I was going to college, but that didn't matter. I was a "bum."

If you are male and make the same choice you're a deadbeat.

That's what privilege looks like.

However, the other side would blame that thinking itself on the "patriarchy". Nice deal, huh. They can NEVER Lose.

When it is a privilege for me, blame the patriarchy. When it is a disadvantage for me, blame them also.

Find a "problem", then engage in some Olympics-worthy theoretical and logical gymnastics, and voila! Patriarchy!!!

Patriarchy isn't about blame. Blame is separate. Women support patriarchy too. Patriarchy is about gender biases.

and it would be equally meaningless.

The thing about the word "patriarchy" is that it is an attempt to separate out aspects of the culture in an attempt to make them "the Other" and, by externalizing them, make it seem as if it is a "thing" which is poisoning the culture rather than the culture itself.

The word "patriarchy" as used is really just a code word for "NO, we are NOT all in this together."

The most prevalent gender biases are against women, but there are definitely some against men too.

More like half, isn't it.

for staying at home and "not working" any more than men. it may be more acceptable and allowable, but i am not seeing any more respect. never has been and certainly does not exist today. that would be a fairy tale, being created. about the only time the stay at home mom is valued, is when it is an attack on the "working" mother.

but, you being so clever with words made sure your post came off with the workers and the non workers.

that is clear in the OP. and that would be another indication that what i say about us stay at homes moms reality.

it is ok. we made this choice. i have broad shoulders. i can handle the disrespect from total strangers knowing the reality of what we live. all i do and the job, you know work, that i do saves a hell of a lot of money though i will not be receiving a paycheck, or have credit build up, or put into social security for my older years. basically, setting myself up for a lot of hurt if things change. but, i am willling to take that risk for what i gain and our family as a whole gains.

it is harder on the stay at home fathers. but, even in my area, we have a number of stay at home fathers. and the women who also stay at home are capable of respecting that man times what society as a whole does. because what he experiences is the same as women, just greater.

Maybe you didn't get the point.

It is the fact that women have a greater ability to CHOOSE whether to stay at home or work than men do that is unfair.

Nothing in your post shows that you can refute that statement.

acknowledged that. all men, as all women have the "ability to choose". be it a good choice or not.

i am really not getting what your diss of my post is about. it is like there wasnt anything to diss so you kinda created a diss.

but, you did not address the lack of respect for both sexes if they choose to be stay at home, that is clearly in your post.

anyway

i will let you guys at it.

wanted to acknowledge that a stay at home father has it worst, i agree. but it is not a day in the park for stay at home moms either, never has been, as you clearly show in your OP.

Read it again.

"Is it a privilege to be able to stay at home if one chooses?"

That IS the point of the OP.

And yes, women are SOMETIMES disrespected for staying at home, but often they are called "good moms".

How many men who choose to stay at home while their wives work are called "good dads"?

Ummm, about zero.

But thanks for the support.

a lot and never has been) are capable and able to appreciate the stay at home father. to recognize the value of a stay at home allows them to value it from either gender. it is just that simple.

it is just that too many do not/can not/will not appreciate or value what a stay at home gives to the family as a whole.

and yes, i have consistently, hands down, always, with grace (a hell of a lot more grace than you give a stay at home) supported the stay at home father in all my years on du. unequivocally. i LUV my stay at home fathers.

you are welcome.

But the point of the OP is a generalization about the standard treatment from society -but more importantly about the lack of choices available to men as compared to women in that regard.

choices.

we agree.

but, women are not respected that make that choice either. that is my point. so as a family, a couple, and individual we decide if our choice to stay at home is more important to us than respect from strangers and society as a whole.

all my stay at home time, there has been an element of disrespect from others. i get that. i accept that and i still value my choice.

it will be men called lazy ect... women not as much.

so you recognize women will not be respected either. men will just be disrespected even more than women. we both said that in our post.

so seems to me, we agreed on that point.

but then, you pretty much did the same thing, making it clear women who stay at home do not work. in your OP you made your lack of appreciation for stay at home clear. that is directed to fathers that stay at home too, you know, kinda doing exactly what you are accusing society of doing.

I know precisely how much work staying at home is because 20 years ago I chose a job where I do just that.

I do the bulk of the cooking and have raised 3 children.

I cook, clean, do laundry AND work. So yeah, I get it. I have done it all.

But, as I said, it is EASIER for women to arrange that kind of a life IF THEY CHOOSE TO.

