One of the biggest roadblocks to bringing about any reforms in the workplace or society that would alleviate the work/family conflict is the argument that you chose to have kids, you must accept the sacrifices. You knew what you were getting into when you stopped taking the pill. Why should any reforms be made?
It’s a rational argument. Anybody wish to expand on this idea or refute it?
Apt. 11d 
Laura, you are doing a great job in distilling the relevant issues! This one I find particularly hard. There are a number of different arguments to make against this “it’s your choice hence you’re responsible” argument.
First, children themselves are individual beings, and given that the families are per capita significantly poorer than households without children, we need to support the kids.
Second, there is the “children are public goods” arguments, — we need them to reproduce society and therefor everyone should contribute. We all benefit from children who grow up in non-poor households and therefore they need financial support. Feminist economist Nancy Folbre has written a lot about this.
But these reasons do not justify any accomodation towards the parents per se. We could just give the parents child allowance per kid, as exists as a universal benefit in several countries (does it exist in the US?)
Third, saying that something is a choice does not necesarily imply that people have to take full responsibility for the costs. There are many things in society that politics decides to support, either to spend money on or to pass new legislation or regulations.
Fourth, we could perhaps invoke some human right-type of argument taht everyone should in principle have the effective right to lead a fullfilling life, and that for most people this includes both holding a job or doing something else in the “public sphere” (e..g voluntary work etc.), and having a family. Thus, because both working and having a family are fundamental rights, society should be organised as such that both should be possible for each person (except if you’re infertile etc. etc.)
Fifth, there is the recent argument by Anne Alstott that society imposes on parents the (legal, moral, social) obligation to take good care of their children, and as this significanly reduces the parent’s autonomy, society should support parents.
Sixth, we collectively decide to support other groups as well, e.g. people who are getting very old get more out of the pension system than people who are not getting so old. SUppose a groups starts saying that they are no longer willing to be solidaristic with people older than 70, as the members of this groups are willing to committ suicide at 70. Wouldn’t it be odd that we then cut off pension rights at age 70? There is some things that a decent affluent society should do, like taking care of the ill and frail elderly, and -given the enormous time and energy burden- also parents.
Actually, I am not entirely convinced that any of these arguments is in itself sufficient to justify organising society with children and parents as implicit norms. I hope someone comes up with some better arguments.
LikeLike
We could just give the parents child allowance per kid, as exists as a universal benefit in several countries (does it exist in the US?)
In America, everything is done as a “tax credit”. If you pay enough in taxes, you get $1000 per kid in tax rebates.
I agree with Ingrid, though, that her reasons are good, but not really convincing. They assume the constituency that says “I really want both time for a satisfying career and time for my family.” Many people want only one or the other.
Those who choose one, or even those who want both, may actually really want “Time for Quiet Contemplation” and “Time to Serve The World Through Charity and Good Deeds” more than either one. (One of the biggest problems with balancing work and family is that, even if you succeed, you still don’t have time to do anything other than be at work or with your family!) Who am I to say that those two goals — or whatever two you can come up with — aren’t more valuable to the world than the work/family problem?
Actually, if my wife and I were setting up this conference, we’d probably label it the “Work/Family/Time -To-My-Damned-Self” Problem.
LikeLike
Ways the government or society subsidizes parenthood:
1) Income tax exemptions. 2) Family leave [though only unpaid leave is guaranteed by law]. 3) Public schools. 4) Head Start/subsidies for early childhood education. 5) Student loans, Roth IRAs or other subsidies for college education. 6) Flex time.
What am I missing?
LikeLike
Here is a crude observation that maybe somebody else can refine: The luxury to view child-bearing and rearing as a choice is the product of an advanced economy and a social safety net (formal or informal, legally enforced or otherwise). In many societies, today and in the past, people were compelled to have children, to supply a workforce for subsistence farming and to care for the parents in old age. The freedom not to have children is in some ways related to the freedom most of us have not to chop firewood or draw water from the nearest stream.
LikeLike
“In many societies, today and in the past, people were compelled to have children, to supply a workforce for subsistence farming and to care for the parents in old age.”
Yes, once upon a time there was a direct link between the care of children and the care of the elderly: one reason why people had children was as a kind of old age insurance. Fact is, we still need to reproduce ourselves in order to supply a workforce. But the direct link has been broken. The costs of childrearing have been largely privatized, while the benefits are still social and public.
The impending social security crisis is not a right-wing fabrication. All over the western world, societies face a shortage of workers/taxpayers to fund the retirements of a growing population of over-65s. And it’s not surprising that women are having so few children: now that women have choices, the opportunity costs of motherhood have been exposed. The rational response would be to pursue policies that lower the costs of motherhood (which is to say, policies which involve sharing the burden). Instead, many people still talk as though women were lining up down the street for the privilege of having children. They are doing nothing of the sort. Women in affluent western nations are having fewer children, and many are having no children at all.
