Homecare Not the Norm

This is from Kairos Journal today, an article highlighting some of the findings in studies of daycare in the UK, with reference to American studies as well. I only post this as a way of saying that common sense would say this is not the best direction to go, and as the article notes, the exception has become the norm. Sometimes the exception is the best one can do. Life is like that. But it does no good if those who say they are experts in public policy, want to run for office, or teach and influence others, if they don't acknowledge what is best. It's rare that we achieve the best in life: but it should be a goal and the acceptance of the status quo in this matter says a lot about the value the society as a whole places on children, regardless of how much we as individuals love and cherish our children. When the economics have changed so radically as to make it extremely difficult for many families to get by, exceptions have to be made. Something "should be done" about this, but I am not wise enough to know what would work and ease the burdens and make what's best attainable for many. It used to be.

Comments

[The Fish]

This is nothing new but, interestingly, before I clicked the link, I assumed the 'homecare' discussed was for the elderly. Seems like we're burning that candle at both ends.

[susan peterson]

I also read "homecare" and thought elderly. It seems odd even to have a name for the natural pattern of raising children at home. It probably should also seem odd to have a name for the natural pattern of taking care of the elderly at home. If we were taking care of our children at home it would be easier also to take care of our elderly at home, wouldn't it. We have to be willing to be poorer. But also men have to be willing to value what women do when they are at home and not say, for instance that the tricycles go where I say they go because I made the money that bought them, for instance, rather than considering the needs of the woman who is in the home and deals with the children all day. This is an example from my own life when I was a stay at home mom...who had walked with three kids of preschool age and while pregnant, many blocks to a thrift store to buy the trikes for a few bucks,and then back, with the trikes....but that labor didn't "count." I think that what I did when I was home with my kids was of way more value than what I do now in my current bureaucratic job, but somehow I feel of more value with my paycheck than I did then. Somehow I think this attitude in our culture, as internalized by women, is at least as important as financial necessity and the rising standards which make luxury seem like financial necessity. Susan Peterson

[W.E.D. Godbold]

I think Susan is right about that. Husbands ought to praise and honor (verbally, certainly) their wives for staying home and doing what is right in raising the kids rather than doing what is convenient and institutionalizing them (while bringing home a paycheck).

(Note that I understand that sometimes that paycheck *is* a necessity, but I also think it is sometimes easier to think the paycheck is a necessity than to do the hard work of living more inconvienently.)

[Isamashii Yuubi (Courageous Grace)]

This is a topic I've been thinking about quite a bit lately. My husband and I live in a 2 bedroom loft-style apartment, and as most of y'all know are expecting our first in the next 6 weeks or so. Hubby has a good job, and we seem to be doing okay financially. Until we realized that I have a ton of student loans to pay off right now, we have a car to pay off, and we can't seem to be able to put any money in savings. I wouldn't find this situation so bad right now except for the fact that we're about to have a baby and in a couple of years this apartment is just not going to cut it. Don't get me wrong, it's a great apartment but right now we've got our office and nursery in the upstairs loft. When this child starts to get more mobile we're not going to be able to confine him to a 5' x 5' corner of a room.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm ready for a house (even a rental would work). I'm ready to get out of apartment life and I think my hubby agrees. There is no way we will be able to save up for a down payment on a house in the next couple of years unless I get a job. So I plan on getting my teaching certification (elementary) so we can pay our bills and save a little bit each month for a down payment on a house of our own. Unfortunately since we have no family in the area to babysit when I am working, daycare seems to be my only option.

I think "necessity" is kind of in the eye of the beholder. Some might think our dream of buying our first house is not a necessity but a convenience, but in our opinion it is a necessity to have a house to raise our son in and get out of apartment living. Especially since hubby has told me he'd like to try for a girl in the future...which DEFINITELY won't work in our current apartment.

So all that being said (and getting back to the point of daycare), I very much dislike the idea of putting my child into daycare (I used to be a daycare teacher). However, it is our only feasible option we can see to be able to provide a decent home for him and any future children. Well, that or me working from home but I'm a college graduate with almost no work experience and no contacts in my field (graphic design) so that's a much less likely option.

[o.h.]

Isamashii,

I don't necessarily have any great advice, but I found myself in similar circumstances with my first child: crippling student loans, small apartment in an expensive city, and a sudden realization that I didn't want to put my baby in daycare and continue the aggressive and high-paying career I'd just embarked upon.

There's no magic pill. What you do, is decide if you're serious that you're going to stay home with your own baby. Then you do whatever that takes. First you need to know if your husband supports your staying home, because he's going to have to share in the sacrifices; this is going to be a lot tougher if he's disappointed with your not working.