THAT is the point. CHOICE. CHOICE. CHOICE.

And men, have less choices. This is, yes, the Men's Forum, where we discuss Men's issues.

I am glad we agreed fundamentally and you do not need to start making stuff up.

Gone are the days when women are expected to stay at home with the kids. Certainly there are fringe groups (mostly social conservatives) who still have that expectation, but they are a small minority. Feminists have done a good job of promoting the idea that women should have choice in that regard and the idea is well accepted by society. Men don't have that advantage. Nobody has been promoting the idea that it's OK for men to have options.

Furthermore while it is true that some devalue women for staying at home, it isn't many. For the vast majority women don't devalue women for staying at home. There's undoubtedly more men that devalue women who stay at home, but still it's a subset of all men. You can't say that about stay at home dads. There's no shortage of men and women who devalue men who stay at home. Understandably you don't, and that's great, but not everyone is like you. Again this goes back to the reality of feminists promoting the value of women in both traditional and non-traditional roles. Men don't have that working for them.

"Feminists have done a good job of promoting the idea that women should have choice in that regard and the idea is well accepted by society. Men don't have that advantage. Nobody has been promoting the idea that it's OK for men to have options."

Some feminists actually do promote the idea it's OK for men to have options.

Why My Son Bobby Needs Feminism Too

Feminism is advocacy for women, period. The social changes supported by feminism are all in service to that goal. In some cases, benefit to men is an incidental side effect.

If the author wasn't Bobby's mom, this topic would be as immaterial to her experience as it is to feminism generally, and she wouldn't feel the need to make this plea to her fellow feminists on his behalf.

I'll believe that feminism is about "equality" or "abolishing gender roles" when I see NOW complaining about the "workplace injury gap" or the "hours spent on the job" gap or "the suicide gap" or the "draft registration gap".

The author of the piece you linked is treading perilously close to "getting it" and therefore being castigated for cuddling up to third wave feminists and their MRA allies.

Reaching equality doesn’t just mean finding ways for women to both parent and have careers but also asking men to both have careers and parent as well. Reaching equality doesn’t simply mean giving women the option to work rather than stay home with their children but rather offering men the same option as well, and with the same expectations and acceptance.
We talk a lot about the pay gap. Well, it strikes me that if a manager has the choice between promoting a man or a woman, and he knows that there is a decent chance that sometime in the next few years the woman may have children and at the very least have to take maternity leave, but that the man’s performance and presence will not be affected if he has children, then the rational choice is for him to promote the man. Because of this, I don’t think we can get rid of the pay gap until we expect fathers to invest the same amount of time and energy into parenting that we expect mothers to invest in parenting. If that same manager looks at the man and the woman knowing that if either has a child their performance and presence will be impacted the same way – parental leave after the birth, and perhaps a need for more flexible hours afterwards – he will no longer have any reason to prefer the man to the woman when it comes to a promotion.

and *my* feminism is about abolishing gender roles.

I think everybody will win if we do that.

Men would more likely than not be looked at differently, more than women, if they made this choice, but the choice is there to make.

If there was some law stating that men couldn't stay home or whatever, that's one thing, but it seems like it's mostly just about how much potential ridicule you're willing to put up with for the choice.

Is it fair that men would be looked at differently than women in this situation? Probably not, but there's little to be done about that other than let time pass and allow norms to change. If you want to be a trailblazer, expect to be noticed, in both good ways and bad.

Would you say that cops hazing female police officers is an illegitimate expression of discrimination? After all, there's no law against women becoming police officers. Besides, what can you do? If the trailblazers are patient, in a few generations that kind of predjudice will go away.

Bonobo is right. The relative lack of "legitimate" life choices among men is a net negative on the privilege-ometer.

Hazing generally encompasses not just emotional but many times physical harassment, and it's in the context of a job where people have to show up.

General societal disapproval, such as it is, for stay at home dads is not really in the same category. That doesn't make it okay, but it's not comparable IMHO.

Off the subject, in my personal experience that societal disapproval has seen a sea change in the past 10 years. Big difference.

I never quite understood how if the patriarchal system of wage slavery is a bad thing, why women would even want to be a part of it. Go build something else. Why force yourself into the patriarchy? But then that's an example of a relative lack of legitimate life choices for the majority of both men and women, since society would not function if people had greater choice in what to do.