Also, many people still mistake social security for a savings plan. It’s not. It’s an insurance plan. When you pay into social security, you are funding the retirement years of *today’s* retirees, in the expectation that the next generation will fund your own. The whole scheme is predicated on a continuing supply of a younger generation to pay for the elder generation.
LikeLike
I am of the view of John Adams, more or less, on this. That is, it is our obligation, individually and collectively, to (a) develop and use our own talents, and (b) set in place the structures, encouragement, whatthehellever needed to enable others to do likewise. I also think the notion that people can do anything much by themselves is kinda ridiculous–I’ve been encouraging my SO to help his ex-wife realize this, because her parents like to torture/control her with the notion that (a) she couldn’t do it without them and (b) this proves that she is insufficiently something. I am simiilarly dismayed by small-government types who want to end individual welfare but who don’t mind corporate welfare one little bit, and who don’t mind subsidies (many hidden) that benefit them. That said, people do bear some responsibility for the choices they make–the lack of responsibility in disciplining, for example, that I lamented earlier this week, is one example.
There–have I adequately taken both sides of this issue?
LikeLike
This is the bitter crux of many liberal/conservative policy disagreements; it is also the inevitable result of centuries of sexism which forced women to bear the brunt of the work of child-rearing, while men and women both enjoyed the benefits.
Many libertarian-leaning, small-government conservatives simply find it impossible to conceive of children as anything other than “lifestyle choices”, sort of like expensive pets. They are baffled and enraged that women/feminist men want any sort of compensation for the work of child-rearing; they see this as oppressing themselves and those like them by coercing them into funding an expensive and voluntary hobby.
It is the here-and-now, immediate self-benefit focus of neo conservatism that makes it profoundly unsympathetic to investing in the future of the larger world in any way–in children, in ecology, in fighting poverty, in building sustainable and stable politics. Neoconservatives (and some traditional conservatives) are simply not interested in funding anything that does not provide an immediate benefit for themselves, regardless of how much benefit it might provide to the society at large–themselves included. They are not willing to trade a known, if small benefit (low taxes) for a larger, less easy to define (and admittedly, not guaranteed) benefit (a stable, prosperous society).
It is a hard ideology to fight, because of its profound blindness. How do you talk to someone who is simply unwilling to see the value of planning for a better future vs gaining an immediate profit? Common sense should tell them that not only is human civilization worth saving, but that they themselves and their descendants would surely benefit from a sustainable society. But common sense gets shouted down by greed, cynicism, and fear.
LikeLike
Could you argue turn that question around and argue that people choose NOT to have children? And for those who make that choice, they have to accept the consequences. Not only do they get solid nights of sleep and stress free vacations, but they also have to pay taxes for childcare, education, etc…
LikeLike
The notion of children as a “choice” sticks in my craw; as Dix Hill points out, procreation is not a choice for many. Or not a real choice. The “you-made-your-bed-now-lie-on-it” argument is often used to justify punitive ideas about abortion, divorce, you name it. Ingid, IA (!) and emjaybee all make excellent points.
LikeLike
Instead, many people still talk as though women were lining up down the street for the privilege of having children. They are doing nothing of the sort. Women in affluent western nations are having fewer children, and many are having no children at all.
On the other hand, U.S. women have a little over 2 children per woman, which will lead to a perfectly stable society (if not for immigration). Countries with more generous child-friendly policies (i.e., Europe) all have very low birthrates. (see chart, with U.S. ranked 133 out of 225.
Apparently, women in Western countries have babies if they want to, and baby-friendly policies (or lack thereof) don’t have too much effect.
This is from a 1998 NYT article. Sweden has triple the “family support” America does and the birth rate keeps dropping:
THE WATERSHED: Birth Incentives No Longer Work
“Perhaps no country has tried harder to change the future than Sweden.
“Decades ago, with its birth rate dwindling, Sweden decided to support family life with a public generosity found nowhere else. Couples who both work and have small children enjoy cash payments, tax incentives and job leaves combined with incredible flexibility to work part time for as many as eight years after a child’s birth.
“Sweden spends 10 times as much as Italy or Spain on programs intended to support families. It spends nearly three times as much per person on such programs as the United States. So there should be no surprise that Sweden, despite its wealth, had the highest birth rate in Europe by 1991.
“With 10 million mostly middle-class people, Sweden may have little in common with any other. But its experience clearly suggested that if countries wanted more babies they would have to pay for them, through tax incentives, parental leave programs and family support. At least that’s what nearly all the experts thought it showed.