From what you say, undesirable as apartment life is with a baby, you can't afford a house, even renting. We couldn't either. We ended up in a low-income, but clean and neighborly, mostly immigrant apartment complex, where our Vietnamese neighbors were amazed that we had an entire apartment for only two adults and a baby. We lived outside the expensive city and my husband took public transportation. We didn't eat out, we ate a lot of potatoes and beans for dinners, we bought clothes at thrift stores. It turns out you need a lot less "baby stuff" than you think; lots of babies hate cribs, swings, and other pricey items. Resale stores will get you your baby items and a fraction of their cost new.

Don't try in advance to figure out how you can make it work. You don't know what things will be like in a year; don't even try to think in terms of "what if we want a girl later?" I guarantee your circumstances then will be unimaginable to you now.

Make the commitment to being there for your little baby *first*; the rest will work itself out. Trust in God. This will be easier when you have your sweet child in your arms. YMMV.

[Bill R]

God bless, O.H. Very, very wise. And appropriate for this Advent as we anticipate the great Nativity.

[RMC]

O.H. is absolutely right. Hubby and I are expecting #2 in June, and we both have hefty piles of student loans (plus car payments, etc.). We live in a cheap little two bedroom apartment in a quiet rural area. I stay home with our toddler, who is easily the cheapest part of our life. Her primary needs are love, attention, and a little discipline here and there. We never bought most of the "baby necessities" for her, and definitely won't be throwing the money away for her brother or sister. If you had asked me two years ago if raising a baby like this was possible, I probably would have thought you were crazy. But it has been such a blessing- sacrifices and all- to spend each precious moment with my daughter. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

[Isamashii Yuubi (Courageous Grace)]

Thank you for the advice. Heh, we haven't had to buy a single baby item. We're using the crib that my dad made for my sister and me, and everything else we've received from friends. Even a ton of

Actually, if we were to buy a house, it wouldn't be here in Dallas. Most likely we'd move to Grand Prairie where house prices aren't quite so high, and hubby would still be able to drive to work. This would also place us closer to our friends (who will be able to babysit). Considering what we're paying for apartment rent, we're likely to have a lower monthly house payment. We have our reasons for wanting to move to a house, many of which I can't exactly explain.

Part of my choice to get my certification (the first six months or so of the training would include night classes where hubby can take care of baby. Daycare wouldn't begin until I start my internship) is also, I admit, a selfish reason. I have been without a job for over a year and frankly I'm tired of being home all the time with just the cat. None of our friends live close by and I very rarely get out to do anything other than grocery shopping. I obviously realize that having a baby is going to require my time and attention, but I do need some time to do something for myself or I'm going to go crazy.

I do agree very much with you that we should put our trust in God. Who knows what will happen. I've even been thinking about the REC parish nearby which also has an Episcopal pre-school which might be a better option than traditional daycare. The decision whether or not to put him in daycare is still quite a ways off so we'll just see what happens.

[Isamashii Yuubi (Courageous Grace)]

Please don't mind the sentence fragment hanging on the end of that first paragraph of my last post...I have no idea what happened. I also have no idea what I was writing there. Chalk it up to "baby ate my brain" syndrome ;)

[Jill C.]

Grace, I'm sorry your soon-coming child doesn't have a Grandma nearby that might be willing to help with "homecare." I have my two-year old grandson on Mondays and Thursdays and his other Grandma in Haltom City has him Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. (Our son and daughter-in-law live in Grand Prairie. :) I went against the flow and stayed home with my two until they'd finished high school! (We homeschooled.) I wish my daughter-in-law could be at home with her son at least part time but they've chosen not to take that route. Once your child is born you might decide you don't want to leave him with anybody for quite awhile.

[Isamashii Yuubi (Courageous Grace)]

Jill: I wish either one of his Grandmas lived nearby. My mother-in-law lives on the Mississippi gulf coast, my disabled mother lives near Sherman. My father-in-law is the only relative that lives nearby (just north of Ft. Worth), but for reasons I will not discuss hubby and I have decided he is not to be left alone with our kid.

When I was little I spent most of my time with my grandparents on my mom's side (partially because we lived with them for a number of years) while my mom worked. I think it's a shame my little one won't be able to have a similar experience.

[Jenny Islander]

If you do decide to work full-time as a home caregiver to your child (and, yes, wow, that sounds weird!), I have three suggestions as a ditto of two:

1. Have something to do that involves the presence of other people every day that your husband is at work. Even sitting on the front steps for a few minutes with a snack, saying hello to the neighbors as they go in, will help your and their sanity immeasurably. If you qualify under income guidelines, you may even have an adult come to you in the Parents As Teachers program or a similar program in your area. And there are probably a lot of groups for mothers of young children in your area that you aren't aware of now because you never needed them before.