Prisoners of history, slaves to the future.

And even at that;
a) it wasn't really a choice, but a reaction to economic and family circumstance. Her skills were in demand, mine were not, and our autistic child responded better to my parenting style than hers.
b) We had saved a few years salary during my working life
c) I used the time to build a new house

...My wife's friends would still say "when are you going to get a job?"

No. Men don't have a choice to stay at home and not work. They can't "have it all".

Last edited Fri Oct 4, 2013, 08:25 PM - Edit history (1)

Not the least of which is the tendency of ANY thread or discussion in this group, to spawn multiple iterations of "critical analysis" and/or complaints, depending on who you ask. So speaking of under-appreciated jobs, I think everyone should take a moment to thank the internet's myriad unappreciated original content providers, for giving the rest of everyone something to do and talk about.



Okay- On the topic of staying at home (and I would take issue, personally, with the "not work" part, but I'll get there) ... I do think it is a privilege, in this day and age, given economic realities, for ANY family to be able to have a parent at home with little kids. That's simple reality, taking into account what has happened with income disparity and the vanishing middle class. Now, lest I be accused of willful blindness on the part of having literally grown up in a house with Andy Griffith, Bea Arthur, Miss Yvonne from "Romper Room", Eddie's Father and Wally Cleaver- obviously the reality of women having to work did not start with the 1960 or 70s or 80s, certainly for many demographics in the US.

But, for the sake of argument, let's stick to the socio-cultural changes which have taken place, presumably mostly in middle class America, in the past few decades, where many families which once in the postwar era might have functioned on one income now require two. I don't think to acknowledge this indicates any willful blindness or cultural insularity- these are trends which have been widely noted and have accelerated particularly since the Reagan era. In addition to this, women have entered the workforce- some by choice, some not- in greater numbers, in part because as a society we are moving towards a more gender egalitarian outlook; unquestionably, a good thing.

Let me divert, for a moment, onto the notion of "Patriarchy" (And The Patriarchy, two terms often used interchangeably) ... I've said before, in this group, I think obviously Western Civilization, particularly as per the big Western Monotheistic religions, has historically had a patriarchal orientation. Like, duh. And some of that remains, but fortunately this society, I think, is moving again away from that. I think things have gotten significantly better in the past decades. And yes, the same freeing from rigid gender expectations which allows a woman to be a CEO, allows and should allow a man to be a SAHD.

Thing with "Patriarchy" (not to mention "The Patriarchy&quot as a term, and jesus if I can't get through one of these TL;DR posts without diverging into Korzybski and the limitations and fallacies of labels- "Patriarchy" is one of these things like "The Holy Ghost"- don't worry about what it means, what the accepted common definition is or if there even is one- the important question is, do you ACCEPT or DENY it.

Well, it's a label; and a label for certain attitudes and behaviors which sometimes applies, sometimes doesn't. The phenomena it describes are either there, or not, whatever label you slap on it. And it's not helped by being conflated with "The Patriarchy", which is, as near as I can tell, a conspiracy theory promoted on certain extremist blogs which posits an Illuminati-like cabal plotting to run the planet, bomb the moon, and convince the world's women- who, apparently, if left to their own natural inclinations would never have anything to do with a penis, ever- that somehow "PIV" is "natural" (making me part of the spooky evo-psych conspiracy if I suggest that, yeah, it probably is).

I'm not approaching these questions from a purely academic standpoint; I've done my own time as a SAHD. When I started with it, back before the economic clusterfuck of the latter part of the Bush II years, shit yes there were people who thought it was "weird" or raised their eyebrows or clucked or whatever. The thing that really used to yank my chain, for some odd reason, would be the little old ladies at the park who would see me with a baby and assume I didn't know what I was doing, or the grandpas who would go "givin' the little lady the day off, huh heh heh".. Interestingly enough, literally the minute the crash came, all that shit stopped. Not only was there suddenly something hip or trendy about what I was doing- and, in fact, had been doing all along- people would ask me shit like "oh, are you one of those dads who blogs about being a stay at home dad"? I'd be like, no, I don't have fucking time for that.

Either way, it was goofy. But, see, here's the secret- and this was always who I was, although as I've gotten older I've just become more entrenched or unapologetic about it- I just have never been someone who gives much of a shit, what other people think. Or if I did, I got over it fairly early on. Random clucks from people I don't know, or want to know? Why the hell would I Care?

