In my daily skim of the news recently, I came across this article bemoaning the government’s response to COVID 19. Why? According to the Ministry for Women. the government’s approach favoured men and was likely to exacerbate gender inequalities.
How so? Well, apparently the ‘shovel ready’ projects benefit workforces that are dominated by men, whereas women tend to make up a larger component of industries such as retail, hospitality and tourism which have been hard hit. Now I don’t really want to get into whether the government’s response to the economic situation, that they by their actions have foisted upon us, is wise or not.
What I do want to look at is one particular quote in the article.
Impact of COVID 19 on Women in the Workforce
Professor Jennifer Curtin, the head of the University of Auckland’s Public Policy Institute is quoted in the article.
My concern about this shovel ready, Ministry of Works, nostalgic spending is that, what happens if too many women lose their jobs, then can’t find a job, and end up staying home and taking care of children?
I read this and thought. Wow, that could be great! Imagine that. An economic crisis that forces us to think about more than just money. An opportunity for families to see value in the home economy and the little lives there. But no, I obviously missed the point. Curtin continued.
Then we end up looking like we looked like in the 1950s. Back to the same old breadwinner model where the bread-winner was the guy.
It’s hardly an argument, but it seems that we must assume that if this economic crisis caused women to stay home and care for children that would be bad. Why? Reading between the lines Curtin might be arguing it is bad because it’s an old model, and gives men more power and women less opportunity to work outside the home.
What is Progress?
But what evidence do we have that the 1950s model was worse than the one we have today? From whose perspective are we making this value judgment? As a child, I appreciated the fact that my mother stayed at home and cared for me. As a teacher, I see kids starved of a mother’s love who could do with a more old fashioned hands-on approach.
Curtin herself, in questioning the budgeting process wants a gender-responsive system where government agencies have to explicitly ask who benefits from policies and address inequalities. Perhaps that thinking should be applied to our children. What benefits them? Would having Mum at home help or hinder their development as human beings? What does true social progress look like?
Well, the research is in. Having a Mum at home for young children, and being home for children when they return from school is best. If you are interested in reading further into this and are not concerned about the inconvenience it might cause your family should you be convinced, a place to begin would be Mary Eberstadt’s Home-Alone America. She looks into the impact that family-child separation has in a number of areas. The book investigates the impact of daycare, as well as other negative effects of typical modern patterns of family life. From obesity to mental health to STDs, our modern patterns of child-raising have wreaked havoc in the lives of countless children.
Unfortunately, as adults, we tend to focus on getting what we want, and the voiceless children struggle to get what they need. So when issues occur in the lives of our children, we don’t look at our lifestyles. Eberstadt notes that “the passionate desire to attribute today’s behavioural and mental problems to inanimate suspects…despite serious evidence to the contrary shows us how reflexively our society fastens on to some explanation, any explanation that does not involve parents.”
So while Curtin might disparage the return of Mums to the home as a result of COVID 19 as some kind of backwards step, perhaps a backwards step is what we need if we are to make positive social progress. C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity pointed out that progress is not always forward.
We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
Maybe we took a wrong turn in our approach to families and childcare. The explosion of mental health issues in children surely tell us something has gone wrong. Statements like Curtin’s devalue children and those who raise children. Implicit in her thinking is that to lose a job and be forced to be at home and raise one’s own children is a backward step. But perhaps these precious little eternal souls are more important than pushing paper from one office to another. Maybe, just maybe, heading back to a more 1950s arrangement might actually be a step forward for many families.
Let’s Think Holistically
Finally, might it not be worth thinking more holistically? Instead of focussing on whether men are getting a better deal, or women are being unfairly treated, I wonder what it would look like if we started thinking of ourselves in terms of households? What if we considered the household as one team? In a team, you have a captain, and you have people playing different positions, but every player has a role to play in winning the game. If we approached the family as a team rather than in an individualistic manner, what might change? What would it look like if fathers captained their families and considered the common good of everyone in their household?