Guest Post by Morbo
Linda R. Hirshman is a retired professor of philosophy and women’s studies at Brandeis University and author of a recent book with the provocative title “Get to Work: A Manifesto.”
In this tome, Hirshman urges women to work outside the home, arguing that staying at home to tend to children is intellectually stupefying and ultimately bad for women. (Full disclosure: I have not read it.) An article based on the book appeared in “The American Prospect,” where it stirred up passions quite a bit.
Recently, Hirshman wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which she reflected on the reaction to her book and article. She seemed surprised at the blowback to the article, writing:
Kapow! I had wandered, it seems, into ground zero of the Mommy Wars. Although I was aware of the stories about women quitting, I did not know what a minefield the subject was.
Oh, now just stop. You did not “wander” into any minefield — you put yourself there. And as for not knowing the subject was a minefield, please. Where has Hirshman been living the past few years — a cave on the third moon of Saturn? Anyone who has children, knows someone who has children, reads popular magazines or newspapers, watches television or listens to the radio knows this topic is often discussed and extremely controversial.
That’s a shame because I’m sick and tired of it. It’s time for moms to quit fighting one another. Dads too. It’s time for women to stop squabbling over who stays home and who does not. It’s time for everyone to pitch in and realize that when it comes to families, we’re all in this together.
Hirshman’s position fails because she is guilty of two examples of fallacious thinking: one, she assumes that work outside the home is automatically more intellectually satisfying than being a house parent. In fact, as many a cubicle slave can testify, office jobs can be as mind-numbing, frustrating and repetitious as constantly vacuuming Cheerios off the carpet at home.
Two, Hirshman fails to acknowledge that parenting often involves sacrifices. If you think about it too much, it makes absolutely no sense to have children. They are expensive and eat up all of your free time. People do it anyway — perhaps driven by some deep evolutionary urge (and because the experience, despite its occasional frustrations, can be very rewarding). A stay-at-home parent, whether mom or dad (and let’s face it, it’s usually mom) makes that sacrifice for the good of the family order. Who is to say there is not great value in that sacrifice?
All of this internecine fighting obscures the real issue: How did our society get to the point where for so many in the middle class, two incomes are necessary to survive? When I was a kid it was not uncommon to see families of four or five children being raised on a single wage, often a blue-collar one. That’s flat-out impossible today.
I’d like to see all families have real choices. Companies should be more flexible, offering on-site day care, part-time work, flex time and work-at-home plans. If mom or dad wants to take a few years off to raise children, I’d like see a business climate that respects and accommodates that choice and then allows for a transition back to the office later on.
What I’m tired of seeing is women beating each other up over this issue. Working moms and stay-at-home moms should be natural allies, not enemies. To the extent there is an enemy here, it is the American business climate and a corporate culture that values time behind a desk above service to family.
We need to change that. But we never will as long as two camps of women are yelling at one another over which side occupies the moral high ground.