goal of feminism, and all other movements that question popular culture, is to foster a world where people have real choices about how to live their lives. The "market economy" is what I sometimes think is the real enemy, as it serves primarily those who are young, healthy, attractive, and interested in money so far as I can see!!

[rachel]

Ok, back - and can I just agree with Amanda? I never see such thoughtful and thought-provoking essays in the print media.
You mention daycare in passing, and in a way it's not really crucial to your main point; but I was wondering if you would explain more what are the problems you see. Exhausted, frustrated and mediocre cargivers are probably the norm, but I've also seen other cases - people who genuinely had a love and passion and talent for engaging toddlers, with experience (born of years and of seeing many different kids) that honestly did not compare to mine or to other mothers I see around me. Not all daycares are crowded, and life in a large family also entails hubbub and some negotiating for attention and space. I guess I'm wondering if you see daycares as problematic in and of themselves, in all scenarios, or if you think that in practice, most of them do not provide the best environment for a toddler.
Full discosure: My toddler goes to a multi-age daycare a few days a week. I think it's very good for him - he loves it, learns to be gentle around babies and respectful of the older kids and adults - and I adore the admire the nursery teachers. But of course, I'm also invested in thinking so, and aware that ideally he would be there for less hours every week. I have no problem with hearing others say that they think it's a bad choice.

[SouthernComfortable]

Here via Arwen. This is a wonderfully written and much-needed post. When God blesses me with children (finally-- please, could it happen soon???), I plan to stay at home with them. I've had friends recoil at the news, insisting that I'll be "wasting" my law degree and every shred of intelligence I posses. I wish more people would understand the positive reasons so many women are choosing full-time childrearing. You explain them beautifully. Well done!

[Karen]

This was a timely post for me. I have a nice situation where I have decided to limit my work-week to 32 hours and have a parent home every day when the little ones are finished with school. The struggle right now for me is that the intellectual challenges of work are more interesting than play with my children, and the stress at work has become more present than it was just a couple of years ago. I find it very difficult to separate my work/home life and this is making the precarious balance I'm seeking even harder to find.

The pressures in our life to keep me at work are based on my great health benefits, the fact that I earn 2/3 of the household income (which is mid-level at best) and the very exciting career I have built over 25 years. I don't think I could walk away, but I sure would like to have my cake and eat it, too. At the office and at home. Just not possible.

[Traci B]

Very well written!!! So well spoken for a stay-at-home-mother:-) I agree whole heartedly and am so glad to have stumbled across your post here. WONDERFUL! Thanks Mrs. Broccoli Guy for the tip.

[Jody]

Here's a TinyURL of the RSS-feed link that will stay "live" forever:

http://tinyurl.com/2sttyj

The blog-link generator itself is available at:

http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink

[Christina]

I read this on Sunday (thanks Arwen for the link) and then had to link it myself on my blog yesterday. This is a masterpiece of an article, I totally agree you should get it published... in the NY Times preferably!!!
Being a stay at home mom requires so much thought, flexibility, creativitiy... in other words brain power... poor Linda Hirshman clearly has no clue what she is talking about.

[SHannon]

Yes, yes, yes. Thank you!

[Pam]

Thanks so much for this!

[alicia]

echoing what the others have said - well articulated and clearly stated.
I remember that when I was a FT working mom (40 hours in the office plus several small children) how frustrating the work at home seemed compared to the simplicity of finishing a task and having it off the desk, period! And how much I appreciated that my dear sister was running a day care where my children would be loved as family - because they were family! (and yes, I paid her the same fee as the other moms)

[pnuts mama]

sounds like ms. hirshman is trying to fill up her God-shaped void with mammon, like so many humans throughout history have tried and failed to do. what irritates me the most about her 'philosophy' (i use the term loosely) and so many others in her camp is the disgust and downright anger that when given the *choice* to stay home and do the work of parenting versus working outside the home and paying someone else to do, that some actually and thoughtfully choose A. some choose B, and many choose a combo of A and B. why do so many people continue to operate with a "one size fits all" mentality? also, i heard on the news this morning that including overtime, stay at home parents would earn about $137,000 in todays market. i'd like to sign up for that paycheck, please!

thanks for your thoughts on toddlers and group-childcare, we have been trying to find a balance between my 21 month old daughters need for some social interaction (and my alone time) and her need for my advocacy during those times. she is a bit shy and not yet able to stand her ground against the other kids who push past her, but does enjoy being in a room with other kids and playing. we've put off putting her in a nursery-type program by herself til at least the fall. i'm sure fantastic day care options are available, but i don't know where and i don't know how we could afford them at this point. round here you get put on a very long waiting list for those options.

[Purple_Kangaroo]

Yeah.

[Sarahndipity]

This is a fantastic post. Couldn't have said it better myself.