2. Get a side job, something flexible that you can do while your husband is at home so your income won't be eaten up by child care costs. Merchandising at (a) nearby store(s) is a good one. Secret shopping can bring in extra money if you sign up with a legitimate brand experience company and not a shady operation that wants to sell your e-mail address. There are all kinds of small jobs that let you feel like a grown-up and give you your own money.

3. Join an online support group. It's easy to block out time for this: just nurse at the keyboard! I belong to the Gentle Christian Mothers myself.

[Jenny Islander]

Oops. I should clarify item 1 in the above list. "Their sanity" refers to your family.

[Beth]

"There are all kinds of small jobs that let you feel like a grown-up and give you your own money."

I do hope that you are not seriously saying that a woman who is making a home for her family and raising her children -- a vocation that takes a great deal more maturity than many jobs outside the home, if it's done well -- must have a paying job and her own money to "feel like a grown-up."

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I do hope that you are not seriously saying that a woman who is making a home for her family and raising her children -- a vocation that takes a great deal more maturity than many jobs outside the home, if it's done well -- must have a paying job and her own money to "feel like a grown-up." <<<

Reality check time for all.

There has only been a very short period in our history when women stayed home and raised children without also engaging in some form of revenue-generating activity. That period lasted from about 1950 to the end of the 1960s. It was anomalous and due to a convergence of certain conditions which themselves were anomalous and unlikely to repeat themselves any time soon.

The historical norm from the founding of the colonies through the end of the 19th century was for women to raise children AND work--mostly in home-based business. For most of that time, the business was the farm, but most families also supplemented their income by canning and jarring foods, baking cakes, and selling homemade good in the local market, including cloth, crafts and other products.

As the country urbanized, women took on other home businesses, including sewing, laundering, tutoring, and home manufactures. A smaller number of women, mainly in the Northeast, worked in mills and factories for wages. In many industries, they were preferred because their small hands and nimble fingers were better suited for delicate work. This pattern continued through World War II, when large numbers of women entered the industrial workplace, doing traditionally male jobs such as welding, riveting and tooling.

After the war, men returned home, and in contrast to previous wars, there was no recession--having largely blown up the rest of the world, the U.S. and its intact industrial base boomed to supply the world with things it was not capable of making for itself. All those men who came back could thus be fully employed (that a large number went to college under the GI Bill also helped constrain the labor pool for several years). They also wanted to start families (lots of pent up demand), and for the first time had the wherewithal to allow their wives to stay home and NOT work at the same time.

There followed another anomalous period in which women began to work outside of the home in large numbers while their children were watched by other people. In itself, this was not unusual--throughout history, mothers have gone off to work leaving their children with babysitters--but those babysitters generally consisted of grandmothers and aunts, not strangers working for pay. The current situation arose due to the post- World War II social mobility that allowed families to disperse across the country, as well as the generous social security and private retirement systems that make those over age 70 the most affluent demographic cohort in the country (they have the highest net wealth, but paradoxically, rather low income).

I see the situation beginning to reverse itself due to several factors. First, a general reaction against the shortcomings of the present system by people who were actually raised under it (just as the decline in divorce rates is also due to the reaction of the children of divorce). Second, the impending retirement of the boomers will tighten the labor market and boost wages, allowing more women to forsake traditional wage-based businesses and stay at home. Third, the internet and the rise of the knowledge-based economy will allow more women to work from home; telecommuting will become more common, and more women will start their own net-based businesses that will permit them to revert to the traditional model of raising kids and working--but from the home, not from a business. Family businesses will become more common, and children will be more involved in them, just as children were involved in family businesses when mom and pop ran the corner grocery and lived in the apartment upstairs.

[Beth]

It was hardly my point that anything is wrong with women making money, or that they haven't in past cultures. (Although the family farm or business is a far cry from the 2-career wealthy families of today.)

What is wrong is the suggestion that a woman *must* make money to "feel like a grownup" -- that it is somehow infantilizing for a woman to teach her children at home, be involved in her church and community as a volunteer, while sewing and canning and all the sorts of things that allow her husband's salary to be stretched to the maximum . . . like my mother, for example, whose wise stewardship ensured, in conjunction with my father's salary, that they are now independent in their old age, with the ability to pay for their healthcare after some years of enjoying travel for pleasure and missions . . .

I don't frankly care if a wife/mother makes money in some way -- good heavens, that's none of my business. The Lord works His way in people's lives without reference to me. What I care about is the deadly attitude that it takes a paying job to make a grown-up. No more so than it is wrong to have a paying job.

