There is a photograph of me holding my son when he is two months old. He is in rude health. His complexion is peachy, his eyes shine with liveliness and curiosity. In contrast, I appear to be in the grip of a life-sapping disease. My skin is sallow and drawn, my cheeks are hollow, my shoulders hunched. A few months later I appraise myself in the landing mirror on the return from a night feed. I still look deathly. My dressing gown is covered in baby snot and nappy cream. My T-shirt, an old Fawcett Society number, is stiff with stale breast milk. I look down. Among the stains it is possible to pick out a slogan. It reads: This Is What A Feminist Looks Like.
I worried about being a parent long before I became one. I had a decent line of work that allowed me to think of myself as an independent, capable woman and gave me just enough cash and free time to live a varied and spontaneous existence. I fretted about the inevitable compromises to my life and relationship with my husband that having a child would bring. We wrestled with the issue off and on for a few years. Then, as I hurtled towards the end of my 30s, we took the plunge and I hoped for the best.
The day after our son was born we walked home from hospital a new family of three. We were entranced, as were our families. My husband took his two weeks' statutory paternity leave. We spent that fortnight in a jet-lagged haze, barely getting any sleep but surviving on exhilaration and adoration for our child. We met up with friends, took walks by the river and called into pubs. Our portable baby was a compliant passenger in our lives.
But then my husband went back to work, our baby ceased sleeping all day and the music stopped. My devotion to my son was unshakeable but I was now faced with day after day in which, for 12 or more hours, I was solely responsible for an infant who was entirely dependent on me, utterly resistant to being put down and never minded to take a nap. Abruptly, the severe challenges of new motherhood were brought home to me: the loss of autonomy and the self-abnegation were instant and absolute. The independence, sense of recognition and daily purpose that I'd been used to gave way to gruelling, unacknowledged servitude. My life became unrecognisable to me. The uncertainty I'd felt about having a child had vanished – I loved my son – but a new emotional complexity took its place: despite this love, I came to resent motherhood itself. The coexistence of these two apparently contradictory feelings defined my days.
Having had a busy and purposeful life, I now occupied a universe where, apart from the grindingly repetitive tasks centred on feeding and cleaning my child, activity existed in the main simply to fill the time. I went to a parent and baby group and found myself singing nursery rhymes with other grown women as our tiny children lay impassive on the floor. Used to mixing with women and men of all ages, circumstances and life stages, I now only ever seemed to be in the company of other new mothers. I vacillated between a desperate hunger for tips on encouraging my child to sleep and a head-pounding boredom with this narrow, baby-centric world. It felt as if I'd entered a bizarre female sect in which we novices nervously twittered about our infant deities.
Every day I was brought up sharp by the dismantling of my former life. En route to one of my time-filling activities, I would pass young women determinedly heading off to work, dressed immaculately and with the luxury of a solitary bus ride ahead of them. I was filled with envy.
I'd known that life with a newborn would be tough, but what made it hard to bear was the disparity that was emerging between my existence and that of my husband. Having a child meant sacrifice in return for a richer existence, but why was the sacrifice all mine? We'd always followed the same path; now my husband alone pushed ahead with his exterior life as I was left at home.
When a couple chooses to have children, all the gains women have supposedly made over the past few decades vanish, as the time machine of motherhood transports us back to the 1950s. Today, more young women than men stay on at school and college beyond 16. They're more likely to study for and get vocational qualifications. And in 2008/2009, for the first time, just over half of women between 17 and 30 entered higher education in the UK. As a consequence, there are excited forecasts of young women's earnings overtaking men's by the middle of the century. Yet giving birth and breastfeeding permanently define a woman's life, and differentiate it from a man's.
Even when mothers return to paid work after maternity leave, the responsibility for the domestic chores accrued in that time often remains with them. In fact, women carry on performing almost the same number of domestic tasks when they switch from looking after their children full-time to working outside the home part-time. And even if they work outside the home full-time, they are still more likely than their partners to take responsibility for household chores, and to take time off work to look after an ill child.
More than three-quarters of mothers say they have primary responsibility for the day-to-day care of their children in the home. And although the amount of childcare that men do has risen from between three and eight minutes a day in 1975 to between 32 and 36 minutes a day in 2000, the time women spend on primary childcare (such as washing, dressing and reading to children) has also increased in that period, from between eight and 21 minutes to between 51 and 86 minutes a day.
In my distress, when my husband was around, I wanted him to experience how hard it could be to look after a young baby. Perversely, I willed our son to puke and scream when he was with him. At those times when this wish was granted, I would look on coldly, offering no assistance, glad that he was finding it difficult. On other occasions, when he was changing the baby's nappy, putting him in the pram or dressing him, I would bossily interject, scolding my husband for his ineptitude and taking over. I wanted him to understand how gruelling it was to live my new life. Yet in the way I went about it, I risked discouraging him from getting involved.
I was not alone in how I was feeling. Olive is a mother of two from London. She and her husband are both academics, and she now works part-time. "My husband ambles into the house as though it's nothing to do with him," she says. "He will be reading a newspaper and I will be feeding one child and the other will be sitting on my head, and eventually he'll look up and say, 'Do you need some help?' It's like he's wandered into this life involving a wife and two children."
Mandy, a mother of five from Newcastle, is equally exasperated. Neither she nor her husband is in paid work, yet the vast majority of the childcare and domestic work falls to her. "When he changes a nappy, my jaw hits the floor. He doesn't realise it's hard to do housework and look after five kids. I thought the parenting would be shared."
Sam, a researcher and mother of one, has noticed double standards being applied to her and her husband, who both work full-time. "If he is working from home, he will take our daughter to nursery. Or if she is not well, he will take a day off work – we try to do that in turns. So he is a hero and I am left feeling like a bad mum. I think that's what I feel most cheated by. Because I do think that's the way of the world: it still is massively skewed in terms of what the mother is meant to do. We are expected to be the primary caregiver."
