Posted on 05/14/2004 6:56:16 AM PDT by qam1
London, May 13 (IANS) :
'What's mine is mine, and what's his is mine!' New research says this is the maxim of GenX women who want to be housewives who don't really work.
Young mothers are rejecting equality in the workplace and preferring the idea of becoming full-time housewives - but not ones who actually do housework.
This is the overall conclusion of research among 2,100 British adults that says women are happy to abandon the workplace but not if it means spending all day at home cooking, cleaning and looking after children.
Instead they want to play the "role" of housewife with a little help from, for instance, a nanny, and someone who does the ironing. Unlike Kylie Minogue, they don't want to do any dusting either.
The report, by Marian Salzman, chief strategic officer of Euro RSCG Worldwide, the world's fifth largest advertising agency, describes these women as princess-style "domestic divas" who effectively exploit their husbands.
"Today, 'women's lib' means wanting to be liberated from the intense pressures of the modern-day working mum," she said.
"And what we're seeing is a serious gender divide regarding women in the workplace. This time around, it is the women who want to stay at home and the men who want to keep them in the offices and factories."
Salzman, 45, who does not have children, is well known in the United States for spotting trends before they go mainstream. She predicted the rise of 1970s fashion nostalgia and, on the eve of the "Bridget Jones" phenomenon, spotted that single professional women would become the new, free-spending yuppies.
Her report last year, "the Future of Men", predicted that "metrosexuals" - straight men who care about fashion, food and grooming - would be the new target of advertisers.
She said 69 percent of women thought it perfectly acceptable for females to be housewives and not to earn a salary. In contrast, only 48 percent of men felt that women should remain outside paid employment.
Her research suggested that the motivation to spend more time at home was "self-centred" for some women. "There are many women who choose to stay home out of concern for their children's quality of life," she said. "But there are plenty of others who are paying lip service to being the 2004 version of the perfect mum.
"In reality they are domestic divas who want the flawless kids, courtesy of the nanny; a spotless home, thanks to a cleaning service; and a reputation for being a fabulously put-together homemaker.
"These are the women who are becoming a target of disdain and rage on the part of spouses who didn't expect to be shouldering the financial burden single-handedly."
She said she was not talking about mothers with very young children but those whose offspring were older and in full-time education.
Jill Kirby, the chairman of the family group at the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, said: "It's very clear that women who have the choice between working and being at home with their children still want to prioritise their home life and life with their children."
Add me to the list if you do start a stay-at-home-conservative-mom thread!
I'm not sure it's "working harder," so much as working without a break from responsibility. An office worker, or even a factory worker, gets a break. He can go to the bathroom on his own. He gets a lunch break. He can take his eye off his coworkers, and not have them all disappear outside into a mud puddle. He can take sick leave if he's sick, and go to the doctor *by himself*. If he has to go on a business trip, or just to the gas station, he's only responsible for himself.
My husband once said, "Well, I'm responsible for the guys who work for me!" and I said, "You have to take them to the bathroom? Do they have clean clothes, if you don't do their laundry? Do they eat meals that you don't fix? What if they wake up in the middle of the night ... do you have to figure out their problems and get them back to bed? Wow, and these guys are earning a salary?!"
This is not to say that I feel oppressed about my life as a homeschooling mother of seven ... I wouldn't do it, if I weren't content. Just pointing out that to me, what makes it "hard" is not teaching phonics, doing laundry, or cooking meals, but rather the *responsibility* that you never get away from.
Part of the problem with this country is that we have delegated the rearing of children to others who don't share our values and we are reaping the seeds sown. The future of the country is the children and they will only be moldable for a very few short years. So either parents start raising their children again and making sure they have the right values or we continue the abdication of this most important responsibility to those whose values are diametrically opposed to ours and pay the price in future generations.
So we have a cycle of butt-ugly coming up?
I think that is where the term 'Ball and Chain' originated from...(Ducking for cover). At any rate, I think that is the hardest part about having kids, you can't find time to just sit down and relax (unless they fall asleep). If you don't watch out for them they will injure themselves, etc. If one defines work as responsibility, then one can see a woman at home with 7 kids out works most people easily.
The other side of the coin is time - If someone marries and has a kid at 20 and the woman opts to stay home then she can semi-retire at 38 when the child grows up and moves on whereas the male in that scenario will still have almost 30 yrs more work (and again, this is a generalization, sometimes they are more problems when 18 then when they are 3).
uh oh, I ain't touching this one.
Or any other time during man's 3 million year history. Upper-middle to upper-class women have never had to work.
Here's a great example: what did the mother of Mary Poppins' charges do all day while her banker husband was away at work? Remember, she had a cook, maid and governess.
I wish I had a simple answer for you. From your kids perspective you have the most important job in the world. Two preschoolers can be tough.
A MINE group (Mothers In Need of Entertainment) seemed to provide my wife with a necessary outlet. They went out to a restaurant or a show once a month.(Hubby can stay home with the kids)
Playgroups with the neighbors has two benefits. You get to talk to an another adult during the day and watching four is easier than entertaining two.
You might try taking your friends kids more often with the stipulation that it is a one for one trade. Being able to bring your kids over to a friends house for a Saturday evening of doing anything,everything or nothing really helps recharge the batteries.
I hope this helps.
Read later.
That would be the "cacopygian phase."
Yeah, that works if you don't have the next kid at 23, and the next at 26, and the next at 30, and the next at 31, etc., etc.
I think everyone would be happier if each gender recognized that the work of the other is difficult, stressful, and sometimes unrewarding ... but it has to be done, anyway. Being an adult means responsibility, one way or another.
Your assertion is so wrong its just not even worth addressing.
LOL!
way to go
That statement get a big ol' AAAA-MEN!!!
Obviously, this author has never spent the entire day with one or two small children.
Jane Austen also had several sisters-in-law die in childbirth. I don't blame her for being a spinster!
You can also recognize that you're in a phase that will pass. You will not always have nothing but preschoolers! This is the hardest part of the Mom Thing, in terms of being overworked, isolated, stifled. Your children will go to school in a few years, or if you homeschool, they will still be more independent, helpful, and interesting than they were as 4-year-olds and under.
You have my sympathy! On the occasions when all my older children go somewhere, and I'm left with just the 6-and-under group, I feel like it's almost too much just to get us all in and out of the car!
Now that schools will be out for the summer, maybe you could get a young babysitter, 12 or 13, who could be at your house while your preschoolers are taking a nap, so you could have some private time with just your baby ... take a walk, go to the library or park and sit quietly, go shopping without all the kids ...
"the mother in Mary Poppins" - I believe she was a suffrage activist, from what I could gather. I skipped the movie for my kids because I didn't like the witchcraft action of Mary Poppin, but I recall thinking that the mother was in all likelyhood an upper-middle class trouble-maker....you know, send the poor women into combat, but the rich ones will still be able to get out of being on the front lines...
Sometimes one works harder than the other, but I think that shifts over time to average out in many cases. Kids are a job in and of themselves, but they grow out of those toddler years and the work load lessens to where they can help clean up the messes they make - on the same token one hopes that if the man stays in his field long enough he will move up from the labor to management where his physical load lessens and his mental load increases (akin to as kids grow they can be bettered managed to do their share, but their problems move around so you have to spend more mental energy helping them deal with their problems then physical cleaning up their messes.)
Hopefully, it works out for both. Keep up the good work!
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