[Beth]

By the way, I don't know that Jenny meant the comment as I have critiqued it -- it seemed tongue-in-cheek, but it's a concept that we *do* hold today, in the broader culture and in the church, and I think it is a dangerous one.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>What is wrong is the suggestion that a woman *must* make money to "feel like a grownup" -- that it is somehow infantilizing for a woman to teach her children at home, be involved in her church and community as a volunteer, while sewing and canning and all the sorts of things that allow her husband's salary to be stretched to the maximum . . . like my mother, for example, whose wise stewardship ensured, in conjunction with my father's salary, that they are now independent in their old age, with the ability to pay for their healthcare after some years of enjoying travel for pleasure and missions . . .<<<

Nothing makes you appreciate financial independence as not having any. It sounds like a good idea for a woman to be entirely dependent on her husband for financial security, but in practice it tends not to work out so well. One of the aspects of Roman law as compared to Greek law was women, while legally required to be in "manus" (i.e., under the authority of an adult male), could and usually did control her own financial resources, including her dowry and anything she managed to accrue through the use of her dowry. Her husband could not, without her permission, alienate that dowry, so that when a woman was divorced or abandoned by her husband, she had a means of living. In addition, Roman women could be sui juris; i.e., independent legal entities (even if unfranchised). When the Roman Empire was Christianized, these concepts carried over and became part of our legal heritage--and a good thing too. One need only look at those cultures in which women are not in control of their own finances but are entirely dependent upon men. In such cultures, women do tend to be infantilized, are incapable of living independent of men, and thus become the possessions of men.

Your parents are the beneficiaries of that benign confluence of conditions of which I spoke in my first post. Those conditions did not generally exist in the past, and probably will not exist again in the future--they were sui generis, and the price paid for the emergence of those conditions--a global war--were probably more than the opportunity was worth. After all, the children raised under those "ideal" conditions were the Baby Boomers--very much NOT the greatest generation.

>>>What I care about is the deadly attitude that it takes a paying job to make a grown-up. No more so than it is wrong to have a paying job.<<<

When the family was the primary financial unit--whether the family farm or the family business--women were grown-up because they were principal stakeholders in the endeavor. When women worked outside the family to contribute to the family business, they were also grown up. I'm not saying that staying at home and raising the children while not contributing to the family income is NOT grown up, but neither is it any guarantee. Looked at through open eyes, a lot of the women who did just that in the 50s and 60s WERE infantile (and raised infantile children, to boot!). Conversely, there are a lot of infantile women working outside the home today. Working or not working does not ensure either intellectual or emotional maturity. On the other hand, having a financial stake in the success of the family does seem to contribute to maturity. At one time it was a matter of pure survival--no job skills could mean the difference between survival and starvation. Today, it's not necessary, as a rule, because the STATE has guaranteed survival through welfare, subsidies and pensions. Of course, that infantilizes ALL of us, and contributes more to the decay of the family than all the day care centers in the world. Simply put, when families had to sink or swim together, they tended to stick together. Parents were dependent on their children for support in old age, while children knew that they in their turn would have to depend on their children. This supported intergenerational solidarity and a propensity for taking the Long View. The welfare state turns us from ants into grasshoppers.

[GL]

I second Stuart. As I have noted before, one of my great-grandmothers was essentially a matriarch. She survived my great-grandfather by 32 years and ran as a very astute business woman the family farm. Even before his death, however, the farm was in her name only (which I suspect, but do not know, was because my great-grandfather was rather slick in his business practices and they were protecting a primary asset from any lawsuits, though apparently he insisted on the arrangement because she had inherited money with which the farm was purchased). She decided who farmed the various fields and what they raised. By all accounts, she ruled the roost -- sometimes to the great displeasure of her children. She also ran a boarding house. This was a woman, mind you, who was born in 1863 and died in 1960. She gave birth to nine children, eight of whom survived, the other being still born.

My maternal grandmother also worked outside the home while still rearing my mother and her brother because of necessity during the Great Depression and WWII. My mother, likewise, worked outside the home until my birth and resumed when I started seventh grade. The stay-at-home mother so often held up as the typical ideal is a mid-20th century anomaly. And, like Stuart, based on the outcomes of the children they reared (i.e., the Baby Boomers), I am not sure we should view that arrangement as ideal.

[H Hauser]

I'm just curious; how does cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning house, raising vegetables and teaching children NOT contribute to the family "income"? Because they're done at home? Because no outside entity deposits a paycheck in the bank account every month as compensation? Enlighten me, please.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I'm just curious; how does cooking meals, washing clothes, cleaning house, raising vegetables and teaching children NOT contribute to the family "income"? Because they're done at home? Because no outside entity deposits a paycheck in the bank account every month as compensation? Enlighten me, please.<<<

Every business has "overhead" functions--things that need to be done, regardless, in the process of doing business, but which do not contribute to the bottom line. Food has to be cooked, clothing has to be washed, the house has to be cleaned. In the past, these chores were done either by the children or by servants (you had to go pretty far down the socio-economic ladder not to have at least one). Today, they are done by machines. Even in the 19th century, a large percentage of children were not actually raised by their parents on a day-to-day basis, but were consigned to the care of nannies and mammies.

