8 Responses to “Debating the Choice to “Opt Out””

1. mkimpers Says:
   February 10th, 2006 at 12:20 am

   To offer some perspective, we are talking about the top 1%-2% of the population in terms of [household] income and education. These women have the wealth that enables them to make the decision to work or not – a choice not offered to the other 98% of the population. These women litterally are at leisure to decide what they wish to do with their time and resources. Since when does this society make value judgements on what the elite do for their leisure?

2. another nurse Says:
   February 10th, 2006 at 6:02 am

   I happened to read the article in The New Yorker about an hour before the show came on tonight, and I would like to correct one small misidentification. Luwanna Marts is a Registered Nurse, working in a team of nurses, using all the assessment skills of a nurse and the interventions and care plans of a nurse. You originally identified Ms. Marts as a “nurturer”, which rather glosses over the education and years of professional preparation that she has. At another point you identified her as a social worker, another skilled and caring profession, but not the correct one. In fact, the title of the article is “Swamp Nurse”.

   Thank you for another interesting program.

3. Shari Thurer Says:
   February 10th, 2006 at 11:29 am

   I agree with mkimpers…what elite women choose to do with their time is not a burning poitical issue. What disturbs me more about post-Freidan feminism is young women’s embrace of vacuous bimbos (e.g., Paris Hilton) as icons.

4. brosenmass Says:
   February 10th, 2006 at 8:35 pm

   I was in some store, maybe Hallmark, and I saw a large rack full of “Paris Hilton” diaries in late December. Obviously a hot holiday item. I wonder how many of these diaries now contain entries such as, “I want to be a doctor when I grow up!” Does it matter that Hilton is on every page of her diary, or more that her science teacher in a few years might treat her like Paris Hilton?

5. allison Says:
   February 12th, 2006 at 1:27 pm

   As a working class mother, I struggle with this issue daily. I have benefited from the hard work that the feminists did in teh 60s and 70s. I was computer science undergraduate, I have an MBA. I like to work. I like to earn a living myself. My work is an expression of myself in the world. I feel that I have an inner mission to serve the world.

   When I had a child, I realized I didn’t want someone else to raise my child. I wanted to be with her. I want her to watch me in the world and learn from me. I want to learn from her. In her growth, her observations, her expressions, I see myself and the world around me reflected in such a way that my perceptions are enriched. I don’t think a non-parent drinks a child in and embodies what she has to offer the way a parent does.

   So, I opted to have my own business. I have borrowed a lot of money in order to create a workplace that could include my child. For me, this is the big obstacle to doing other work that I might do. I could have a greater impact on the world. I could earn more money. But we compartmentalize our lives in the name of efficiency and productivity. And society pays the price.

   For me, it isn’t about being a Feminist or not. Its about being humanist. As a human, a mammallian, I desire to nurture my child. My child longs to be with me. And I desire to be in the world. And she benefits from seeing what it means for me to work. At six, she has gained insights about what my work is through osmosis. She now looks forward to working with me someday. She may not ultimately make that career choice, but she sees work as a positive thing. She enjoys childhood thoroghly and doesn’t desire to pitch in prematurely, but she is motivated to grow up and participate as a responsible adult. I think we all benefit from that.

   The real question for me is why can’t we re-integrate. In non-dangerous work settings, there should be no reason to separate parents from their children. On-site day care where families can be together during the day would greatly enhance society. People would be used to having children around again. They wouldn’t be treated like an annoyance. Its amazing any child wants to participate in a world that has treated them like nothing but a constant aggravation for years.

   There is a lot of work to do on the front of equal rights for women. Equal pay for equal jobs. Opening up old boy networks to include women. There is a lot more work to do in fighting the discrimination against children. We require a license to drive a car, have a dog. Then we say we are each entitled to have children, but we don’t protect the children by providing universal health care, public parental training, or insuring against parental isolation. Then we complain about unruly children. We say it takes a village to raise a child, but most don’t live in villages anymore. We live in metropolitan setting where we don’t know our neighbors.Our culture is anti-children. Watch people cringe when you enter a restaurant with a child. Look at the degradation of our public schools. We are so intent of streamlining for productivity that we don’t actually like living in a world of people, which means families, which include children.

   Women today are not struggling with ideals of feminism. They believe in having choices. They believe in fulfilling their sense of themselves and getting equal pay and recognition for the value they bring to the workplace. What they struggle against is the ideal of “productivity” which excludes the option of being the kind of parent they want to be and still being in the working world. Once again, a country that sees only the Gross Domestic Product (a rather flawed tool even if it you like what its supposed to measure) as the measure of economic success has left behind all the human values that need to considered. The children pay the price and the women are pitted against one another. A tried and true way to undermine the power of women.

