Supporting caregivers
A client recently returned to a paid job after years as a stay-at-home mom. She wrote a lovely piece on LinkedIn to announce her new gig, and she spoke eloquently about the joys and challenges of caregiving, and, in particular, job searching while caregiving. I don't think we talk enough about the "work" that is involved in caregiving, whether you are a stay-at-home mom or dad or a stay-at-home caregiver for another family member. Even the term "working mom" implicitly negates the work of someone who doesn't receive a paycheck. And "working dad" isn't even a term, which is fodder for a whole different blogpost! A thoughtful piece by Zana Hanawalt highlights the issue of valuing the real labor of stay-at-home parents. "It’s crucial that we challenge this idea that focusing on family life doesn’t require skill or creativity or intelligence or work ethic—it does."
Besides my client's post that got me thinking about this, I learned a family story that reminded me of what we value. Growing up, I knew about my ancestry — one great-great grandfather had been a stonemason in Ireland while another ancestor, a Scot, had emigrated to Canada and then New York where he started a business. The stories were generally about the work the men did. On a recent trip to Ireland to explore that side of my ancestry, I found the grave and the historical records of my great-great grandmother (the stonemason's wife) who married at 20, birthed 9 children, and died at 38 after childbirth complications. Great-great granddad lived to 70. I never knew great-great grandma's story. Her work was clearly birthing and raising nine children.
Fast forward to the 1990s when I was married and left my college administration job to stay home with my son. My husband was a faculty member at the same college, and we were lucky to live in an affordable midwestern state. With a graduate degree from Harvard, I wasn't the typical "stay-at-home mom" in Iowa. I had friends who would ask me was I using my degree? Was I challenged? And one day, on an outing to the college campus with my son (where his father worked), I encountered a female faculty acquaintance who said to me: "must be nice to be on vacation all the time." I was too astonished to respond, but I remember feeling misunderstood.
They were called the "mommy wars" back then. Thankfully, I don't see that term much anymore, but there's still an undercurrent of devaluing caregiving. If a person stops out of paid work, they often say "I'm just doing this for a while," as though to diminish the role. I've caught myself sometimes saying I was "just" a stay-at-home mom for a decade.
I know it's a privilege not to work for pay and that many cannot do it. But if you don't have a grandparent nearby or subsidized or low-cost childcare available, or you can't do split shifts with your partner, the math often doesn't add up. Good childcare costs money. And it should! Taking care of our children is serious and important work. Who or what is more precious in your life than your child? But salaries, especially if you work in the nonprofit or service sectors, sometimes don't offer enough for you to have any net gain if you have childcare costs. If I had stayed in paid work when my son was little, we would have lost money as a family.
Two takeaways:
I'd love to stop using the term "working mom." How about just lifting up concerns of parents in the workplace? Besides diminishing the role of a mother who is working at home at caregiving, "working mom" implies that parenting concerns are a mother's concerns. I've never heard anyone call a father who is working for pay, a "working dad." Think about how weird that even sounds. Parenting concerns are concerns for all of us, whether we are parents ourselves or not, because children are the future for all in this one world we share.
Maybe we should consider paying parents who stay at home with their kids. And, I'm sure we should offer subsidies for childcare. I understand that some parents don't want the 24/7 caregiving duties. But if either parent chooses to be home to raise children, why can't we support them in that choice? And, if someone is willing to teach, serve, work for a social good, can't we help them with childcare costs so they can do that? Many of us are better parents if we can pursue professional interests (regardless of the pay), too. Teachers, for example, could always receive childcare subsidies. I'd be willing to have my taxes allocated to supporting childcare; maybe you would, too. It's beyond time we think creatively about how to support parents and children.