Housewives to a very large extent functioned as household managers--they managed the homeside of the family business, because (as I said--please pay attention) the family was the primary economic unit, whether agrarian or commercial.

Also, I note that this entire discussion is somewhat behind the power curve, because the trend among younger women is definitely leaning towards family over career, much to the dismay of both professional feminists and the parents of the current crop of women in their 20s.

[Judy Warner]

My family must be atypical then. My German grandmother was a pastor's wife, and I don't think pastors' wives ever worked in those days. And she had four stepchildren and four of her own children to raise. My Jewish grandmother stayed home and raised her five children; she didn't speak English well enough to go out and work. She might have helped her husband in some way in his cobbler's shop but I never heard about it.

But I think Stuart is overemphasizing how much women contributed to the family income. Managing a household and raising children were much more time-consuming occupations than they are today. There was more illness, and it was more serious, and nursing family members through their illnesses took a lot of time -- something that we tend to forget about today. Then, as has been noted, housework and laundry were done by hand, not machines, or at most by primitive machines. Cooking was all from scratch. Even keeping coal or wood fires going for cooking and heating was a lot of work before gas stoves. Many women made their family's clothes. I don't see much spare time for earning money in there. But the family was thought of as a unit, and in accounts I've read of, for instance, pioneer families, the women don't seem infantilized because their non-cash contributions to the family were so essential.

[David Gray]

>There has only been a very short period in our history when women stayed home and raised children without also engaging in some form of revenue-generating activity. That period lasted from about 1950 to the end of the 1960s. It was anomalous and due to a convergence of certain conditions which themselves were anomalous and unlikely to repeat themselves any time soon.

Then I guess the last nearly 200 years of my family history have been the exception to the rule. I suspect that isn't the case.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

I had a great-grandmother that contributed to the economy by running a boarding house, but this was only after her husband was made an invalid. The other great-grandmothers (and my grandmothers, and my mom) kept the household going and tended to the children. The same situation obtained in my wife's family. One of her great grandmother delivered her 9th or 11th (I forget) child at the age of 52, immediately gave her to a wet nurse, put on her boots and started plowing the fields of her mountain farm.

I had two spinster great-aunts who worked in the field of education--mainly because that was all that was socially acceptable at the time. One of them won four medals (and set a world record in the shot put) at the 1922 Paris Games. [Interestingly, Sarah, the older one (who didn't get to go to Paris) was widely acknowledged as the better athlete.] They were both very smart, but rather ugly, and I think the latter mostly explained their spinsterhood. My Aunt Sarah was a figure of awe when I was a boy. Even in her 70s could pick the pre-pubescent me up with one arm. But I digress...

[o.h.]

Let's at least sort out two issues here that are becoming conflated: women staying home as a permanent thing (rather than staying home while children are young and then working later), and women staying with their infants and very young children rather than having those children raised without maternal contact for 8-10 hours a day. Yes, women worked in the past; but they often had jobs (now they are supposed to have uninterrupted careers), and they weren't expected--at least looking back at my own family history--to give their infants away to strangers to raise for long stretches of time.

Let's also look at the initial post. Sure, lots of children were raised by family members; my own father was raised by his maiden aunt, his mother's sister. He has keen memories of loneliness and missing his mother. Where does "cared for by relatives" rate on the daycare studies referenced above? And as Stuart notes, there was a great reliance on domestic servants, who were paid little for their labor and generally expected to abandon their own children to others (a situation that obtains today among the servants of the upper middle class, generally Mexican- and Central-Americans, who must leave their own children, often enough in another country). Just because something was often done in the past does not make it just, right, or good for children.

Finally, what I hear from my own family members is not "women always worked, and the '50's are an anomaly" (though I don't quite buy that it's that straightforward), but "back in the '50's a family could get by on one salary, but not anymore." But many families have found that accepting what would be considered a great standard of living in the '50's--small house, no electronic luxuries, one small TV, vacations in nearby places or relaxing at home, no car or a car taken out only occasionally, etc.--enables them without great difficulty to get by on one salary.

Again, I'm not saying this was universal even in the '50's. My grandmother worked because two husbands abandoned her and she chucked the third one out (she didn't have great luck with men). There will always be women in circumstances that require taking a job, even during a child's tender years. But the whole point of the initial post was that we have *evidence* that this is not ideal for small children. If we can now manage something better for our children, why not do it? Other circumstances have changed also: the public schools in our area are horrendous and fail to educate; the parochial school, while reportedly quite good, is out of reach of middle class Catholics. So I teach the children at home, delaying my re-entry into the work force longer than women in the '50's would have been delayed. But the upshot of the history lessons given above is not that "women have always worked," but "families have always done what they needed to do to get by." "Getting by" for us doesn't include having our children raised by others when young--see initial post--nor include having them raised as maleducated semi-barbarians by the public schools. We do what we have to, not what history, feminism, or anyone's theories tell us we ought to.