When these relatively low social expectations of men as carers are combined with high expectations of them as full-time earners, it's unsurprising men still see themselves as the main breadwinners.
The arrangement is self-perpetuating: the mother feels she must cut back her paid work to look after the children, because the father is working long full-time hours; the father feels he should work these long full-time hours because the mother has cut back her paid work. Any intention to do things differently, perhaps sharing care and paid work equally, falls by the wayside. Institutional structures, cultural norms and inherent beliefs about gender roles prove too strong to resist. For professional workers, the child-rearing years of their 30s and 40s coincide with the peak period for making strides in their careers. As mothers sit that one out, fathers lose themselves in their jobs.
But fathers' feelings about their worker role can be ambivalent. Matt, a father of two and full-time television worker, explains: "I've often wondered why no one's asked me if I'd like to work three days a week. It was just expected that I'd take on that burden – by my wife and by me."
Dave worked in a series of senior jobs while his wife stayed at home raising their son. The stress of maintaining a high standard of living contributed to the eventual break-up of their marriage. "It put me under a lot of pressure… I was very driven to keep earning more because we couldn't quite keep pace with what we were spending. I drove myself harder and harder, because I felt that was the deal, that's the lifestyle we had. Now it doesn't seem that important to have a big house."
But looking after children can be tedious and gruelling. For many men, if it's a choice between an extra hour in the office or getting home in time to wrestle tired and irritable offspring into a bath, they will take the former. Time your return right and instead they'll come running to the door, calmed down, scrubbed up and ready for sleep.
Fathers' reluctance to get involved in the day-to-day graft of childcare is rarely challenged. As Bronwyn, a mother of two who is separated from her husband, says, "If someone else was looking after my children amazingly well – if he'd become a stay-at-home dad and was doing a fabulous job – I would probably have stopped thinking about the kids so much, because I'd know they were being taken care of. And, contrary to my expectations, I did turn out to be an OK mum, so I think he felt he could step away and just look after himself."
At the same time, many women are inconsistent, claiming they are frustrated with having to deal with the majority of the domestic burden, yet unwilling to cede any control over home life. As Tanya, a businesswoman from Cambridge with two children, says, "Could I relinquish control and allow my husband to do it? The answer is probably not, because I wouldn't necessarily be confident that it would be done to my standards." As time goes by, the likelihood of men volunteering in the home and gaining in competence decreases, and perceptions become entrenched: useless, lazy father versus super-competent, selfless mother. Women become invested in their identity as the unsupported domestic drudge and seek to maintain it rather than reverse it.
"Some of it, if I'm honest, is almost a bit of a martyr thing going on," says Jane, a teacher from Leeds. "I resent it, but I'm going to do more and more and more of it, then I've got even more to resent, and then it will be really clear it's not fair."
Mothers who begrudge their partners' lack of involvement, especially in the gruelling early stages of child-rearing, can pull up the drawbridge when it comes to the rewards. Helen, a full-time mother from Oxford, admits that she now feels territorial about her relationship with her daughter. "There was this long period of time when my partner wasn't interested at all in doing anything, and now that our daughter is much more fun, he's more interested in spending time with her. So there's a bit of, like, 'Actually, you can't do that. You can't ignore her for however many months when you think she's a bit boring and then suddenly decide that you want to spend time with her, but only when it suits you.'"
This kind of "maternal gatekeeping" can leave some fathers feeling discouraged, even depressed, and many talk of the pressure not to put a foot wrong. Matt says, "My wife is quite controlling. She gets upset if things aren't the way she wants them, so she takes on a lot of the responsibility, but resents it at the same time."
Bob echoes this: "It's considered desirable for me to be more involved, equally involved, with all aspects of childcare, but my opinion doesn't seem to be respected. It can be demoralising as a father if you feel your opinion is not seen as valid."
By the time my child was 12 months old, we were all more than ready for me to return to work. I saw that my son was keen to branch out into new environments and widen his circle of friends. I was certain that my husband wanted a change from my foul temper and demands that he do more, and yet do things exactly as I would. And I was definitely ready to earn my own money, rebuild a social life and have a place in "the world" again.
My husband and I work flexibly and this, together with our son's nursery place and invaluable help from our own parents, means that we are both able to care for our son. The polarisation of our lives that took place immediately after his birth is over. But, as the dust settles, it is clear that this process has changed our respective roles and status irrevocably.
Despite our now quite determined efforts to share the parenting equally, a combination of habit, social structures, cultural norms and earning power means that I have become, and remain, like so many of the women I have spoken to, the foundation parent. We have resisted the worst of these forces, yet they are so powerful that they still leave their mark. Despite both spending a great deal of time with our son, I do most of the planning and errands for him, such as buying his clothes, making his medical appointments and finding out about playgroups: all tasks I became accustomed to while on maternity leave.
The coalition has promised to "encourage shared parenting"; but this, along with phrases such as "involved fathers", is a slippery, vague term. If, as it should, the government means encouraging the option of equally shared parenting so that both mothers and fathers can be actively involved in their children's daily lives, then genuine commitment and concerted effort will be required.
Other countries are beginning to achieve this through radical change. Following the lead of nations as diverse as Germany and Iceland, maternity and paternity leave in the UK should be reformed completely. A right to part-time working for all employees is also commonplace in the EU, and businesses have adapted and benefited. These measures should be adopted here and complemented by universally available, good-quality and affordable childcare.
Being a parent in the UK is tougher than it should be. If mothers and fathers are going to change how they structure their family lives, they have to be enabled to do so by the state, and by employers. And as parents, we need to ask some searching questions about what we want for ourselves, and for our children, in the decades to come.