I mean, like they say, opinions are like assholes- everyone has at least one, some folks have several.

Or something like that.

And On that note, I'll say "To Be Continued".

Which is not to say "I'm so great, I'm above it all"... but I have spent my life seeking out communities and circles that are open-minded and non-judgmental; this is why I gravitated towards the hippies, in college (in addition to the music and, okay, the fact that they smoked the best pot) Really, the attitudes of people who sniffed or harumphed over my staying at home were never more than a blip- now they strike me as just funny.

I mean, objectively, if the genders in my household were reversed no way in hell would anyone think it was "weird" for me to be the one at home. I think I have a healthy appreciation for my own intellectual capabilities, but compared to my wife, I'm a blithering idiot. Seriously. Not in like a "oh, dad's a bumbling ninny" sitcom sort of way, for real. She's far sharper than me. So at various times it has made perfect sense for her to be the one with the "real" job, and neither of us got particularly hung up on the matter.

In terms of domestic work, etc... there were certainly times when I felt sort of like Jackie Robinson, I felt I had to do everything that much better or I had something to prove. But that was 100% my own trip. And although especially early on my cooking was nothing to write home about. But I mentally compared my own workload to that of the stay-at-home moms I knew... I can't speak for all of them, but I know that while I was doing the majority if not all of the "domestic" stuff- cleaning, laundry, etc. incl child care and diapers, I was also doing all the yard work, the branch trimming, the lawn aeration, that sort of stuff. Most of the SAHMs I knew, their husbands dealt with that on the weekends, or they hired gardeners. So long story short I never felt like I was taking advantage of some awesome deal, work-wise. I have a pretty decent self-appraisal of my own faults; I can be lazy, sure, but I make up for it with furious bouts of getting-lots-of-shit-done... but certainly during the times when I stayed at home I pulled my own share and it absolutely was "work". Hard work, especially with babies.

It's funny, because in one of these discussions, a well-known legendarily toxic and now-banned DU member, in another group, had a Saskatchewan-sized shitfit over the idea that staying home with kids was "a job". Oh, fuck, did she ever get mad about that, with long tirades regarding how sure we'd all love to sit home and eat bon-bons and take calgon baths all day but it's not a real job and of course in "the old days" kids (babies even!) really "raised themselves"

...Yeah.

I've done both. I know a lot of people who've done both. There are advantages- particularly for an anti-social jerk like myself- to being one's own boss and taking care of things on the home front; but most folks I know who've stayed at home have said given the choice they'd see, say, an office gig as the welcome respite. My wife has been up front and honest and said it would have driven her nuts within a very short amount of time. But she also needs to be around people, more than I do. The isolation of it never bugged me, as I know it bugs many stay-at-homes.

But a lot of this stuff, when you get right down to it- and I'm sure some people will get mad at me for saying this- these are battles which need to be fought in our own heads. Lao Tzu or someone claiming to be Lao Tzu made the comment about the man (or woman) who conquers himself (or herself), conquers the world.

Sure, that's happy talk, privilege talk, the talk of SUV driving yuppies who do yoga and read "the secret". But, it's also got some truth. We walk around bounded by these invisible walls and limitations that maybe we didn't put there, but they only exist in our own heads. No one is "stopping" a man from being a stay at home dad by talking shit about him. They're just being assholes.

It's funny, there was another thread about gender expectations and boys growing up. My nephew- perfect example; if I managed to come around in later life to not really caring what other people thought, this kid came right out of the gate with it. He used to wear pink, he broke his arm and got a pink cast... the doctor was like "a pink cast? aren't you worried kids are going to make fun of you?" He didn't care. And guess what- they didn't. He owned it, he just didn't give a shit, he never gave a shit, he wore his not giving a shit like an armored suit.... and the kid still doesn't give a shit.

That does not mean that I was imagining it when, after being introduced to us, my son's kindergarten teacher stepped between my wife and I, turned his back on me and started to explain his educational plans for the son for whom I was the stay-at-home.

(in fairness, it happened every year, but this was the first and worst example)

From then on, if there was a school conference and it was apparent that there was a head to the conference table, I sat there. "Shall we begin?"

The barriers created by social expectation are real and tangible. A guy reentering the workforce after a period of "unemployment" is at a serious disadvantage.

Being ignored at the preschool get acquainted picnic by the parent helper because the assumption is that "Mom" is coming, she's the one to deal with.

