The long and short of it is … if you’re not the one doing the work of child care, either someone else is or the kids are left to fend for themselves. That it. That’s all it is.
‘Someone else” could be your spouse, other family members including older but still minor siblings, schools, daycare, nannies and other help (who may not be getting paid for the extra workload), friends, church members, fellow pod parents, etc.
ABC has it all because she’s not actually doing it all.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this. Frankly, the more children you have, the more you need help. Women in general need much more help on the child rearing front than they’re getting.
I think it’s important to point out a couple of things though. Very few women have spouses who don’t get resentful over child care duties. That’s just the truth. On the whole, it seems most men love having kids but they don’t like taking care of them. At least not until they’re older and can be played with and be a tag-a-long. By then, patterns are set and career sacrifices have been made. There is rarely any reciprocity of career sacrifice and shift of child care duties as kids age. Good paid childcare is unaffordable for most working mothers. Not all moms have (enough or nearby) extended family to take some of the burden off. In fact, a great many mothers also care for ailing older family members for free because those family members cannot afford paid care either.
For far too many of us, family life is not a happy, bucolic existence. It’s a trap and a lie. It’s a crushing sort of existence that steals our youth, our hopes and dreams beyond having a family, and wears us down. It’s not that we don’t love our families, we do. Desperately. It’s just that when you’re the only one doing all the giving — unpaid, and invisible work— to keep a family whole, healthy, and functioning, 24/7, 365 …eventually you run out of give. Too many of us have been running on fumes for way too long. Things need to change. It’s past time. We all need more of what ACB has and we need to not be shamed, embarrassed, or slighted because of it.
Which brings me to my final point. When Hilary ran, part of her platform was affordable childcare. She used the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child”. I cannot tell you how many conservatives in my life at the time fell all over themselves grasping at their pearls over that phrasing. “I don’t need no damn lib’ral village tellin' me how to raise my kids!” was the constant refrain. Or, “People shouldn’t have kids if they cain’t take care of ‘em. Birth control or keep your legs closed. They wanted to play…well, now it’s time to pay!” Or, my personal favorite, “So much fer equal rights! Feminism is DEAD! Best git yerself a ma-yn cause nobody wonts to pay for no damn welfare queen!. Facts is facts. A woman needs a ma-yn. That’s fact.”
Yeah. Sit with that last one for a while and enjoy. And yes, I was living in Alabama at the time. Hence the vernacular spelling. No, I don’t have any idea why the word man needs an extra syllable unless there’s a old wives tale that says not doing so will reduce their number of gonads by one. It’s important to keep things flush, I suppose.
And I digress.
Coming back around to the point, isn’t it funny how now conservatives are falling all over themselves lauding ACB onto a lofty pedastel as a modern day icon of feminism and example of womanhood? When she has the one thing to become this shining representative of virtuous femininity that they would deny to all other women.
A village.
To not have to do it all alone.
To not have to be the only one to make the sacrifices necessary to make it work.
Isn’t it funny?