Women will continue to be brought up and educated alongside men. We will continue to set our sights on the same ambitions and expect the same opportunities. Now we have to fix our family and working lives, completing the revolution that we started so many years ago.
I hope that future generations of mothers will be able to push open their front doors, crossing fathers on the threshold, as they both move freely between their private and public roles. I hope that men and women will each take their children's hands, leading them together through to adult life. And I hope that they will look back at the not too distant past in this country and wonder that things were ever this way.
• Rebecca Asher will be doing a live web chat at guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 29 March from 1pm.
This is an edited extract from Shattered: Modern Motherhood And The Illusion Of Equality, by Rebecca Asher, published by Harvill Secker on 31 March at £12.99. To order a copy for £9.49 (inc UK mainland p&p), go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.
Will new paternity laws help? A Swedish mother writes
I was 27 when I became pregnant. My husband and I had been together nearly seven years, and had always lived equally. Naturally, we thought this would continue. Instead, the discrepancy between the small, near-sighted world our son and I found ourselves in and the big world where my husband spent his days became increasingly apparent. We had been two full-time working, equal individuals. Now, I was just a mother, while fatherhood was simply added to his other identities. The transformation to 1950s housewife was a shock.
When I voiced these feelings to friends with children, I was met with knowing nods – we all felt deceived by the myth of an equal society. But my husband had a harder time understanding. Surely I could see that how we lived was the norm? If anything, we were more equal, since we had agreed that once I had taken six months' maternity leave, he would take paternity leave for six months – uncommon even in Sweden where it has been possible to share parental leave since 1974. [Shared leave is introduced here on 3 April.]
When we swapped places after six months, our roles were reversed within days. Going back to work felt like a holiday, and now I was the one coming home to dinner on the table, filled with stories from the outside world that my husband listened to tiredly while I summoned up polite interest in his domestic tales. Of course, the experience had a huge impact on my husband: he became a far more engaged and attentive father than any of his peers. The fact that he was on parental leave saved our relationship at the time, to the point that we decided to have another child.
Today, our children are five and eight, and even though my husband and I are now separated, the children are with him half the time. Despite our shared beliefs about equality, it wasn't enough. It wasn't until we were separated, each with our own home and shared custody, that we became equal. It has freed up oceans of time and energy on my part, and when I talk to other divorced women, my own experience is confirmed: men always benefit from marriage. Women, on the other hand, have a lot to lose – and a great deal to gain through divorce.
• Maria Sveland is the author of Bitter Bitch, published by Corsair.
Comments in chronological order (Total 366 comments)
26 March 2011 12:19AM
I`ve got a cake I love to eat.
Personally as a man, I have a wonderful South American partner who stays at home looking after our little girl whilst I go to work.
I accept that I`m not attracted to the nappy changes and so on, but to be honest my partner is very grateful for the fact that I do go to work every day so that she and the little one can live in a good home and eat good food.
We each play to our strengths. It`s all about the specialisation of labour bringing higher rewards to each than we would be capable of having alone.
I feel sad for the author in justifying divorce as being good for her. I doubt if her children agree.
26 March 2011 12:36AM
The author sounds like a baby,why not get a nanny like the NuLab super couple Mr&Mrs Balls/Cooper?
26 March 2011 1:06AM
Where are the grandparents?
One of the problems today is that people are living in such isolated nuclear families. Of course it's a ton of work to look after small children. Having that burden fall entirely on the shoulders of two working adults is almost unprecedented in human history.
This is the trade-off, in exchange for more individual freedom from extended family.
26 March 2011 1:09AM
I went through this; I gave up my promising career to raise two beautiful, well-balanced, healthy children while my husband flew high and came home to dinner on the table and ironed shirts, while I seethed and raged inside.
My daughter's following the same path, and I empathise and tell her tales of hope.
Because I'm living the life of riley now, working part-time in a pleasant-enough job, leaving me hours to spend looking after my grandchildren occasionally, running, reading, writing, whatever. The career man carries on working all hours (his choice); he's knackered, his health's not great, but it's what he stands for. Luckily he's well insured.
26 March 2011 1:10AM
This article is great, with a good balance in showing how both women and men perpetuate the woman as mother culture. I also like how the author has reminded us that mothers can and do resent motherhood despite loving their children.
It's also very depressing! I'm a woman about to graduate from University and am ambitious, but also want to have children. I don't want to give either up, and I don't think it's fair that men get both. I also think it's a shame that men can't enjoy their children as much as they might, because of these inequalities in parenting.
I agree that ultimately the state (employers will only change with legislation) needs to take action - the culture change needed is too big for individuals to make a difference, as this article shows.
Equal paternity laws will surely make a difference, more childcare for children from a young age. Thanks for such an enlightening article!
26 March 2011 1:17AM
PS @Laffin it sounds like you do have your cake and eat it! Lucky you. Obviously every family is different, but I think "specialisations of labour" argument is tenuous, unless you think that the vast majority of women are better at looking after children and the vast majority of men are better at earning money. I just don't accept that this is the case. I also think that a child brought up equally by her parents might well be at least as well off than by one parent while the other works.
Also, just in case you misread it, the author of the main article isn't divorced, only the Swedish mother who wrote the last 4 paragraphs.
26 March 2011 1:17AM
Yet giving birth and breastfeeding permanently define a woman's life, and differentiate it from a man's.
And the penny finally drops. Shame you had to have a baby before you spotted the chasm between Fawcett Society rhetoric and reality. Being a mother is hard work and hopefully you'll become more maternal as time goes on, but please don't blame your husband or the patriarchy for your sleepless nights.
I predict quite a few comments to this article. [Popcorn out].
26 March 2011 1:22AM
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26 March 2011 1:22AM
Tell you what: as man in my early 30's, if I could find a woman who was willing to start a family I'd be more than happy to stay at home, whilst she earned the corn, and do all these chores -like bring up my children- that modern women feel are beneath them.