Forgive me if this is a little incoherent and scattered. It's been written in stolen minutes over the course of several hours, while I care for a small baby and teach a kindergartener and middle schooler. And fix meals and vacuum. Just the thought of being obliged to go get a paying job, too--even one done from home--makes me want to lie down on the floor with a vodka martini. I'm glad Mr. Koehl isn't my husband.

[Isamashii Yuubi (Courageous Grace)]

Hey, it's not nice to make a sick pregnant woman cough with laughter! I must say, I read Jenny's comment about feeling like a "grown-up" with amusement. I understood it to mean that no matter how much a mother loves her children, she needs to be able to do "adult" activities once in a while.

I actually really appreciate the suggestions she made, especially that of finding a support group in the area. Not completely sure where to start, but that's what the internet is for. I also found a useful site a while ago: http://www.suburbanceo.com/.

As my mother so thoughtfully put it, I'm not a housewife, I'm a "Domestic Engineer"!

[Judy Warner]

Grace,

You could try La Leche League for a support group to start. You can attend meetings before you have your baby. I found them quite wonderful when I ended up nursing my daughter into her second year and wanted to meet some women who would not think that was weird. (She was three-and-a-half when she quit.)

[Judy Warner]

Grace,

You could try La Leche League for a support group to start. You can attend meetings before you have your baby. I found them quite wonderful when I ended up nursing my daughter into her second year and wanted to meet some women who would not think that was weird. (She was three-and-a-half when she quit.)

[Jill C.]

I second the suggestion to check out your local L.L.L. group. Back in the early 1980s they, and my church, were my "life support" system. I made some wonderful Christian friends in both places. (Judy, mine weaned about the same age as your daughter.)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>they weren't expected--at least looking back at my own family history--to give their infants away to strangers to raise for long stretches of time.<<<

And yet many did--hence that ancient vocation known as "wet nurse". The main difference between today and yesteryear is in the past people accessed their extended families to provide child care. There were grandmas and aunties, and even elder sisters--but, if you think women stayed home and took care of their children for three years, you need to read more history. If they had, of course, they would have never gotten out, simply because women became pregnant at fairly regular and short intervals.

>>>And fix meals and vacuum. Just the thought of being obliged to go get a paying job, too--even one done from home--makes me want to lie down on the floor with a vodka martini. I'm glad Mr. Koehl isn't my husband.<<<

Mr. Koehl reciprocates, being very happy with the wife he has. Moreover, Mr. Koehl, being self-employed, is the one who does the shopping, most of the cooking, his share of the laundry and cleaning, in addition to being the automotive, computer and home repair guru.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Then I guess the last nearly 200 years of my family history have been the exception to the rule. I suspect that isn't the case.<<<

So, David, what precisely did your family do to make ends meet back in 1807?

[David Gray]

>So, David, what precisely did your family do to make ends meet back in 1807?

Nearly 200 was a bit of exaggeration. I can tell you from around 1863 on. So technically only 144 years of knowledge (which does take us a bit beyond the 1950s). Which year would you like to know about?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Which year would you like to know about?<<<

Pick any. Were they farmers/ Shopkeepers? Artisans? Throughout the 19th century, more than three fourths of Americans lived on the land, and most of them were small farmers, in which the family provided most of the labor. If they were shopkeepers or artisans, the family again was the primary business unit. Everyone worked, everyone contributed.

[David Gray]

Depending on which year you like you could use either farmer or shopkeeper for the 19th and early 20th century. And providing labor is a far cry from external employment. Everyone contributing is a far cry from external employment.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Depending on which year you like you could use either farmer or shopkeeper for the 19th and early 20th century. And providing labor is a far cry from external employment. Everyone contributing is a far cry from external employment.<<<

Not really. The issue at hand was whether making a financial contribution was the norm or not. The fact is, everybody worked because everybody HAD to work. Farms were like little corporations, with every family member a shareholder. Stores and workshops likewise. In any case, women did not simply stay at home and raise the kids--they were working, and a good deal of that employment was external, in the sense of outside the home.

[GL]

Actually, once the "kids" were able, the boys were being reared by the men while they worked together and the girls, likewise, by the women. Our current economy makes that an impossibility for most of us today and, while we can certainly mitigate the consequences, we cannot entirely overcome them. Throughout most of human history, that is how the next generation was brought along and there is no substitute for it.

[o.h.]

