I'm amazed at the sheer number of articles in the press recently discussing womens choices & parenting.
I'm not entirely sure what the reasons are for this sudden coverage, but I do find myself thinking that the choices of women of childbearing age are being scrutinized to a much greater degree than in recent years.
Every day there seems to be yet another article or study reported in the mainstream press covering off one of the following:
Breastfeeding
The appropriate age to bear children
Having it all
IVF (often in relation to having it all / appropriate age to bear children)
The appropriate lifestyle to have while pregnant / trying to get pregnant / breastfeeding
Maternity leave / parental leave
Working mothers
I find this in itself fascinating. What has happened culturally that the press (& blogs & comments boards) seem to spend so much time dissecting the choices of this section of society?
There's no doubt that deciding to become a parent involves a lot of hard choices, particularly given the current wages to house price ratios. I also agree that many women of my generation were raised to live much more public lives than previous generations & to gain respect through a career (or essentially making lots of money). I've not had to do so, but I imagine questioning that would be quite difficult for both parties in the relationship, particularly if things had been very 'equal' before.
Sadly I do think that one unfortunate side effect of all the recent articles has been to make it much more socially acceptable to be openly critical of a woman's choices. Oddly, there seems to be very little talk of fathers choices, which seems a shame because one would assume that the decision to have little Junior go to breakfast club & after school club then be picked up by the nanny would not be solely down to the mother.
(For clarity & to avoid adding complexity, I'm assuming little Junior has a mother & father who live as a family unit. Obviously if that's not the case, things can start to get a bit more complicated.)
I was glad that the writer of that article mentioned that her partner did spend a far chunk of time also looking after the kids.
And while I agree that constant discussion can lead to people feeling that they can tell others what to do, it can also lead to societal change, so I think I'd rather have it than not.
We're *both* part-time, and averaging out over the last 6 years have pretty much shared the work and joy of Actual Physical Presence Parenting(TM).
Looking around, ours seems to be the generation that was messed up by the unbalanced liberation of the 70s where parents flowed into the workplace, but nobody flowed back out of it, leaving children as a sort of commodity to be raised by hired help or grandparents with odd pre-war ideas.
So, it's no wonder people are interested in the choices parents make, and given some of the bitter personal experiences people will have had, reasonable that these choices be held up to criticism. Ultimately, if there's any alternative, it's shitty to outsource the upbringing of your child, or to make it over entirely to one parent. Such choices are not private to the parents because they affect the children, who have little or no leverage in the matter, and society as a whole through crime and mental illness.
That said, it makes me angry that the media focuses on the choice of mothers, rather than that of parents as a whole.
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andrewducker) wrote2009-11-02 11:03 am
no subject
I'm not entirely sure what the reasons are for this sudden coverage, but I do find myself thinking that the choices of women of childbearing age are being scrutinized to a much greater degree than in recent years.
Every day there seems to be yet another article or study reported in the mainstream press covering off one of the following:
I find this in itself fascinating. What has happened culturally that the press (& blogs & comments boards) seem to spend so much time dissecting the choices of this section of society?
There's no doubt that deciding to become a parent involves a lot of hard choices, particularly given the current wages to house price ratios. I also agree that many women of my generation were raised to live much more public lives than previous generations & to gain respect through a career (or essentially making lots of money). I've not had to do so, but I imagine questioning that would be quite difficult for both parties in the relationship, particularly if things had been very 'equal' before.
Sadly I do think that one unfortunate side effect of all the recent articles has been to make it much more socially acceptable to be openly critical of a woman's choices. Oddly, there seems to be very little talk of fathers choices, which seems a shame because one would assume that the decision to have little Junior go to breakfast club & after school club then be picked up by the nanny would not be solely down to the mother.
(For clarity & to avoid adding complexity, I'm assuming little Junior has a mother & father who live as a family unit. Obviously if that's not the case, things can start to get a bit more complicated.)
no subject
And while I agree that constant discussion can lead to people feeling that they can tell others what to do, it can also lead to societal change, so I think I'd rather have it than not.
Except for the Daily Mail, which can fuck off.
no subject
Looking around, ours seems to be the generation that was messed up by the unbalanced liberation of the 70s where parents flowed into the workplace, but nobody flowed back out of it, leaving children as a sort of commodity to be raised by hired help or grandparents with odd pre-war ideas.
So, it's no wonder people are interested in the choices parents make, and given some of the bitter personal experiences people will have had, reasonable that these choices be held up to criticism. Ultimately, if there's any alternative, it's shitty to outsource the upbringing of your child, or to make it over entirely to one parent. Such choices are not private to the parents because they affect the children, who have little or no leverage in the matter, and society as a whole through crime and mental illness.
That said, it makes me angry that the media focuses on the choice of mothers, rather than that of parents as a whole.