If you're not curing cancer or saving lives, then what could be more important than bringing up a healthy, rounded individual in these increasingly fractious times? (Write self-pitying articles like this as it turns out) Late 30's you say; surely you've been to all the parties, drunk all the booze and have come to the realisation that most people, well, just aren't that interesting.
Whenever I'm at a social gathering I'd rather paint unicorns with the kids in the corner than listen to someone prattle on about fixed or variable rate mortgages, how nice Banff was or how I should be watching Breaking Bad.
You've found the partner of your dreams, have started a family and now have the pleasure of bringing up your child whilst indulging in the things that YOU want to do in the downtime; my sister-in-law has a 6 & 3yr old yet is still managing to go to Uni to do teacher training.
As some heinous individual once said: do me a favour love.
26 March 2011 1:41AM
this article is seriously endangered by the mistruth of the inevitable trollers that will post numerous comments saying basically
'shut up you fucking stupid feminist and get back in the kitchen'
*watch this space*
i hate how any view on the gender inequalities posted in a article is automatically over-run by astro-turfers putting forward their archaic, narrow-minded views which always paints women as man-hating dykes that blame their lives on men. (actually the reason feminism doesnt work is because many women rather side with men than fight with their sisters)
well no. gender equality is a very complex issue and i believe that sharing the burden of children will help us to become a happier, more advanced and better society.
and to Laffin if nappy changing and spending time with your child doesnt 'interest' you, why did you have a child???
26 March 2011 1:46AM
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26 March 2011 1:50AM
Agree with centreville above.
I think this 'one parent watches baby, one works all day' thing is rather new. I couldn't help noticing in parts of Asia the grandparents did most (or all!) the parenting, while the actual parents worked to bring money into the family. We talk about women getting support, but they need something more than just internet message boards or meeting other mums for tea once a week. They need somebody they can hand the baby to for a few hours so they can shower and take a nap.
A common complaint from my friends who are new parents is that their parents just aren't interested, but typically the grandparents are also still working! I don't think women here are saying it's 'beneath them,' I think it's a matter of feeling exhausted, isolated, bored, and feeling like your brains have turned to moosh as your day is a rotation of feeding and cleaning and staring at a tiny human who can't have conversations yet.
So, I guess we all need to live in little villages again.
26 March 2011 1:53AM
@Applemuncher.
Yes, I am very happy in my relationship. My partner is too (at least that`s what she tells me). Luckily I don`t live in the UK so one alright income, 500 quid a month) allows us to enjoy a good standard of life. I do love spending time with my little girl though and I always have. The nitty gritty is the hard part for me...
I do believe that women are far better at raising young children though. I do not believe that men are better at going out to work though. However, given my higher prospective wage it makes economic sense for me to work and for her to raise the wawa. Latinas though are far more motherly than their European counterparts. I am happy that she is the mother of my child.
No, I didn`t notice the changeover ;-) I started skim reading halfway through the article. I apologise to the author for my error.
BTW Do you know the only proven aphrodisiac for women so far.... ?
The smell of breastfeeding mothers. Nature does nuture its future.
26 March 2011 1:55AM
savitaalexander
well said! its not about women believng their too good to be wiping poo off children , its just that motherhood if a period of extremely boring tasks and its not like they have the same social status for the work they do as their partner who is in a job.
26 March 2011 1:59AM
Absolute fucking bollocks. I'm a "Latina". Do you mean "Human"?
26 March 2011 2:02AM
First you have to be intelligent, interesting and fun loving to get a husband.
After you have a baby, you need to basically switch all those traits off so you can handle hanging out around the house feeding, cleaning and caring.
Then, switch them back on again so it doesn't end in divorce.
Eek!
26 March 2011 2:05AM
I am a gloriously emasculated man. I currently live with two of my sisters and my six year old nephew. I do all the housework, and a lot of the childcare. I would have absolutely no problem with doing it all if I were to meet a woman. But the thing is I'm out of work. Ladies you want/need an alpha male to bring home the bacon and that's the uncomfortable truth. Having said that, I'm a bit of twat so that might be the reason that some middle-aged, middle-class yummy mummy hasn't snapped me up.
26 March 2011 2:07AM
and perhaps you would be best to read the full article before giving you uninformed view
26 March 2011 2:10AM
This is a very familiar scenario, as the very very fortunate dad of a 2 year old, I work much further from home day to day than my wife. Demands to earn more due to the property prices 4 years ago when we bought our home, combined with nursery costs, also mean that some weeks I must work away for several nights after a change of job.
My wife is, to be blunt, a higher achiever than myself, but her desire to have as much time raising our son as possible means that she has moved to 4 days per week (still much higher than most of her friends who average 2 to 3 days, or now stay at home).
I'd like to do this too but I'm too worried about job stability to look at my dropping a day’s income, plus I want to save for our son's future, given current moves on the cost of higher education.
Together this means getting my son dressed in the morning is my wife’s task, as I'm heading for the office commute when they get up, his dinner is the same, bath time & story we usually get to share, though ever since being breastfed for his 1st 6 month my son rejects his nightly half bottle for bed coming from me. Of course when I must travel, all family and house work falls to my wife.
Our lives are good, and I know how lucky we are, but I feel my wife is held back from higher achivement in ther career, and she is shattered every night which means early nights curtail our time together (I can't remember the last time we made it through even watching a film without her falling asleep on the sofa beside me).
However I can't see a solution due to the demands on our time and resources, perhaps we are simply trying to have too much by having a reasonable standard of living and a family? (though our lives aren't particularly grand, we haven't travelled overseas since we became pregnant, 3 bed house, very rarely eat out). We are trying to have too much perhaps? However I'm sure a lot of parents feel exactly the same and feel guilt about the time and input for children and partners, while also having somewhat of a loss of their prior interior life.
