Wednesday, May 03, 2006

The Federal Reserve and the Mommy Wars

I keep meaning to post a link to this this extraordinary entry on the Family Man blog that quotes a Federal Reserve economist, Art Rolnick, who claims that investing in quality child care brings a 17 percent return. When Fed bankers start saying stuff like this, I pay attention.

Return to the Mommy Wars: Because I can't get enough of anti-mommy wars stories, I wanted to share the take of the very sensible (as always) Mothers Movement Online. It's a well-done piece laying out the case for a "cease fire" (a term I can do without, but that's another post), but it caught my eye because it brings fathers into the equation, mentioning that mommy wars stories are "outdated at best [for SAHDs] and offensive at worst, primarily because they ignore the issues these families face." Then the author lets loose with this:
Unlike women, however, men suffer much more societal and employment discrimination when they try to achieve a better work-life balance. Indeed, many dads have no balance at all, given that one third of employed fathers work more than 50 hours a week.

Â?One of the things thatÂ?s harmful about the Mommy Wars is that it takes the focus off of the role of men, who are desperately eager to have more of a role in the family,Â? says Ellen Bravo of 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women. Â?Men wonÂ?t share fully in raising children, and household chores, and deciding about how to balance work and family, until they stop being punished at work for wanting to do that.Â?
What's to argue?

ThRepublicepulic has also waded into the topic, and Laura at 11d has the details.

Finally, in pulling this post together, I googled the phrase mommy wars and found that The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars is the number one hit. Congrats to Miriam, and thanks to everyone who linked to the book!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home