In the past few weeks, there has been a low buzz in the media and in the blogosphere on work-family issues. It’s probably no accident that it’s the summer.

School’s out and families are piecing together a patchwork of activities for their kids to keep them busy. One week of basketball camp here, three weeks of town recreation there, swim lessons over there with some library book club around the edges. All designed to keep the kids from gluing their fingers to wii controls for the entire summer. These plans require a color coded calendar and a deep wallet.

For those who are working, even the most carefully constructed quilt of activities is insufficient. There are open weeks in the summer and all sorts of activities that end at 3:00. I will never teach summer classes, because I will never make enough to cover the supervision for the two kids.

But, I’m lucky. I have that option to leave the summer for research. I have a flexible, part-time job. The pay is nothing to write home about and I won’t make it to Harvard by this route, but it’s something. At this stage of my kids’ life, it’s perfect for me. For part of the day, I’m doing something that I’m really good at and that stimulates my mind. And for the other half of the day, I like taking care of my high maintenance kids without the stress that someone else is screwing it up. My youngest one is still not easy to manage. He screams a lot less than he used to, but for some reason, his OCD stuff is really flaring up this summer. I can’t trust that a non-blood relative will be nice to him. He also needs me to translate.

Ever since I started this blog four years ago (yikes! has it been that long?), I have been shouting that women want part time work. Until schools are open 12 months a year and a full time job shrinks down to 35 hours, women want part time work.

A recent poll in the Pew Foundation found that 60% of working moms would prefer to be working part time or not at all. At someone in the field here hashing things over with moms in the school parking lots, this finding is a bit of a "no-duh" for me, but apparently it has taken some others by surprise.

This poll has led to some interesting discussions, such as why aren’t there more part time jobs and what would happen to feminist goals if more women moved to part time work.

Judith Warner writes that part time jobs pay too poorly for women to accept them and discusses the reluctance of feminists to endorse part-time work. "Feminists have long been leery of part-time work policies, which tend
to be disproportionately used by women, mommy-tracking them and placing
them at an economic disadvantage within their marriages and in society.
The American model of work-it-out-for-yourself employment is Darwinian,
but women’s long working hours have gone a long way toward helping them
advance up the career ladder." Ingrid Robeyns writes about part time work in Europe.

We need more part time work now. Until tax adverse Americans agree to fund the schools for 12 months a year, until the full time hours become more manageable, until childcare becomes better qualities and cheaper, we need part time work. I can’t think about the the long term goals of feminism when women are drowning in responsibility. Even if we had the work utopia, there would still be a certain number of women who prefer being with their kids to any full time job.

Something’s gotta give. If feminists don’t want to push for more part time labor, then I want to see them head to head with the teachers union in Washington demanding a 12 month year.