I just sort of laugh at those people... They always seem to me to be the uptight ones, the ones sort of stuck in the past.

What you describe is tangible and certainly more pernicious when you're talking about the hit ANY stay at home -man or woman- takes on their resume.

i think from a cultural perspective, things are changing organically, and at a brisk clip (living in a progressive area helps) ... From an economic or legal or structural one, I've long held that we ought to be making our society and our workforce more family friendly (no, not in a "HELP! I saw a nipple at halftime" sense) ...in the sense of better leave, more flex time, more corporate understanding of the juggling people need to do to make shit work...

Know what I think is going to help? Honestly? The ACA. If workers are no longer terrified of losing thier jobs due to their kids' health coverage, that makes them en masse a LOT less easy to intimidate.

Which is a big unspoken reason for the GOP freakout over it IMHO.

Last edited Sat Oct 5, 2013, 11:48 PM - Edit history (1)

That's bad. Last week my husband went to my son's conference as I had a dr appt. It was fine....that is so rude what happened to you.

I agree about being male and re-entering the workforce....I consider ourselves so fortunate that my husband's job is safe. Not trying to brag, but starting in 2000 we saw so many people losing their jobs and are still are seeing it.

I met up with a friend last week and her husband was so stressed out at his job for a very good company he was worried he was going to die of a heart attack. He took a much-less paying position within the company and she was so supportive. Financially, they can make it work so they are fortunate....she works as well.

Last edited Sat Oct 5, 2013, 09:45 AM - Edit history (1)

It's funny, because I love isolating, like shopping but hate malls so do most of my shopping online except for make-up and my TJ-Maxx runs. I had a friend who goes to the mall every damn day....she lives around the corner and we don't talk much anymore as we didn't have much in common.

She loved going clubbing every weekend as "girls night out" and that's cool....just not my scene. Did plenty of that in the past and if I need to get away I go to my friend's house next door or across the street.

She criticized my lifestyle when my husband traveled all the time..."I would never put up with that; I couldn't live like that" meanwhile she's itching to get away from her husband. Umm, am I supposed to tell my husband to quit a good job that he loves? That's selfish. It was tough at times but I got used to it and the kids and I had a good routine going. I'm not a baby; quite the opposite.

Getting back to shopping, my husband loves grocery shopping and I hate it, so he does the majority of it. I do tease him as he'll be gone for 2 hours but in his words "he likes putting around." One of my sisters thinks it's so weird and asked me if he's having an affair. I'm like at 8am on a Sunday morning when he hasn't showered (at least he brushes he teeth before he goes) I would hope not....nah...not happening.

This discussion makes me think of the book by Tom Perrota "Little Children" which was a great movie with Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson about the bizarre characters and stereotypes of gender and suburbia.

Overall, the studies found consequences for any employee who violated traditional gender roles when it came to having a family. The least harassed in the office? Fathers and mothers who followed more traditional gender norms; that is, men who did less caregiving and domestic tasks at home and women who did more.
The results suggest that how well a worker performs their gender role in the home has more bearing on how they are treated at work than how well that worker performs their job. As a result, men and women are likely to feel pressure at work to conform to traditional roles at home. "They may choose not to have children if these traditional roles are not feasible for them, or get in the way of family or career goals," according to Prof. Berdahl.
Prof. Berdahl points out that workplace treatment is different from pay and promotions. "Both male and female employees suffer lower pay and fewer promotions after taking time off work to care for family, to extents that cannot be explained by possible skill loss, hours, performance, or ambition."

Last edited Sat Oct 5, 2013, 09:48 AM - Edit history (1)

All I can say is, I've been there too, more times than I like to count. You're spot on about all of it. And you can't feel responsible. But I'm very sorry.

I feel the worst for my parents.

It still seems that despite their sooper-dooper edumacations, some folk still don't grasp the relatively simple concept that anecdotal evidence is apropos of precisely fuck-all...

Isn't that proof?

Just want to get that out there so I can see how long before I hear about "that dimwit in the mens group who said Up is Down!!!"

Unreal.

Y'know, I could do a lot of wild speculating about people's "situation" based on things written and said on DU, but somehow I doubt it would go un-alerted on.

might be one of the best public services we could offer. The surveillance team assigned to us certainly could use some brushing up, and there's a 100% chance they'll see it if it's posted here.

Sorry for getting off track last night.