I don't really have a solution, I just try to keep discussing this all with my wife to try to balance these competing demands, so we have the happiest balance we can achive.
26 March 2011 2:15AM
@opheliaknee
No I mean that South American women (abbreviated to Latina - not a racist word that upsets I believe) are far more orientated towards running the family home as opposed to being career orientated.
This may be due to the lack of quality work opportunities here, but even still society is extremely matriachal here in Bolivia. Many mothers will not let their sons or husbands anywhere near the kitchen because it is not their place. Women take the monthly pay check from their husbands and they decide the family budget. All generalisations I accept, but it is true for a large majority.
Personally I love cooking for the family and I hope that my daughter goes out to accomplish whatsoever she desires. Be it academic, artistic or domestic. She is free to choose. For me the importance is that she has a stable home with two parents who love each other and also love her.
My partner is unhappy to have a large reduction in her free time. I do look after the little one for as long as I am free. Our relationship works.
I am not trying to upset anyone. But this one might.....
We have a maid who does all our cleaning, washing and ironing. My partner gets to spend all day playing and having fun with the wawa. They are both laughing right now as I type. Its bedtime. Nightynight.
26 March 2011 2:15AM
Articles in the media about modern motherhood are highly polarised. At one extreme we have motherhood portrayed as the only thing which truly fulfills you as a woman, the way to find true meaning in life. At the other extreme we have motherhood portrayed as the means by which women are stripped of their personal identity, becoming a drudge to the never-ending needs of the demanding baby. The means to finding oneself again is to return to work implying that meaning is to be found there. This article belongs in the latter camp.
Reality lies somewhere in between and depends very much on the personal situations and aspirations of the indivduals involved. A new baby turns one's life upside down and redefines the relationship between the parents. New parameters need to set and compromises made around work, money and childcare considerations. The author sees these compromises as sacrfices (thus negative), mostly made by her and not her husband, so sparking feelings of resentment.
In hindsight, the amount of time spent in this early nurturing stage is very short, although it can seem interminable when judgment is clouded by months of sleep deprivation. But things do change. Children become more independent, start school and grow up. All through these years relationships also change and new compromises are forged. Family life is dynamic.
Couples need to be realistic in their decision to have children. It will change life dramatically and not all of the changes will be easy to accept. Such a decision needs to be informed rather than based on romantic notions of maternal bliss and family life.
Is it realistic to have a baby with the expectation that all aspects of one's life should continue on as usual with the least amount of compromise? Having unrealistic expectations causes resentment to build and a focus on others as the cause and therefore the solution to the problem - if only my husband did this, if only the government did that...
There is underlying theme throughout this article that a woman's "public life", ie her paid work outside the home, is inherently more satisfying and rewarding than looking after her children. Paid work for many women (and men!) can also be full of drudgery with little personal reward.
The author displays a considerable sense of privilege and entitlement. This privileged view is glaringly exposed by the example of the Swedish woman who claims true equality is to be found in divorce and two separate households. A woman bringing up kids on her own is more likely to be living in poverty. If she isn't, she needs to thank her lucky stars rather than whining about equality.
26 March 2011 2:26AM
@Ladyearlgray
You're quite right, I haven't read the full interview. And for that I sincerely apologise.
26 March 2011 2:56AM
I observed this in Italy, too.
Good point! We could have babies in the country, and then migrate back to cities when the kids grow up...
Seriously, though, we need to change the way we work -- which would involve making it easier for families to survive on lower incomes, early retirement (free up those grandparents!) and still enjoy a reasonable quality of life.
I think it would be good if more people would think beyond the usual gender arguments and consider the economic factors, as well as the culture of individualism. Maybe it's more fun to argue men vs women, but I don't think that "slack dads" are really the root of the problem.
26 March 2011 3:00AM
Excellent excerpts by Rebecca Asher and Maria Sveland. Together, they touch every relevant challenge to the fundamental issue: "Who will raise our children?"
Even assuming 6 months' job leave for mother and father, this provides parental child care only until the child is one year old. The question then shifts to "Who will raise our children until they reach school age?" Grandparents may be working, living far away, ill, or unwilling to provide full-time child care; and full-time nannies, though never paid enough, are nevertheless too pricey for most working parents.
I suggest a strong governmentally-supported push for 2 years' half-time employment leave for each parent after they've used their 6-month full-time parental leaves, thus providing parental childcare until the child reaches school age.
26 March 2011 3:32AM
The problem with suggestions about better working practices, more family friendly etc, is that someone must pay for that to happen through tax burden. And the country is fairly skint.
The tensions upon couples both trying to be good parents & equal supportive partners are going to become worse, and I think we can all see that coming, if we have not already experienced it. Which may in turn mean that the stereotyped gender roles are now going to become accentuated.
Grandparent support is great, and ones own parents can be really invaluable in helping out, however they will often have their own elderly parents, and health problems. Thus you never want to lean to heavily upon their assistance, no matter how enthusiastic and loving it is.
Part of the problem is that, in fact, we all have a great deal of social freedom in our society, and are absolutely extraordinally privledged when you look around the world. We also have probably unrealistic expectations from a lifelong diet of sugar coated, un-grounded crap being thrown at us as "how our lives should be", there will always be a great deal more grit, crunch and shade in there than we are socialised to expect.
It may be possible to rebalance how familys lives raising their children together are socially facilitated, but in many ways it's not really a public money "solveable" issue. People have to work to live, but most importantly raise their young into hopefully happy, well balanced young future citizens, who will in turn do the same in their time.
At the risk of being labelled a little stoneage, I also think the physical bond of early life, and indeed pre-life, together for mums and their children exerts a very powerful emotional pull that is the engine for a certain amount of how the parenting and family roles stay stubbornly entrenched in a slightly more old-fashoned model than we might expect these days.
