The world lives on the unpaid and underpaid work of women. Churches, schools, nonprofits and many business offices would collapse without them.
But something else has collapsed and crumbled in our society for 60 years: the American family. Despite all the rhetoric about the “breakdown of the traditional family”, our leaders pay little more than lip service to the important work of caring for vulnerable people: our children, our disabled people and our parents’ generation.
This work and the work of building strong families is not only enormous, it is extremely important.
Florida Senate Act 668 is a slap in the face for the men and women (mostly women) who choose to volunteer for unpaid nursing work in order to give their partners the freedom to build bread-and-butter careers. government Rick scott should veto now.
The bill deprives judges of discretion in divorce by assuming in all cases that shared child custody arrangements are best, rather than judging custody based on the needs of individual children.
The legislation ignores the economic burden their livelihood structure puts on the parent who is not the breadwinner who left the workforce to do unpaid work. By ending lifelong maintenance and introducing restrictive spouse payment formulas, the bill tells spouses who might choose to quit working life to look out for number 1 instead. Forget about investing your life energy in your family, this guideline says, because if you get divorced, you will be fucked.
The bill is misogynistic, short-sighted and hostile to families.
In any marriage, the negotiation of who will take care of what on a given day is complex and private. Many two-income couples have developed balanced approaches to parenting and the endless chores of the home. They know that raising children, cleaning the house, preparing meals, and housekeeping all add to the job.
We know it’s work because when we give it away – to daycare, babysitters, housekeeping, restaurants, and repair workers – we pay for it. With money.
But all too often we refer to spouses who do not earn a living as “not employed”. It’s a privilege, we tell people like that Ann Romneyto stay at home and take care of your children. American society says it is a luxury for parents who can “afford” to choose to be their children’s primary caregivers.
We are now spending billions in the daycare industry, which, ironically, is mostly occupied by underpaid women. Feminist author Anne Marie battle calls it “the work that makes work possible”.
Do we believe that people who look after children in daycare centers are “luxurious”? Do we consider those who clean houses for a living “privileged”?
As more and more men – but still far too few – take on the caring work that women traditionally do, the myth of the exuberant housewife is unraveled. We now know laundry matters because dads do Tide commercials.
First wave feminism is partly responsible for helping to create the myth of the privileged mother in the first place. Slaughter contends that the early equality movement rightly tried to widen opportunities for women, but inadvertently belittled the traditionally feminine work of caring. The work outside the home, said the movement, is more important than what’s going on inside.
This message is partly responsible for the near extinction of marriage. But there is another culprit: the changing labor market. In the past few decades, technology, automation, and outsourcing abroad have engulfed jobs. the ability of men to marry, generally decreased. As the Brookings Institute points out, while policy change must be a factor, it must also take into account cold, hard economic facts. During the same period, the job and career opportunities for women have increased. Before deciding whether to pool the finances with men or raise children alone, women choose the latter.
Keeping out of work to raise children is suddenly less glamorous than paid work and a luxury for the rich. In any case, it is trivialized.
The bill to “reform” child support now on Scott’s desk belittles the critical “work that makes work possible”. If we are to value families, we must value all of the work that they create and receive – not just the work that gets paychecks.
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Julie Delegal, a University of Florida alumna, writes for Folio Weekly, Jacksonville’s alternative weekly newspaper, and writes for the family-run company Delegal Law Offices. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
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