It is a privilege to stay home and not work; it is also a job...even if you aren't earning a paycheck.

It is sad to see men treated differently if they are the ones that stay home....it would never cross my mind to view them as "deadbeats" but I generally tend to stay out of other people's business.

That's judgmental and pretty damn rotten, imo.

I self-deleted my posts that have already probably been read by everyone, but I usually don't like dumping my personal baggage here and out of respect for my sister. She's a damn good person, huge liberal and was the smartest out of 5 kids...she's just really, really sick.

lumberjack_jeff and Warren, thank you for your kind words.

I feel it was nice you shared. I am only sorry I didn't respond last night (my partner came home after a week in Houston). I understand your situation, partly. My entire family is on the East Coast and I am in Oklahoma. It is never easy for me to get home. Since I don't have a job, I am thought of as having "nothing important" to do. Sure, we don't have children, but we have 4 Chihuahuas, a cat, and birds, besides of the things I do around the house, shopping, and all the finances. It is disrespectful to me and to my relationship.

As for the other situation, I hope she will get the help she needs. Positive thoughts for you and her.

Being the cynic that I am, I think there are people that will gossip and use personal shit you've shared against you...not in this group but I have witnessed it on DU and felt bad for people that were targeted.

I'm glad you can relate....that's a lot of animals to care for! We have a hyper (but cute) rescue dog we adopted when his first adopter returned him 8 months later saying "she wasn't a dog person"...we also have 2 cats and I discovered a stray one living in our garage this week and my husband's giving me the evil eye about her but in reality he's a huge softie, so we may end up with a third.

My guy helps me around the house, loves to cook and bake and is very helpful as I have chronic pain issues....that's another story.

What makes me most proud is that we raised truly good, smart, empathetic liberal kids (keeping fingers crossed as I was a pretty bad teenager) and I was the primary parent for 10 years. That's not saying my husband wouldn't have done the same job if not better as I have a pretty short fuse where nothing fazes him...except Republicans. He would have instilled the same liberal values.


I got 2 updates today from my family regarding my sister and they weren't good. That's all I want to say.

Thanks again, and I'm really glad you are a part of this group.

Here's a link I referred to last night: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11148025#post42

ETA: The only thing that matters is a mutual respect between partners no matter what side of the coin you're one. Fuck everybody else.

Sadly, your cynicism is well founded. It is a definite risk to share, but sometimes the benefits may outweigh the consequences. Of course, there are always PMs.

I am fortunate that my man is also quite helpful. It has been very hard and emotionally draining to have been out of work for almost 10 years. I feel like a failure. Everyone tries to be supportive, but it often comes across as "just do X", "you need to get out there and do Y", "stop feeling sorry for yourself," and the list goes on. It is always from a place of love, but sometimes, it stings. Fortunately, he has never done that to me. Sometimes I think we have it easier than heterosexual couples because we don't have the "wo/man's work" bullshit. We do what we like, and sometimes have to divvy up the chores we don't, usually based on who can do it better.

I am sorry to hear about the bad updates. Try and stay strong, but if you need to unload, just send a PM with the following, "I am just unloading, I don't need a response. Please delete after reading." And I will gladly do so. Or, if you want to chat, I am good with that too.

I am also glad you are a part of this group, to me it adds to the diversity of the group, which is oddly, often called into question.

Seeing as we both have so much free time.

Thank again; I really appreciate it.

When I wish I had the suave, "Hollywood-scripted" type of comment to make... Sadly, though, I'm usually just not that good at that sort of thing, but, I think you're an awesome person, and I hope things work themselves out. I too have seen various addictions up close & personal, and I know all too well the wake of destruction it can leave in its path.

Thanks...I think you're awesome too.

All I ask is to keep your intelligent, hilarious posts coming and most importantly, the pictures!

For nearly all of human history everybody stayed home. Whether it was a farm, store or craft Mom and Dad were both home all the time since the economic production of the family depended on it. Men and women were equally as economically productive and indeed good luck really separating out who might be more important. In those days, the women made basically everything the family used except the house they lived in and the shoes they wore.

Then with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, someone had to start leaving home daily to go out and earn a wage. In the factories the men began producing for a wage much of what the women used to make at home. This trend accelerated for the simple fact that with Dad out of the house Mom controlled most of household spending and immediately began spending it on things that made her life easier and the men began producing more and more of these things in the factories. Even in 1942 women were controlling 80% of household spending.

