Sunday, February 13, 2011
Bread winer Mother, stay at home Dad
I thought about this during our last class, seems like it was a discussion question but never came up. I wonder what the concerned view would say about stay at home dad's. The "ideal" family is the bread winner father and stay at home mother. Does a stay at home dad and bread winner mother have cause for concern?
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Repeating what I said last week, it would be nice if all families could live the ideal life. Ideal meaning the proposed ideal of men providing outside the home, and women staying home caring for caring for it and the children. As nice as it would be for all to have that ideal (and I truly would like this for myself), it is not always possible. So when it comes to this post questioning the reverse of the "ideal", my opinion is that the concerned camp would worry for a minute about the role reversal, but would not worry too much passed that. There are still two parents in the home and one of them is caring for, teaching, and guiding the children. The family is self-reliant and goes right with the quote on page 122 by Cheal (1991), "the best this camp can hope for is to prolong the life span of selected traditions for a little longer or to invent new ways of incorporating elements from the past into contemporary ways of living. (p. 47)"
ReplyDeleteI don't see what the big deal is with having a stay-at-home father. My wife and I have regularly switched roles throughout our marriage based on whichever situation was best for our family at the time. I think that the so called “ideal" family/life is simple one where a parent is able to stay home to take care of the children. If there aren’t children, who cares...
ReplyDeleteI don’t really believe in gender roles. If one parent is working outside the home, the other better be working inside the home. If both work outside the home, then the responsibilities are shared. And No... I am not naive enough to think that the work will always be split equally, but in a health family I believe it will all even out in the end.
I find it ironic that in a society that upholds equal gender roles that there is so much 'hoopla' about men staying at home. I think this is one of the unintended consequences of policy that Kathy was talking about in class last week. Offering equal employment opportunities for women and men will have consequences of either higher enrollments at child care centers or of having men stay at home. If I were able to have a parent stay home and have sufficient income for our needs with only one income, I would totally vote for that over sending my children to a child care facility. But as Zuri mentioned, the ideal isn't always plausible.
ReplyDeleteI understand that a number of people experience circumstances beyond their control that make the ideal seem almost unattainable. My comments are directed to those who hastily choose to make exceptions of themselves but who, in actuality, have sufficient control over their circumstances to permit them to attain the ideal through significant effort and sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteThis issue seems to be one of "good-better-best."
Good: Not to leave one's children neglected or unattended is good.
Better: To have specifically a parent in the home is better. I would suggest that having a parent in the home with the children ought to be the minimum standard by which our values should let us govern family life. I think that parents do their children a great disservice when they consistently relinquish the care of their children to someone else. Collectively, therefore, today's generation of absentee parents are doing a great disservice to the entire next generation—and to our culture, our values, and our society. I do not think I need to rehearse to the readers the empirical evidence that supports the standard of having a parent in the home.
Best: To have specifically the MOTHER in the home at least until her children begin kindergarten is BEST. Some of us might have read or heard these words on occasion:
"By divine design, fathers ... are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."
Developmental psychologists from the evolutionary perspective have suggested that mothers have developed their sexualities (more women tend to be monogamous than men) and their instinct to care for and nurture children because they have evolved to invest far more in the creation of a baby than men do. However, I believe, as the preceding quotation would suggest, that this relationship is reversed: Women were divinely endowed with the capacity to carry children and bear them through great travail SO THAT they would naturally be inclined to care for and nurture the precious beings with all their heart and soul. Think about it: If a great Planner truly sought to provide the most promising opportunities for those He loves to receive His most precious blessings, what better way to bind parent and child together than to design mothers in such a way that they naturally invest significant time and effort and even experience incomparable pain and sacrifice for the child's sake before the child is even born?
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete...Continued (Sorry, I found another typo!)
ReplyDeleteAs women were divinely designed to fulfill this most noble and honorable purpose, men were designed to fulfill a corresponding purpose. Perhaps nothing motivates a decent father to work harder than thoughts of providing for his children, and men were divinely endowed with special qualities that enable them as primary providers to invest in their own extraordinary way in the lives of their children. As a side note, I do not believe men tend to be more promiscuous than women because they do not invest as much in the creation of a child; instead, I think men have become so promiscuous because they have lost perspective of the sacred responsibility of fatherhood—the responsibility to provide and protect. The traditional family perspective that dictates that fathers primarily provide and mothers primarily nurture drives more men to faithful, monogamous relationships than perhaps any other ideal.