I know my wife found it very difficult and upsetting returning to work after her maternity leave, thus she still has not returned full time, though I'm very happy she has an extra day every week together with our son.
26 March 2011 3:38AM
@piplaw21
"Ladies you want/need an alpha male to bring home the bacon and that's the uncomfortable truth"
I absolutely bloody don't. Who the hell are you to tell me what I want and need? What I actually want/need in a partner is someone who sees me as an equal and is prepared to wash his own bloody socks and take an equal role in raising any kids that we might have. I understand that it can be difficult for men to take on an equal role in childcare as society can be judgmental and employers unsympathetic. This needs to change. What also needs to change is men thinking that they know better than me what I want and need.
I'm quite capable of bringing home my own bacon thank you very much. You seem to be suggesting that you're single because you have no job, implying that you think women are only interested in your earning potential. Perhaps it's more the fact that modern women don't really like men like you telling us what we 'need'. Stick your 'uncomfortable truth' up your ass. If women are only interested in your earning potential, perhaps it is because you have precious little else for them to be interested in. Just a thought.
26 March 2011 3:42AM
Sad stuff disappointed entitlement .I think many women do feel like that. and it surprises me that as many marriages survive early years of parenting as still do. I have noticed in recent years that many guys half my age question why they should go through it . The female urge for maternity is much higher than the male they say , they want them , they work , they can have them ,whats in it for me? Male committment to a child based nuclear family is falling away it seems . Committment isnt necessary for an active and varied sex life these days it seems , housing is very expensive and needs two incomes not one , I can kinda see their point . I am old now but if I had my time again I might well say to my self , well I might live till I'm 80 , I could become a father at 50 and see them grow up , I dont have a body clock , I'm quite well off by then , why not wait ? There will be lots of nice women in their 30's who would like a dependable solvent male , who actually wants a child , who I could make happy. I think thats how blokes increasingly feel ..not great news for women though . One young guy actually said to me once " I dont know if feminism liberated women but it sure liberated us ! " Well I have grown up daughters now and I worry for them obviously ..
26 March 2011 3:46AM
This is possibly one of the most unreasonable articles I've ever read. Why are these women not asking their husbands for help? How can husbands be expected to know how hard it is if their wives spend their time complaining to each other, rather than talking to their husbands. I cannot understand why so many women are reluctant to relinquish control of their children when they obviously don't enjoy to spend so much time with them. It may even benefit their relationships with their children (not to mention their husbands) to pass of some responsibilities to family members or third parties.
Another option not brought up properly in this article is hired care. While this is obviously impractical for very young babies, once they're beyond the age of needing to be breatsfed why can't a nanny or childminder be hired? The cost incurred should in most cases be covered by the salary the mother would make upon going back to work.
In response to the idea of help from grandparents, not only may they be dead, too frail, or far away (possibly even helping out with a grandchild from a different child of theirs!), but they may not be interested. Just because someone once chose to have children, it does not condemn them to a life of doing their grown children's bidding.
26 March 2011 3:58AM
But look at the size of that baby! It's massive. I'm not surprised that you are finding it such a struggle love.
26 March 2011 4:00AM
I was reading through this and thinking 'cake cake cake, eat it eat it eat it'. And then, the first comment was ... 'I`ve got a cake I love to eat.'. I'm not the only one then.
Sorry, but it is biology. Women have babies. Obviously they have them during their prime. Yes, it gets in the way of a career, which also happens during your prime.
Invent a way for men to have babies and maybe things will change, but for now, women really are going to have to accept that having a baby is a huge event - something that will fill life with new possibilities, but also take some away.
If I think about my parents, yes they had different roles, but both were consistenty there for my brother and I. I see my dad cleaning, he cooks the weekday meals.
Crap article.
26 March 2011 4:12AM
This is just another sign of a generation of people (women AND men) who expect a life bereft of even a hint of trial or tribulation.
Our 8-month old baby was a surprise for my partner and I. As unplanned as they get. She has had to put her promising career on hold to look after the wee tyke and sometimes gets quite down about it. (I would look after him but my partner and I both think he needs his milk when he's young and it's really hard for her to express).
Maybe when the baby is weaned she'll get back into her career, in which she earns more than me, and I'll take over childcare - something I'm all for. For the moment though she's putting our wee one ahead of herself because that's what needs to be done. I think she's amazing for taking the unplanned role of motherhood in her stride.
So it blimmin gets on my goat when I hear people who HAVE planned their family to whinge and moan about it. You made your bed, now lie in it!!!
26 March 2011 4:24AM
I think the author does a good job of explaining how so many new mothers feel, while acknowledging that it's partly their own fault. The descriptions of the cycle of martyrdom and resentment, and the way mothers then take ownership of the whole parenting thing and discourage fathers from sharing, while strike a chord with many parents, if they're honest.
The Swedish mother doesn't really explain why divorce was the key to equality in her case, but in fact makes clear that the sharing of parental leave, and the weight given to parenting by fathers in her society that that implies, was of vital importance. I would suggest that without this, she would have continued to be the main caregiver up to their divorce and beyond.
26 March 2011 4:42AM
Totally agree - just feel sympathy for the children (not to mention the hapless father ) -- the article is just another platform for the guardian's trademarked misandry, along the lines of "Why I Hate Men" etc .. e.g. let's have some more industrial strength whingeing about the alleged matyrdom of embattled women who are victims of the evil patriachy, which descends on them like The Blob from that 1958 movie.