By the 1960's women's roles had truncated down to mostly keeping the house and taking care of the kids - a mere fraction of what her work duties used to be, while the man then had to assume 100% of the family's economic burden up from 50% before that.

So following from all that, the women of the 20th and 21st centuries have been THE first people in all of human history allowed as an enormous group to be economically non-productive. Basically, their roles became similar to the roles of privileged women of the aristocratic class for all of prior human history.

So yes being economically non-productive while someone else does that for you is privilege.

A stay at home spouse does play a vital role in both the microeconomy of the home as well as the macroeconomy in which the working spouse participates, and the society into which the (hopefully) well-adjusted kids will join.

It's a privilege to have a legitimate choice, but it isn't a choice between "productive" and "not".

In the late 1800's, the average workweek was 60 hours. It stands to reason (at least to me) that two people, before cars, electricity and phones, working this kind of schedule couldn't raise kids effectively. Also, hauling and heating water, getting ice, washing clothing by hand and preparing food from scratch meant that domestic tasks took proportionately longer.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.work.hours.us

I think you're misunderstanding me. Prior to the Industrial revolution women played a crucial indispensible role in the material economy of the family. The IR freed them from that. The service economy gave them a choice.

I understand what you're saying about the 60 hr work week and I agree. But when it came time to go out to the dangerous steel mill or the dirty factory, who went? Who had to assume that role as a wage slave while the other was able to maintain the millenia old family connection?

People tend to view the past through the lens of the present and we think of equality as the opportunity to work in an office in the career of one's choice. But back when those things were changing, in many ways total equality with her husband would have meant taking those horrible jobs. Jobs so horrible that the only women that actually took any of them were the ones from families so poor that they had no other choice.

Staying home is the privilege of living like a human being like human beings have lived for thousands of years.

The industrial revolution didn't reduce labor in the home or out. Modern hunter gatherer tribes work less than 8 hours each day, usually more like 4. Farming was hard work, but men who moved from the farms to the city saw their workweek shoot up to nearly 70 hours weekly in the 1830's.

I don't think the IR freed women from their crucial indispensable role, nor did it materially reduce the time required to perform it. What it did do was artificially divide men and women in the home, particularly when it came to child-rearing. In the early pioneer days of this country, it was considered the father's job to homeschool the kids. Parenting was largely shared, even if the tasks of fathering and mothering were dramatically different.

As working hours (both inside and outside the home) declined, the new artificial parenting firewall persisted.

I think this has caused some nontrivial harm to kids, particularly boys, who have been told, generation through generation that when they become fathers the wellbeing of their kids is only their business in a financial sense.

So the more I think about this, I think it's not so much about "privilege" as "unrecognized responsibility".

What do you do to benefit society? Shit on people that do?

Just because someone is economically non-productive doesn't mean they're lazy or anything like that. In some ways you could classify police officers and soldiers as economically non-productive since they don't really produce anything. Their protection is indispensible and important, but in a pure sense they are economically non-productive. It's an imperfect analogy but I hope you get my drift.

I'm not saying there's something wrong with someone who's not. I used to be a stay at home parent and quite honestly I felt it was a privilege to stay home with my young daughter and not have to work.


Maybe you should ask a couple of questions or something first before you start launching the insults.

Why you would do that, I don't know, but I don't care for it.

I'm not understating it. In fact I used o be a stay at home parent and honestly it's much easier than it's made out to be. I used to hang out with the neighborhood moms then too and most of them didn't really start doing much work around the house until the kids got home.

Please note that economically non-productive doesn't mean lazy or anything like that. It means not producing anything economically or materially. Prior to the stay at home phenom pretty much all men and women produced. In the 1950's nearly half the adult population didn't have to.

Regardless of your "neighborhood moms"...

Men cannot discuss, in general, mens' issues without being accused of all sorts of personal things.

If you think men have less choices than women wrt staying at home, then that is the SAME as saying that women have forced men to become wage slaves.

Saying that men face certain difficulties is the SAME as whining.

Saying that men have few options other than working their whole lives is the SAME as saying that white upper middle class men are the MOST oppressed group in history.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3798328

(no pun intended!)

It never gets old.

My life hasn't been the same since!

At the State Theater in Olympia on three consecutive days with three different dates.

Good times.

As far as the rest? Play the ball where it lies. And it's going to lie a lot.

I love silly movies...anything by Mel Brooks!