   So, lets get more women, especially mothers, in congress and create some real change in this country. Lets change our economic indicators so they measure the things that we value and not just cold dollars. (I don’t want to live in a country that doesn’t care how the money is made.) And let’s mandate better maternity leave and workplace child care. And let’s have leadership that teaches people to consume few things but pay more for them, so that our workers can earn a living wage and our corporations or our government can afford to provide the services required to have a fully functional, humanistic society.

6. Nikos Says:
   February 12th, 2006 at 4:01 pm

   Allison: even before reaching your excellent concluding paragraph, when reading this – “On-site day care where families can be together during the day would greatly enhance society” – I thought ‘This is precisely why we need proportional gender representation in the congress and senate (and in the administration and courts too, ftm). (I live in a state where both Senators are women, but this is the exception — and besides WA is anomalous in many other ways too.)

   Until the population of our government reflects our national population, common sense solutions like your ideas will be nothing but ‘feminist’ pipe-dreams.

   And I’ll vote for ya.

7. Raymond Says:
   February 15th, 2006 at 4:10 pm

   Allison, what a wonderful post. It was a pleasure for me to read, and one that got me thinking and writing. Thank you. I hope it is not too late to post a response, or to have further discussion.

   You begin by saying that you felt drawn to work and drawn to care for your daughter, both strongly enough to make the real sacrifices required to establish your business, one in harmony with your human(ist) nature. And your business, Circles (I followed your screen name), seems to have accomplished this goal. I certainly hope it has. Given this background, I can see that is natural to advocate something similar for others: a re-integration of parents, children, and work. You have a very positive view of work.

   When our son was your daughter’s age, we were living in the Marshall Islands, on the (then) Kwajalein Missile Range, more than a decade ago. I was immersed in the world of work at a well regarded research and development center with deep resources and challenging problems arranged before me. This job allowed me to do what I most enjoyed: study books, write equations, compute numbers, and solve problems. Nevertheless, I began to view work as only that, just work, effort for pay. Not the highest or best calling of people, just a necessity.

   By this time I had long lost the argument with my wife over work and home. My wife wanted to stay home with our children. Her choice was not for lack of education or opportunity: BA painting and BA and MFA graphic design, designer for a major performing arts center, offer of a tenure track position at our university. And her choice was not for lack of my support, quite the contrary. It took me years to realize that I needed to stop pushing my wife to keep her foot in the door to the world of work. She simply did not see work as an expression of herself in the world.

   I have moved on from the research and development center, though I get back there from time to time. Very few of the men or women I know there find work meaningful. My wife has stayed at home, organizing elementary school, then high school for our children. Why did she homeschool? Think about that for a minute and tell me, did your thinking include this reason: so that our children could pursue excellence? And two have. It is too soon to tell with our third. My son and daughter routinely took college level classes, both attended Brown during the summer, both aced their AP and college entrance exams, both pursued wide ranging interests.

   And why would it be necessary for us to school our children at home to achieve this end? Because our public schools are mediocre, through no fault of their own, but through our culture that favors appearance over substance, and our politics that favor top down organization over bottom up idiosyncrasy. And this finally brings me to my objection to your proposal: mandated employer provided day care, universal health care, public parental training. In this you see the highest in humanistic society, but in it I see the descent, begun decades ago, into mediocrity. You see the highest and best uses of our shared resources. I see waste and dissipation in modest accomplishment.

   Would I want employers to provide a mandated level of child care? No, employers would only provide what is mandated, no more. Would I want to see the government provide health care? No, health care would be provided in a heavily regulated government procurement process that would select the lowest bidder. Would I want to see public parental training for all parents? Oh, I can hardly imagine the depths of quality to which such a program would sink. But please do not miss-understand me. I do want to see children, parents, and anyone needing medical attention receive the care the need, using whatever shared resources are required. I simply want to see these needs met well.

8. cyborgoddess Says:
   February 16th, 2006 at 9:27 am

   One of the great things about podcasting is I can catch up on shows I missed; one of the bad things is that I yell at my radio with no hope of calling in. If Larry Summers even floated half the ideas of your guest, Linda Hirshman, he would be lynched in Harvard Square. That I somehow need to pass a reproduction litmus test to further my education is stunningly arrogant and antiquated. The larger issue isn’t gender roles, but the nature of work and Ms. Hirshman’s perception of a post-cold war economy where one stayed in ones job for their life time is no longer realistic.

   Yes, work can be fulfilling – even if that work is raising your own child. [Once you start paying other people to do it, you can no longer deny that it is actually work, no matter how much Ms. Hirshman disparages it]. The modern worker needs to be flexible – not just for after school pick ups, but because of the nature of the new economy – which means that a lawyer can work part time and meet both their needs and the law firm’s, a professor can pick up a class or two, a radiologist can work at home reading x-rays over their computer four days a week; that gender is beginning to play a smaller role in this is blatantly ignored by Ms. Hirshman.

   My husband and I are taking turns staying home to raise our children, and the only sacrifice is monetary – we are opting out of the consumer culture – which seems far more damaging to our national consciousness than pledging allegiance to a dying corporate model.

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