@ hyberhippy13 - if women feel so entitled to generalise about men here then the opposite is also valid. Say what you like, but males learn very early what women say they want, and how how they actually behave in the real world is actually miles ... and miles ... and miles apart. In fact it is universes apart. If you believe what's posted on this site, women just want a sensitive male who reveals all their feelings to their partner, who supports her eager to do most of the housework blah blah blah .. This is complete and utter BS ... e.g. try telling most woman on a date that your goal in life is to to cut back on your career to be a sensitive new age dad/househusband ..and just watch exit out the door at the speed of light ...like something out of the Roadrunner cartoon ...
26 March 2011 4:44AM
The first author sounds extremely spoiled to me, I could not feel a lot of sympathy for her. It is hard having a baby and yes, the early years are exhausting. But things do improve over time. I had my first baby at 24 after having saved up for a deposit for a house. My parents helped when I went back to work. After four years, we had another baby and as my husbands career had taken off, I was able to stay at home to look after my baby. We were very careful with money, always looking for bargains. Now my second child has gone to school, everybody keeps saying that I need to go back to work. I somehow feel that is a little unfair as I had concentrated my time when young to studying, working, worrying about the mortgage, while my peers were out gallivanting around the world. I now have a little time to do my own thing like go to the library and develop various interests which don't involve a lot of money. This seems particularly offensive to other women. My husband wants me to go back to work as well, not out of any real need, he just wants to buy another house. I feel that is unreasonable as well. I keep wishing people would leave me alone.
26 March 2011 5:17AM
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26 March 2011 5:17AM
Actually I think women with a baby under one are bound to feel jaded, fed up and exhausted. They get no sleep, the demands are relentless, and most of those demands are boring beyond belief. It's like the worst, most menial job you ever had, only it's 24/7 and without even breaks enough to catch up on sleep. But toddlers can be a delight - wilful, sure, but hilarous... and sleeping like human beings, at least more often. At that point, maternity is fun. But I've been shocked by how many fellow mothers quietly admit that in the first few weeks of their firstborn's lives, they thought they'd made a huge mistake. It really is that hard, and you're too bloody tired to get enough perspective to realise that it's also that fleeting. It's over in a year.
26 March 2011 5:21AM
"we all felt deceived by the myth of an equal society. But my husband had a harder time understanding"
Stupid, stupid biology. Or, this demonstrates how dangerous certain ideas can be. The fact of the matter is that there is an inherent inequality between the senses. In fact there are several inherent inequalities, and having children is just one of them. Men are physically stronger - perhaps they should be required to take pills to diminish their strength so both genders are equally strong? Perhaps all men should be made to stay at home and look after their children while Mummy goes out to work?
Nature dictates a lot more than many people like to admit. It is not part of their ideology. Viewing nature through a political lens will of course lead to the frustrations vented by the women above. Men did not design this system to subjugate women. There should be no master plan here - each couple should decide who stays at home and who works, or if both work, etc. Whatever fits best for that family. Only idiots look down their noses at peple who stay at home to raise children, and your world is not "small" if this is what you do. While your husband is flicking elastic bands at the pinboard or playing solitaire on his PC and waiting for 1730, you are raising the next generation and shaping the values of tomorrow.
Have some pride in that and stop whinging.
26 March 2011 5:22AM
Or sexes, even. You choose.
26 March 2011 5:25AM
'Free up those grandparents'
Hmmm, has anyone asked these grandparents if they want to be 'freed up' to do the 'boring repetitive' work of caring for a small child - again?
Personally speaking, now that my own children are heading into grown-up territory, I am looking forward to making up time on my own career and having some fun with my husband and friends. Yes, I'm on hand for emergencies but, no, I have no wish to make my second career that of childminder.
26 March 2011 5:33AM
There have been a few comments about 'where are the grandparents' to which I would say, wherever they want to be; abroad, living on the other side of the country, heavily involved with U3A, or charity work, committed to one set of grandchildren over another, quite possibly still working themselves, just not interested in raising another set of children. You can't compare the UK to other countries where family units remain financially interlinked.
Motherhood can be a series of repetitive, boring tasks, it's up to the individual to find the joy that also goes with it. I have been at home since our oldest was born seven years ago, my husband works long hours and commutes, often not seeing the children during the week. Yes, I sometimes resent the total lack of support round the house, no, he doesn't change many nappies, but then I am the one who gets to hear their secrets and the things they worry about, the things they are proud of, the playground gossip.
26 March 2011 5:46AM
As a husband who 'gave up' a career to look after his young son perhaps what the author is talking about is not, actually, gender specific? (and the fact you focus on mothers means you miss the wider point).
Most middle class people want to get married, have a family and have a career. It is very difficult to do all three equally with your partner. Who out there actually feels they spend enough time with their partner, their kids and have the perfect career. No-one.
Yes there are inequalities between primary carer and bread winner. Yes, it can drive a wedge between the couple. And yes, it is mostly women who perform the role (though quite what men are supposed to do if the baby won't bottle feed for six months I'm unsure?). But plenty of men give up careers to take the primary care role too, and the inequalities are still there (arguably harder because the mum is still likely to want to feel like the primary carer - which of course she isn't - which then creates new tensions).
The only way round this is for pre-conception classes (partially serious). You want to have a family - come see what it is actually like. Want to know what it feels like to go from a bustling social life, with healthy dynamic career, to struggling to get dressed and cope with something that is irrational and entirely dependent upon you? You ought to. (course similar to the NCT one, but before you've shot your load).
As a couple you hadn't really thought it through had you? Guarantee you put more thought into a wedding, or buying a new laptop, or whatever. That is the problem, we're all (male or female) just so very unprepared for the sacrifice of what being a parent means.
26 March 2011 5:48AM
Honestly ! You'd think this was an article about a life sentance in a labour camp
" Every day I was brought up sharp by the dismantling of my former life..........I'd known that life with a newborn would be tough, .........Having a child meant sacrifice .........but why was the sacrifice all mine? .......gave way to gruelling, unacknowledged servitude.
