This is an unpopular opinion, I think we did this devaluing of care thing to ourselves. We insisted that outside work was more valuable, and attractive than care which is very internal and unseen.
I see this in myself.
AND, we also missed that no matter how much day care, elder care, after school care, and all sundry things, we cannot outsource care. Again, I'm seeing this for myself as I care for my parents.
AND, there's no dollar amount that we can put on care.
Care takes something that we have very little of these days because we traded it for money. Care take time and presence.
We have a care deficit because we do not have the time, and more importantly, we do not have the internal resources to be present. We are malnourished in this area.
For me the fix is decentering money making, even as I strive to make more money so I won't have to worry about making money. I recognize that the circular logic is lunacy, but I don't know any other way.
Is the "we" you're referring to here Americans/capitalists - or women? If the former, I completely agree! Capitalism, with money being the only source of "value" and everything having an "opportunity cost" is at the root of the problem.
I struggle with this a lot, how do we tackle the problem that care is not valued, anything that doesn't make money is not valued, while we still live within that system? The fact is, we need money to have more power and freedom, and we also shouldn't be tricked into thinking that these are individual problems to solve (the way we have with care).
I think the solutions are not mutually exclusive - we need to work toward different ideas of social value (a longer term goal) while still doing the best we can to operate within it.
Ah, yes, all of this. I have one kid, which felt like the number I could faithfully attend to and still have a life. I never succeeded in breaking the “default parent” mode, despite many explicit conversations.
I resonated with her commentary and appreciated her forensically referenced evidence.
She offered reasons about our Western approach to caregiving AND expanded into community-kinning concepts in other countries.
Circling back to your points - Your choice of the word 'Ambivalent' is the most apt in my case. While I didn't balance numbers at dinners, I was also not deeply rooted in any community relocating every 2 years or so, 18 times in total. A 'successful' career (if not a doctor or lawyer) is assumed to have some sort of bragging rights. There is a lot of social conditioning, expectations and competing demands on our time..that we need to be superwomen and have it all/or that there's enough time—Not true. Defining success by personal values not money is so important! Those are just a few of my thoughts!
I've reflected a lot more on this topic, my feelings and my situation after I connected with the work of Jody Day. I know how and why I came to have no children, but perhaps I'm only partly reconciled with what that means for me today and tomorrow.
As you know Jody is "the world’s best known support & advocacy network for childless women, and is often described as the founder of the ‘childless movement’. An author, two-times TEDx speaker, thought leader and integrative psychotherapist, she’s known for her best-selling Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children (PanMac 2016/2020)"
Thanks for sharing your experience, it makes sense!
Kenway's book did a great job of highlighting the expectations and roles of women throughout the last century.
I think its usually not a straightforward calculation, there are so many competing demands as you say. But the lack of financial and social support I think adds to how steep the tradeoff feels for many.
Yes, I admire Jody's work, such important resources community she has built!
I'm all about valuing care — financially, culturally, and individually. But I don't necessarily understand the link you're making to fertility rates and the percentage of women who say they want to have children. Are you saying that we ought to value care more *so that* more women will want to have children?
Not so that they want/have more children so much as they don’t make a choice based primarily on the fact that the costs and barriers are so high. The fact that more women don’t want children reflects the fact that they know how much harder it will be for them.
I dunno, I sense a lot of mind-reading goes into interpreting why more women are choosing not to have children. I recognize that pro-natalist groups like the Institute for Family Studies have commissioned surveys that show that *some* women would like to have more children if they had more financial and social support. But anecdotally, I've heard several women say that they feel pressured to "blame" not having kids on the cost of living or climate change 'cause it's still taboo for women to say that they'd rather do other things with their lives. Sheila Heti has this great line about how it must be so liberating to be a gay couple so that no one gives you that look of judgment/sadness/confusion when a heterosexual woman prioritizes other things over reproduction.
I'm reminded of a Jerusalem Demsas podcast episode with Anastasia Berg, a mother, who seems quite sure that more women want to be mothers but just don't realize it. Demsas, not a mom, is skeptical that Berg knows what these women want more than they do.
I'm certainly not claiming that women don't actually realize what they want! I think many people have always wanted to prioritize other things with their lives, and still do - that's great, and that fact hasn't changed. But I think more people - and women in particular - are having less or no children than they initially wanted because of the cost and lack of support. Or as you put it, they prioritize other things with their lives at least in part *because* the alternative has steeper and steeper tradeoffs. I hear SO many women say this, including many friends who wanted several children, but after one, could not imagine having more because one already felt so financially and socially difficult. I also think its very telling that significantly less women say they want children than men - they know that they will spend twice as much time on child-related activities than men, and they still can't have it all. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/health/fertility-births-vance.html
I hear you, and I don't disagree with any of that. I think the most important thing, which we agree on, is that it should be much easier to be a parent (and especially a mom) than it is now. I'm encouraged that the left and right seem to agree. Hopefully, we'll see some bipartisan legislation passed soon.
I'd love to see more programs for non-parents to get involved in children's lives. (The organization I'm now consulting for is trying to get more men, for example, into teaching early education, which not all women are on board with.)
And I would love to see more support for mothers and parents in a way that doesn't further stigmatize women who don't want to become mothers.
Once again, I think we're 99% aligned, and I'm nitpicking over small details ... but details that are important to me nonetheless.
This is an unpopular opinion, I think we did this devaluing of care thing to ourselves. We insisted that outside work was more valuable, and attractive than care which is very internal and unseen.
I see this in myself.
AND, we also missed that no matter how much day care, elder care, after school care, and all sundry things, we cannot outsource care. Again, I'm seeing this for myself as I care for my parents.
