Since I retired, I have been working full time taking care of my family which has made me realize that taking care of a family is a full-time job. Now, I can see MAGAmaniac leaders jumping on this statement to promote their woman-in-the-home mantras related to less rights and supports for women and families, but their perspective is an outdated, male-dominated, mostly white supremacist vision that promotes their privileged personal lifestyles, wealth, and power.
Yet, let's consider this question: Who is taking care of the family and why does that matter?
As a working mom, I admit, I was stressed out. I was always trying to balance the demands of a job that took almost 70 or more hours a week to do well with the demands of family life including taking care of the children, my home, and contributing to the welfare of my extended family too. Fortunately my husband and I split the job about 50-50 which was a big help--we were a team and remain a team today. Also, I had the support of some extended family members too which helped. But in retrospect, it was a tough balance and an expensive balance too since I was paying top dollar for child care for many, many years. I always chose to pay a little more because quality child care afforded me the privilege to do my work without great worry about my children's welfare.
As an educator, I also witnessed the effect of stress on so many families. Mom's or dad's that chose to stay at home were often isolated, overworked in the home, or possibly without the needed income for good living. Mom's and Dad's who were working were having trouble navigating the balance of the two important tasks. There wasn't one group or the other that was doing better. Instead, both groups had unmet needs. Yet, in those families where children had sufficient care and a positive schedule that met the needs of the children, there was greater happiness and success.
These struggles, I believe, have led to a greater struggle when it comes to caring for one another in society and leads me to question whether we take the needs of people and their good living seriously enough. Do we realize what it takes to care for the American family in healthy, positive ways, and have we revised the American dream to consider that? if we invest more in the American family in ways that promote the best possible early life experiences of children, we will have a stronger, better country.
Yet as we consider this, we have to consider inclusive models of support, models that support modern day potential for good living. Over my life, the choices for good living have grown exponentially. Similarly the work people do to organize and lead their lives has become more intense. As a child, most families in my neighborhood lived very similar lifestyles with regard to schedules, childcare, schools, recreation, religion and more. There wasn't a lot of choice or diversity. Today, there are so many more choices as to how you live, where you live, and what you do, and this complexity has greatly changed the way we use time and how we care for one another.
On the upside, the barrage of available information has helped people to live better lives--people have more easily been able to figure out what they need to live good lives with regard to the work they choose, education they get, health needs, lifestyle choices and more. My 92-year-old dad made me think of this recently as we discussed our transgender relative. He prompted me to imagine what it was like for transgender people in his generation and to imagine the suffering they experienced not being able to be who they were. Greater information available today has helped people to be more true to who they are, what/whom they love, and how they best want to live.
Plus the extensive information share has made us more aware of the grave injustices of the past and work to resolve the injustices that exist today. The Black Lives Matter movement spread the news of unjust racism that continues to exist in society and help us to work for resolve of that painful, hateful inequity. Information about opioid addiction and the greedy spread of those pills has helped us to educate one another about how to prevent greater spread or disaster in that arena as well as hold the greedy people and companies who knowingly spread the deadly drugs accountable. Technology can help us live better lives by aptly educating one another about both the potential problems as well as solutions that exist with regard to better living.
Yet, in society today, we have those who greedily exploit technology to spread self-serving, dehumanizing lies, misinformation, and propaganda. We all have to navigate this so as to follow the honest, positive leaders and information rather than the users and abusers. This is yet another job of those taking care of their families today.
Who is taking care of the family? How can we revision the American dream to make time for all of us to care for family and community in the good ways possible? What does a world look like where people have sufficient time and resources to do the good work possible for one another? How do we create that world?
I want to think more about this and will write more about this in the days ahead?