“We were a model for the world,” said Marten Lagergren, under secretary in the Ministry of Social Health and Welfare, and the man responsible for figuring out what is happening with Sweden’s birth rate. “They all came to examine us. People thought we had some secret. Unfortunately, it seems that we do not.”
“Sometime after 1990, the bottom dropped out of Sweden’s baby boom. Between then and 1995, the birth rate fell sharply, from 2.12 to 1.6. Most people blamed the economy, which had turned sour and forced politicians to trim — ever so slightly — the country’s benefit program. It is normal for people to put off having children when the future looks doubtful, so the change made sense.
“But then, the economy got better and the birth rate fell faster and farther than ever. By March of this year the figure for Sweden was the almost same as that in Japan — 1.42. And though it’s too soon to say, officials here think it might be falling still.”
LikeLike
So far, many of the comments seem to assume that the purpose of social policy to alleviate work/family conflict is to serve the professional classes and, more particularly, to make it possible for women to “have it all” by combining careers with family life. And frankly, as a mom with a career, I’m all for policies that would make this juggling act easier. But I’m not so worried about myself and people like me. See, I did make a rational calculation that I could “afford” to make the financial sacrifices necessary to produce another education, middle-class person like myself. And I can, in part because I come from privilege to begin with.
The people I’m really worried about are the people who didn’t make such a rational calculation. I’m worried about the moms who take their babies to the tiny and depressing day care center with no outside play space around the corner from me. There are far too few adults to properly care for the kids and none of the developmental toys and activities necessary to nourish those little developing minds. I’ve read about moms in tears because they can only afford to leave their kids with elderly neighbors who chain smoke. I’ve read about moms on welfare who lock their kids in the apartment all day because they have NO child care options. We know that single women with children suffer poverty at higher rates than any other group. And we are all paying a price for the toll that poverty takes on kids, whether we know it or not. So should we think about pushing for policies to support these vulnerable members of our society? Or should we require that those without the means to raise children be sterilized?
I’ve always thought that the reason America hasn’t adopted the kinds of “child friendly” policies that are common in Europe is because of our history of racial and ethnic division. For too long, too many Americans have, on some level, believed that those other, swarthier Americans probably shouldn’t be reproducing at all. Certainly we shouldn’t adopt policies that would encourage them to do so. . .
LikeLike
Good point, AmericanHistoryMom. I meant to write something about that. OK, your comment is becoming a post.
LikeLike
I, as a “small governemnt conservative”, had a child not as an “expensive pet” but because God believes children are a blessing. I don’t expect anyone to make considerations for me simply because I chose to have a child. I made a decision in my life to have a child, just as anyone has chosen any life/career change. I readily accept any tax benefit for having a child but I do not expect one. And would be happy to decline it if it meant paying less taxes.
Having children is part of the plan for the future. I plan to teach my child right from wrong, good vs. bad. That is planning for the future in one of the best possible ways, to give future generations the ability to think for themselves.
I don’t expect anything from my governement simply because I had a child. Nor do I expect it to be held against me because I chose to spend 4 years of my life to raise a child.
I also understand the need for government/society to spend to help support those people who had children who can not afford the expense of a child. I know that if people who need help do not receive it, they will continue to be a burden on society well into the future. This is not about greed or selfishness or fear, it’s about personal responsibility and the interest in the prosperity of yourself and your community.
LikeLike
This argument always gets to me because of the implicit assumption that the status quo is unchallengable. But is it, really? We’ve repudiated that argument in the past when society decided that practices condoned in the past are no longer acceptable: hazing, discrimination, sexual harassment.
Can we not make a rational argument for the benefits for all of changing our work environment to be human-friendly? In the end, that’s what I’d like to see. and why I’ve championed the cause of part-time faculty unionization, gay spousal/partner benefits and retiree drug benefits at my institution. None of those benefit me, personally, but I think they’re the right thing to do in humanizing academia.
I recognize that a lot of the resistance to these arguments of accomodating faculty with children are because many have been shafted by the prima donna demands of some academic parents, who seek to make their entire department revolve around their kids’ soccer schedules. But I wish that, rather than looking at this as an “us” versus “them” attitude, we could recognize that changing our routines and expectations could benefit all.
Rather than advocate that parents alone get refusal rights on setting meeting hours, why not let everyone in the department declare X number of hours/week that they are unavailable? Why not have the department sit down and cooperatively work up a draft of the teaching schedule, so that everyone sees how impossible it is for anyone to end up with a perfect teaching schedule but if we work together, we might all end up with something liveable?