Tell you whats tough, having your entire life and family wiped out by a tsunami, being irradiated, living in a famine prone area and watching your child die of a preventable disease.. any of those things might be tough and an actual real problem. "Gruelling unacknowledged servitude" might be the cry of an actual servant or labourer in a developing country not a guardian journalist.
But being lucky enough to be able to afford to take time off work, and not starve ,to look after the baby you wanted to have is not tough. Articles like this pi** me off.
What is wrong with sitting on the floor with your baby singing nursery rhymes ? As you say your self it was only for 12 months and then you went back to work. I also doubt that at 12 months your son actively wanted to " widen his circle of friends". Are you so special that you should never be bored, never be less than fully stimulated ?
And I'm not a sexist male with a compliant wifey at home but a ( happily ) ex senior manager who has spent quite a lot of the last 8 years with her kids.
Some of it even sitting the floor singing nursery rhymes !
26 March 2011 5:50AM
@MrWindy
Good luck with the childcare - I did the same thing. Whilst the baby is more fun, and less onerous, being a man in a woman's world (as in the services provided for mums and babies) is interesting!
26 March 2011 5:54AM
Speaking as a mother of 3 children who are no longer babies, I think it's a good article and does reflect reality for many couples. But it doesn't reflect reality for couples who worked out a plan and stuck to it, of genuinely equal sharing once both are back in full time work, after maternity leave.
To get real equal sharing you both have to make an effort and the father doesn't "help", he does 50%. That means he has to leave meetings at work early occasionally; get up in the night but go to work the next day; organise children's parties etc etc. It worked for us; it probably helped that we had very healthy, contented babies who slept through the night at 3 months. But other couples I know where it's v important that the baby sleeps through the night before the end of maternity leave also achieved it at about 3/4 months.
The article described 2 problems - the woman not the man has to take leave in the UK; that must be abolished as in other countries in favour of shared parental leave. That is the government's fault.
But then she describes the woman still taking a greater share of baby-work after going back to work. That is not inevitable and is the fault of the couple, though mainly of the father. It should be planned differently by both well before going back to work. Also even while on leave both should make sure that the man is fully involved as far as possible even though he's at work. It's not the woman's responsibility to get the man to realise what he should be doing as a father - he's an adult; he can see she's doing more than her share. This idea of the helpless, ignorant male who needs to be told what to do is an insult to fathers. A man who sees his wife, when both are working full-time, doing more than him in terms of childcare and housework is deliberately being lazy because both tasks are often boring.
26 March 2011 6:01AM
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26 March 2011 6:04AM
But he WAS going to work every day, and presumably for money rather than for a lark.
26 March 2011 6:16AM
That might be true in your case. Nevertheless, studies have shown that most well-educated women are not willing - or certainly not happy - to partner with a man whom they do not consider to be at least their equal in terms of income and status. Which is somewhat problematic when it comes to the brutal logistics and economics of choosing who gets to be the one who stays at home. If a successful, professional woman partnered with a man of lower income, it would be a more obvious choice that he should be the one who stayed at home after the first year of the child's life. But unfortunately women seem to be hard-wired - or nurtured - to seek out a man whose professional career is as good as or better than theirs, and then complain when they feel an absence of self-actualization later.
26 March 2011 6:20AM
I'm a childfree woman who has never wanted kids and has not the remotest regret for not having had any. This article illustrates some of the reasons why. So many women I have spoken to, while deeply loving their children, still resent the fact that motherhood has brought them reduced earnings, little or no social life, and endless days of drudgery. Do I feel sorry for these mothers? Not really. They chose to have kids, and must have known what it would entail - I did, which is why I chose not to have any.
But I do think contemporary Western society is uniquely unfriendly to mothers. As other posters have said, the notion that children should be raised by one woman sitting alone in a suburban home is a very, very new one in human history, and by no means universal even now. Plenty of my colleagues are from the Philippines, and many of them have children back home who are being raised by their grandparents. These women dont' see this as being a terrible state of affairs. I'm not saying this is a great situation, of course, no doubt if these women could find a decent job they'd be back home raising their own kids. But it just shows that in many societies, parents are not the only ones considered worthy of raising kids. Throughout history, 'parenting' has been most a communal affair - with the whole community taking some responsibility for all the children. This might sound a bit rose-tinted, and probably is, but it still illustrates the difference between the atomised nature of modern motherhood, and what motherhood was (and often still is) for the vast sweep of human history.
Another point is that many women today have children when they are in their 30s, and so have become used to having their own income and being able to come and go as they please. So having children can seem a major burden to them. Again, I don't really feel sorry for these women, as they chose to become mothers at this point in their lives. But that is how it is for many of them.
26 March 2011 6:26AM
@Kaitain
"But unfortunately women seem to be hard-wired - or nurtured - to seek out a man whose professional career is as good as or better than theirs"
Actually recent studies have shown that in 25% of couples and rising the woman earns more. So presumably when they got married/decided to live together she could see this coming or it was already happening.
Women doctors in particular will often admit that they deliberately married a man with a lesser career because being a doctor involves so much moving about in the JHO and SHO yrs and it would impractical if he had such a high-powered job that he couldn't be flexible.
If in 25% of couples women earn more and in a futher % about the same, then if one had to choose to stay at home, it might well need to be the man. But of course the reality is that in many instances neither will give up work or need to do so.
Probably the ideal situation is one where both earn about the same and both have some degree of flexibility in their work. The article is flawed in dwelling too much on a kind of inevitability of fathers' laziness and incompetence. In my experience it's not inevitable at all - fathers raised by 1950s fathers who did very little at home do not find it difficult to realise what the duties of fathers these days are.
26 March 2011 6:27AM
Sexist,introspective & having issues that need to be addressed at home rather than projecting into a column at work.