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Per previous thread about how marketplace is as odds w/ family:
To be clear, women have been asked to bear the weight of this problem alone for far too long.
To be clear, women have been asked to bear the weight of this problem alone for far too long.
There's a true tension btwn the home & marketplace, but simply expecting women to give full attention to the home (vs. other callings) doesn't challenge the problem in any meaningful way. It is a stopgap measure.
Not only does it fail to adequately honor the public gifts & capacities of female members of community, it also divides the members of the home from each other, making it easier to conquer.
In different seasons, it has made sense for me to be an exclusively SAHM. In other seasons, it made more sense for me to work--both for the good of the family & broader community.
But don't mistake these choices for the ideal. These were entirely pragmatic choices rooted in the limitations of context, resources, & larger systemic factors.
Ideally, a society would value the work of family & those who build it. Ideally, a mother would not have to choose btwn her capacity to bear life & her more public gifts. Ideally, a father's work wouldn't be reduced to income creation.
But we don't live in ideal & too often the marketplace prefers the worker least likely to be disrupted by the demands of family. Insofar as you can, don't play along. Don't normalize this.
Obviously, there are limits to what we can do, especially for those in lower income brackets. It is not the responsibility of the single mother working to put food on table to challenge the system. We must challenge it for her.
And when we do, we'll find that we end up w/ a better world for everyone. B/c A society that knows how to honor the integrity of her work & family life will know how to honor the integrity of your work & family life as well.