The document quoted previously also proclaims that "fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners." In this statement, "equality" obviously does not mean synonymy. Instead, the word refers to equality of rigor, devotion, and importance—of different, yet complementary, roles. Fathers and mothers who consider their roles to be equal will strive to support and sustain each other in the fulfillment of their sacred responsibilities as parents. Fathers in the workforce and mothers in the home all work full-time! Therefore, since children's needs do not halt when evening arrives, fathers should not suppose that they are entitled to a break when they return home from work—instead, fathers should join mothers in the full-time responsibilities of parenthood. This duty includes caring for and teaching and loving their children together as a team.
Again, I understand that these comments are representative of an ideal that for a few seems quite unattainable. Nevertheless, we must seek to keep the ideal in mind and strive for it and help others to do the same. The great Planner possessed perfect foresight when fathers and mothers were designed in their special ways. Intentionally deviating from our divinely instituted destinies will only perpetuate an increasingly uncontrollable cycle of family—and societal—distress and dysfunction.
Referring to the original question, I bet that most in the concerned view would probably be opposed to a stay-at-home father and a breadwinner mother, but not on the basis of empirical evidence.
ReplyDeleteI would even question whether or not the "ideal" is to stay at home. I think the "ideal" is culturally driven. In some countries the care ideal is very different, and having highly trained professionals taking care of even the youngest children is the ideal. As far as research goes you may want to check out Pluess and Belsky 2010. This paper reports a longitudnal study in which the affects of child care and parenting on child outcomes is reported. It is an interesting study and is done by the same guy who originally reported findings on the adverse affects of child care.
ReplyDeleteLike Alex, I too will try to answer the original question. I think that the concerned view would not only be opposed to stay at home fathers but would describe it as abnormal. However, if this is the case then the majority must be abnormal because over 63% of women with children under five are in the workforce, and somebody is taking care of their children . . . At what point does this become normal and do we as as society try to support it?
Being normal simply means that something is the norm--the most oft-observed occurrence of a particular phenomenon.
ReplyDelete"Normal" is not synonymous necessarily with "ideal"--though ideally it should be!
Nor does being "normal" inherently justify public support. Ought the Germans have supported Hitler simply by virtue of the norm? Or the Soviets, Stalin? Or the Iraqis, Hussein? Of course not!
We must be willing to declare that some things are right, and some things are wrong. Some things represent the ideal, and others represent the last resort. The ideal family--the one whose collective influence will ultimately save America and the world--is represented by a married father and mother, the father functioning as a full-time breadwinner and the mother as a full-time in-the-home caregiver/teacher, and their children. We who understand the role of family in the eternities will uphold and support this ideal family structure at ALL COSTS.
"I will always maintain a true principle, even if I stand alone in it."
However broad America's forsaking of the ideal family becomes, we have a duty to promote the ideal family, to foster appropriate family values, and to combat the forces seeking to destroy the family.
A plethora of empirical evidence exists that confirms the long-term benefits of attachment, emotional regulation, and character development that mothers provide best. Sound data always corroborate with absolute truth.
My husband did a great job with our daughter while I was in my PhD program. After one semester in Blacksburg, VA with me, a broken arm and a battle ax 5th grade teacher from hell {Andrea had been in a Montessori school from age 5+), we asked her if she'd like to stay home with her dad [who worked full time]and return to her Montessori school to complete the year.
ReplyDeleteIt was no contest. For the first time in weeks, her eyes brightened and she said, "Can I?" Those 18 months with Dad all week long [I drove home nearly every weekend] were such a terrific bonding experience for them [I had worked part time since her birth so I was primary parent all those years]. It broadened her development.
And about child care. We used both center care and family care while I worked. Andrea was a very shy child. Had I kept her alone at home [our neighborhood was not full of children, like my current one is], her socialization options would have been extremely limited. I am grateful for the choices we made, but cognizant that we were affluent enough to afford them, which many couples today lack. We are a diverse and pluralistic society and need to keep that in mind.