>>>they weren't expected--at least looking back at my own family history--to give their infants away to strangers to raise for long stretches of time.<<<

And yet many did--<<<

Well, yes, I knew about wetnurses. In fact, if we're looking for Unadvisable Things To Do With Your Children in American History, we can move quickly along the list from dangerous child labor to using powdered lead to ease teething pain. I can't really fathom your point, though; it can't possibly be that things were once done to children that we now know to be detrimental, so conservatives are required by some fetish of history to continue to do those things. You can't be arguing that handing children over to wetnurses was the majority practice.

I stand by my assertion that most women were not expected to hand their infants off to others to raise throughout history. The study in the original post seems to indicate that those who did were not doing a good thing for their children.

<< if you think women stayed home and took care of their children for three years, you need to read more history. If they had, of course, they would have never gotten out, simply because women became pregnant at fairly regular and short intervals.>>

Or I could examine my own family tree, and find that the women did indeed keep their infants, didn't hand them over to wetnurses, were not pregnant at fairly regular and short intervals, and were not expected to work 8-10 hours a day at paid employment with no contact with their children, who were tended either by relatives or by daycare workers. Which was the beginning of this discussion.

I honestly don't understand what you're trying to get at, Stuart. I thought I made it plain that I don't *care* if you can show that, historically, children have been raised in sub-optimal conditions. That exerts no influence on how I choose to raise my children. I don't know why you seem to think it should.

>>> Mr. Koehl, being self-employed, is the one who does the shopping, most of the cooking, his share of the laundry and cleaning, in addition to being the automotive, computer and home repair guru.<<<<

Glad to hear it. I assume you sensibly don't allow the housework to dominate your important job, which is whatever your self-employment is. Nor do I allow the housework to dominate the education of my children, which because of the facts of today's world, became my chief occupation. Yes, I know the phenomenon of fulltime homeschooling for mothers is a modern thing. Not what our great-grandmothers did. I confess it. So?

I'm not trying to be hostile, but I'm frustrated at what seems to be your repeated assertion that, because women used to abandon their infants to wetnurses at birth and proceed to work at paid employment full time throughout their lives, modern women have no business not having formal employment at all times. This seems insane, so I'm obviously not understanding you.

[James A. Altena]

I nominate Stuart to be Official MC Wetnurse! [He does so many other things so well....] :-)

[o.h.]

Stuart,

Re-reading my last post, I can see that I've become too frustrated and annoyed to be polite, or generous in my interpretation of your point of view. I apologize, and am withdrawing from the dialogue.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>In fact, if we're looking for Unadvisable Things To Do With Your Children in American History, we can move quickly along the list from dangerous child labor to using powdered lead to ease teething pain.<<<

I'm rather a fan of child labor. When you consider the conditions on the far, the factory wasn't all that bad. That's why you get thousands of Asian and Latin American teens lining up around the block to fill positions making Nikes for American teens: as compared to what they were doing before, the dollar a day factory job looks very good indeed. Fact is, most child labor laws had nothing to do with child safety, and everything to do with labor unions wanting to restrict the size of the labor pool. So what do all those kids do, who can't or don't continue in school, until they reach the age of eighteen? Hang out and chill, I suppose.

Regarding using powdered lead, it seems pretty benign as compared to all the arsenic-based patent medicines on the market at the time. I do wish they would bring back laudanum, though. And maybe put the coke back in Coca Cola.

>>>I stand by my assertion that most women were not expected to hand their infants off to others to raise throughout history. The study in the original post seems to indicate that those who did were not doing a good thing for their children.<<<

Actually, they did. Either they handed them off to close relatives, or they apprenticed them at very early ages. In England in the Middle Ages, for instance, children were regularly apprenticed at the age of seven or eight to a seven year period of indenture with a craftsman who taught them a trade. Even girls were sent out to learn spinning and sewing. In the aristocracy, this indentured servitude took the form of being sent out as a page in the household of a great lord.

The Greeks and Romans regularly farmed out their kids, when of course, they were not putting them up for adoption (a great way to bring new blood into overbred patrician families).

Anyway, there is a very good series called "A History of Private Life" that covers all of this in fascinating detail, if you are interested.

>>> honestly don't understand what you're trying to get at, Stuart. I thought I made it plain that I don't *care* if you can show that, historically, children have been raised in sub-optimal conditions.<<<

What makes you think there is an "optimal" condition? If the period between the late 40s and early 60s is considered to be that "optimal", please explain why the kids who grew up in that time turned out to be such a miserable bunch of self-absorbed wieners?

>>>I assume you sensibly don't allow the housework to dominate your important job, which is whatever your self-employment is.<<<

Thanks to miracles of modern technology, as well as my own hypercompetence and time management skills, I get it all done, and still have time to blog. Sometimes I scare even myself.