I also wish that other faculty parents would recognize that sometimes you’re just going to have to put up with an imperfect world. I teach nights, in fact, I volunteer for that, knowing that most of my colleagues hate the timeslot, since my husband’s able to mind the kids by himself that one evening a week with ease. I’ve also sucked up and borne with the horrors of a 3-4:30 teaching shift (nasty for working parents of a special needs kid who can’t be enrolled in conventional after-school daycare) because I knew it was only for one year.
Basically, my belief is, if your workplace offers up an inconvenience, it’s cool to try and get things changed, but it’s uncool to ruin everyone else’s experience just to make yours a little smoother. You can get allies for your fight if you’re willing to argue for a change that empowers the largest number. Don’t automatically reject an innovation that benefits another. If it’s a serious situation that involves someone’s safety, equality rights, health or sanity, then you ought to fight for that change, whether or not it’s you that benefits.
LikeLike
What really annoys me about the “work/family” debate is that it nearly always focuses on parent-child as the family. I’d much rather see it revolve a tiny bit to be “work/life”, which would encompass family, if that’s what you choose to do with your life. Hobbies, if that’s what you choose to do…. Caring for elderly parents, etc etc etc. There’s so many other choices that we have to make that are completely ignored each time this debate arises. Ancarett has a wonderful suggestion in allowing everyone X number of hours that they might be unavailable – this idea just needs to be fleshed out beyond academia into the business world. We need not family-friendly workplaces, but “life outside of work”-friendly workplaces.
LikeLike
One reason critics in academia tend to focus on children as a choice is that practically everyone in academia makes a choice to have children. In fact, almost all of the women I know in the field were dying to having children, read all the advice books on how to get pregnant, etc. etc. This may be a function of their age, too. Anyway, it is very difficult for those of us who are single to shift gears (over and over) from saying “Don’t worry, you’ll be able to get pregnant, you’ll get to have that child you want so badly” to “Oh, I know, it’s so hard to have a child.” I consider myself very pro-child, but on a personal level it can be tough.
There are also economic issues at play even for the middle class. I have a friend who got a TT job when her daughter was a year old. Her husband, a high school teacher, could have easily taken off a year or two without damage to his career, and they were ok financially; but instead he got a job, and they bought a nice 4-bedroom house. And now she has to juggle day care problems because his job isn’t as flexible as hers. (They always seemed to be an equal partnership to me, but I bet if the genders were switched, 99 times out of a hundred, the wife would be at home with the child.) Anyway, this is clearly their choice, and it’s not simply: do we get to have a child or not? but what will our standard of living be?
LikeLike
I am pro-child, so I’m not going to touch on that aspect of the question.
What I find interesting is that there is so little federal support for the _opposite_ choice: that is, to regulate one’s fertility so as to _not_ get pregnant. It may be worth noting that the “conventional” methods of preventing pregancy (condoms, pill, sterilization) are, if used regularly, expensive, and, moreover, not covered by most health insurance plans (while pregnancy, viagra, and, in some cases, fertility treatments) are. Less conventional methods, like Natural Family Planning, are less expensive to the individual in the long run, but often require a period of mentored self-education to make them work, and providing that level of reproductive knowledge to everyone is a political hot potato.
Shorter version: in addition to a number of _positive_ government actions promoting or rewarding reproduction (which I am defining separately from parenting) there are also a number of structural factors that work _negatively_ in favor of reproduction.
Given this structural inequality (as well as biological for most) favoring pregnancy over non-reproduction, it’s a bit disingenous when people take the “well, it’s your choice to get pregnant, suck it up!” line.
LikeLike
“…Nor do I expect it to be held against me because I chose to spend 4 years of my life to raise a child.”
Four years! I didn’t know children supported themselves after four years, or learned all they need to know in four years. I am going to boot those free-loaders out of my house this morning. The little bums are six and seven. Four years!
-Nicanor
LikeLike
Sorry, that was a bit of an odd statement I wrote. I meant four years of staying at home without having a “real” job. And of course my son is only four years old.
LikeLike
Having children and raising them to be decent citizens contributes in many ways to the public good. Where do we get soldiers from, to protect the childless, unless it be other peoples’ children ? Where do we get doctors and nurses from, to look after the childless in their old age, unless it be other peoples’ children ?
Unfortunately current economic theory doesn’t seem to have any way to account for this. It’s part of the problem of valuing “women’s work” – raising children, looking after the family, etc etc. None of this shows up in calculations of GDP. However a divorce, with subsequent revenue generation by lawyers, apartment rental, and child care payments, adds to GDP. So divorce is good for the economy, but married couples raising children are not.
LikeLike
We argue here for nothing. I don’t think, that there will be any solution.. It’s sad but it’s true- you must choose job or children
LikeLike