AND, there's no dollar amount that we can put on care.
Care takes something that we have very little of these days because we traded it for money. Care take time and presence.
We have a care deficit because we do not have the time, and more importantly, we do not have the internal resources to be present. We are malnourished in this area.
For me the fix is decentering money making, even as I strive to make more money so I won't have to worry about making money. I recognize that the circular logic is lunacy, but I don't know any other way.
Is the "we" you're referring to here Americans/capitalists - or women? If the former, I completely agree! Capitalism, with money being the only source of "value" and everything having an "opportunity cost" is at the root of the problem.
I struggle with this a lot, how do we tackle the problem that care is not valued, anything that doesn't make money is not valued, while we still live within that system? The fact is, we need money to have more power and freedom, and we also shouldn't be tricked into thinking that these are individual problems to solve (the way we have with care).
I think the solutions are not mutually exclusive - we need to work toward different ideas of social value (a longer term goal) while still doing the best we can to operate within it.
Ah, yes, all of this. I have one kid, which felt like the number I could faithfully attend to and still have a life. I never succeeded in breaking the “default parent” mode, despite many explicit conversations.
I don’t know how anyone sane that isn’t very rich can want kids.
Case in point.
You're absolutely right that if we don't talk about the hard stuff, the topic is ignored.
It wasn't until I read Emily Kenway's book 'Who Cares? The hidden crisis of caregiving (see this article https://www.carermentor.com/p/who-cares-the-hidden-crisis-of-caregiving?utm_source=publication-search) that I grasped the impact of socio-cultural and demographic influences on women (see chapter 2 'On Women: Maidens and Migrants).
I resonated with her commentary and appreciated her forensically referenced evidence.
She offered reasons about our Western approach to caregiving AND expanded into community-kinning concepts in other countries.
Circling back to your points - Your choice of the word 'Ambivalent' is the most apt in my case. While I didn't balance numbers at dinners, I was also not deeply rooted in any community relocating every 2 years or so, 18 times in total. A 'successful' career (if not a doctor or lawyer) is assumed to have some sort of bragging rights. There is a lot of social conditioning, expectations and competing demands on our time..that we need to be superwomen and have it all/or that there's enough time—Not true. Defining success by personal values not money is so important! Those are just a few of my thoughts!
I've reflected a lot more on this topic, my feelings and my situation after I connected with the work of Jody Day. I know how and why I came to have no children, but perhaps I'm only partly reconciled with what that means for me today and tomorrow.
As you know Jody is "the world’s best known support & advocacy network for childless women, and is often described as the founder of the ‘childless movement’. An author, two-times TEDx speaker, thought leader and integrative psychotherapist, she’s known for her best-selling Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children (PanMac 2016/2020)"
Thanks for sharing your experience, it makes sense!
Kenway's book did a great job of highlighting the expectations and roles of women throughout the last century.
I think its usually not a straightforward calculation, there are so many competing demands as you say. But the lack of financial and social support I think adds to how steep the tradeoff feels for many.
Yes, I admire Jody's work, such important resources community she has built!
I'm all about valuing care — financially, culturally, and individually. But I don't necessarily understand the link you're making to fertility rates and the percentage of women who say they want to have children. Are you saying that we ought to value care more *so that* more women will want to have children?
Not so that they want/have more children so much as they don’t make a choice based primarily on the fact that the costs and barriers are so high. The fact that more women don’t want children reflects the fact that they know how much harder it will be for them.
I dunno, I sense a lot of mind-reading goes into interpreting why more women are choosing not to have children. I recognize that pro-natalist groups like the Institute for Family Studies have commissioned surveys that show that *some* women would like to have more children if they had more financial and social support. But anecdotally, I've heard several women say that they feel pressured to "blame" not having kids on the cost of living or climate change 'cause it's still taboo for women to say that they'd rather do other things with their lives. Sheila Heti has this great line about how it must be so liberating to be a gay couple so that no one gives you that look of judgment/sadness/confusion when a heterosexual woman prioritizes other things over reproduction.
I'm reminded of a Jerusalem Demsas podcast episode with Anastasia Berg, a mother, who seems quite sure that more women want to be mothers but just don't realize it. Demsas, not a mom, is skeptical that Berg knows what these women want more than they do.
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/11/having-kids-ambivalence/680799/
I'm certainly not claiming that women don't actually realize what they want! I think many people have always wanted to prioritize other things with their lives, and still do - that's great, and that fact hasn't changed. But I think more people - and women in particular - are having less or no children than they initially wanted because of the cost and lack of support. Or as you put it, they prioritize other things with their lives at least in part *because* the alternative has steeper and steeper tradeoffs. I hear SO many women say this, including many friends who wanted several children, but after one, could not imagine having more because one already felt so financially and socially difficult. I also think its very telling that significantly less women say they want children than men - they know that they will spend twice as much time on child-related activities than men, and they still can't have it all. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/health/fertility-births-vance.html
I hear you, and I don't disagree with any of that. I think the most important thing, which we agree on, is that it should be much easier to be a parent (and especially a mom) than it is now. I'm encouraged that the left and right seem to agree. Hopefully, we'll see some bipartisan legislation passed soon.
I'd love to see more programs for non-parents to get involved in children's lives. (The organization I'm now consulting for is trying to get more men, for example, into teaching early education, which not all women are on board with.)
And I would love to see more support for mothers and parents in a way that doesn't further stigmatize women who don't want to become mothers.
Once again, I think we're 99% aligned, and I'm nitpicking over small details ... but details that are important to me nonetheless.