>>>Yes, I know the phenomenon of fulltime homeschooling for mothers is a modern thing. Not what our great-grandmothers did. I confess it. So?<<<

I pass them out to a pedogogus, myself. The word, which is usually translated as teacher or governor, actually means "child minder", which tells you a lot about how much interaction Romans had with their children. As for home schooling, it works for some, not for others. I don't believe there is an "optimal" form of education. One size does NOT fit all.

And, I will go back to my original assertion: in societies where women are not permitted or encouraged to develop marketable job skills, earn income and manage their own property, women are treated like chattel. Having women stay at home and raise children, utterly dependent upon their husbands, is one of those utopian ideals that sounds really good in theory but crashes and burns on the hairpin turns of real life.

Some time earlier, someone here suggested that "arranged" marriages were superior to dating. I held my tongue on that one, but since we're dealing with dumb utopian ideals, I suggest that anyone who thinks arranged marriages are a good thing should look at how they actually work--and have always worked--in the real world. Since my kids go to school with a large number of Indian and Pakistani kids, some of whose parents have ALREADY arranged marriages for them, I've heard how they really feel about them. Moreover, I'm an historian, and I know how arranged marriages have really worked down through the ages. You may not like dating, but as compared to relying on Yentl the Matchmaker, or worse, on parents following their financial interests, dating is by far the more benign approach.

>>>m not trying to be hostile, but I'm frustrated at what seems to be your repeated assertion that, because women used to abandon their infants to wetnurses at birth and proceed to work at paid employment full time throughout their lives, modern women have no business not having formal employment at all times. This seems insane, so I'm obviously not understanding you.<<<

I never actually said that. What I said was what we have today is closer to the historical norm (and the norm that pertains in most of the developing world today) than did the situation that pertained between the end of World War II and the early 1960s. I also said that the trend among women is already swinging back towards putting a priority on family over careers, but that new technology and the changing economy ought to make it easier for women to work from home, which WOULD bring us much closer to the historical norm.

I really get frustrated and annoyed when people invariably think that (a) the way things were in the Ozzy and Harriett era is the way that the world always was and ought to be; and (b) that the world today is going to hell in a handbasket and that this is somehow DIFFERENT from the way things always are. My famous aphorism still holds: The world is ALWAYS going to hell--that's why it's "the world". Yet, at the same time, nobody seems to recognize that the pendulum swings in both directions--extremes in one direction usually self-correct, just as they are presently beginning their own self correction. People need to see the forest, and not simply the trees. A good place to start would be the"Crime, Drugs, Welfare--and Other Good News" by Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin in the current issue of "Commentary". You can find it online here: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewArticle.cfm/Crime--Drugs--Welfare-and-Other-Good-News-10999

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I nominate Stuart to be Official MC Wetnurse! [He does so many other things so well....] :-)<<<

I have to decline--am deficient in two critical areas.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Re-reading my last post, I can see that I've become too frustrated and annoyed to be polite, or generous in my interpretation of your point of view. I apologize, and am withdrawing from the dialogue.<<<

Don't sweat it--I'm a big boy and can take my lumps. I never take intellectual discussions personally. If I did, I would have ended up as neurotic as many of my Jewish intellectual relatives. So, stick around--you'll find I'm not hostile to your values or objectives. I simply want people to go into these things without the rose colored glasses. Nostalgia for a non-existent past is never a good basis for social policy.

[Jenny Islander]

Re "feeling like a grown-up," it was a slapdash and facetious way to describe the result of doing something outside the family home that produces an economic benefit.

First, there's the sense of accomplishment that is not tied up with people with whom one has close emotional ties. This is a satisfaction I would have a hard time giving up. I could probably get the same feeling if I were still producing the church newsletter, but circumstances did not permit.

Second, there's the extra wiggle room in the family budget. I spend all of my income on myself and the kids (including monthly deposits into my Roth IRA), but that is money that my husband doesn't have to find.

Third, there's the simple relief of getting out, without the diaper bag and the stroller, in my one remaining business outfit, using words of more than one syllable, without one ear constantly cocked for the sounds of infant disasters. Supermom is an advertising myth. We all need a break, and my outside jobs are mine. (I have several very small ones that add up to about five hours a week.)

Fourth is something that may be purely personal. My husband has told me that he would be very embarrassed to have to give me money, as if I were his teenage daughter, whenever I needed a haircut. It would make him feel extremely uncomfortable. Likewise. Luckily, we don't have to deal with that.

[David Gray]

>Nostalgia for a non-existent past is never a good basis for social policy.

But for those of us well connected to our pasts it isn't nostalgia...

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>But for those of us well connected to our pasts it isn't nostalgia...<<<

It's not nostalgia if it is the past as it was, not the past as it ought to have been.

[David Gray]

>It's not nostalgia if it is the past as it was, not the past as it ought to have been.

But as I know the past as it was from those who lived it and their children I'm well positioned in that regard.