Too many options can be a bad thing. Nothing is as satisfying as having your mind made up for you.
Why bother trying to help people find happiness when you can just pretend that the world is already perfect? If you just imagine that everyone else wants the same as you do, or at least they would if they knew what’s good for them, then taking away people’s choices doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.
If the entire world is attracted only to the opposite sex, then who needs gay marriage?
If women would just realise that what they want is to have as many children as God gives them, a lovely home and a husband to support them, then why would they need contraception or abortion? Then men wouldn’t need to negotiate complicated sexual harassment law, maternity leave and equal pay, or learn how to mop a floor.
A recently released report by Selena Ewing of Woman’s Forum Australia (not available online) points out that many women claim that they would continue with a pregnancy if they had more money/ a different partner/ were further ahead in their study or career. In other words, in different circumstances, they would make a different choice.
There are those who argue that this is proof that women have too many choices: if it isn’t available, women won’t choose something they don’t really want. But that’s not what these women are saying. They are saying that that this is their choice given the real world they find themselves in. Taking that choice away leaves them with an option they want even less. Good for women?
There are some things that society can do: we can ensure that single mothers are supported, that women can access paid maternity leave, that both men and women can access family friendly work places. If this really was about what’s good for women, we’d be doing that. But can we provide women with perfect husbands? Can we give them degrees before they finish their studies? Can we make them less old or less young?
Same goes for being a wife and stay-at-home mother. For many women, it’s not an option. Yes – some would like to but cannot afford it. But others find fulfilment through careers and study and other activities outside the home. More still find that spotless houses, perfect children and nutritious, hand-cooked family meals are most rewarding when someone else is scrubbing the toilet bowl.
I can’t help noticing that in many cases, like those I’ve mentioned, the choices being limited are other people’s. These people are not asking for more options for themselves, nor are they offering to give up rights they think they might want to exercise; they’re making their own choices and then trying to mould everyone else in their image.
Sometimes freedom of choice means people getting what they want. Sometimes choice is a matter of deciding between the lesser of evils. But in a liberal democracy, it’s not society’s job to try to enforce one conception of the good life.
My beloved mother, who grew up in China and was the daughter of the provincial president of the journalists’ union, married at the age of 28 after a string of unsuitable proposals. This was an age at which in her society she was considered headed for lifelong involuntary spinsterhood.
She gave birth to me and went back to work as a pharmacologist eight weeks later, arranging for her mother-in-law to raise me. My mother and I emigrated to Australia five years later where she continued on her career.
Mum would head to work very early in the morning and come home very late. She had little time for me. There is no doubt that, had she decided to become a full-time housewife and mother, my childhood would have been happier and more fulfilling.
She was at the forefront of heart research, published over a hundred papers, and her team gave birth to a new generation of drugs called calcium channel blockers. Her own mother who once ran an abortion clinic in rural China has had her life prolonged by this elixir, no doubt millions of other people worldwide.
When she was 51, she retired from medical research and went back to university, studying acupuncture. She graduated at the top of her class.
If Mum had chosen to be a housewife no doubt she might have improved the psychological health of her husband and son, but she would have hated it. It was not in her nature to sit at home and do domestic work, something she was excellent at but always abhorred. Her own physical and mental health would have suffered many times greater than mine. The choice should of been, and was, hers alone.
It took me a long time to realise what she did was right; and I would have no disagreement if in future my own partner decided to lead this kind of life – or not.
The Howard Government’s attempts at bribery and welfare penalizing to encourage stay-at-home mothers despite their families earning millions – social engineering in a wedding veil – must be opposed with fervour and vigour.
I agree with Naomi, Max – your mother sounds like an amazing woman.
My late mother was an amazing woman too! She decided to forgo a career in the theatre to devote herself to her four children, who have all grown up respecting her and have great careers and healthy families. My father also gave up an entertainment career to work two jobs in difficult times to feed us all. They are heroes as far as I am concerned.
I don’t say this to diminish the choices of Max’s mother, who obviously was a woman out of her times, but to say that the choice to nurture is at least as difficult and easily as great.
Kids want a mother, not a scientist. Labour and Libs do what Capitalism wants. Capitalism wants Everyone out at work. -And baby farms for their offspring.
The real heroes are women who accept less wealth to raise their own kids. They deserve higher child payments, and their husbands less tax.
Well, Naomi, plain logistics should give you the answer, but I think you’re question is overloaded and inaccurate.
Until a child’s weaned he/she will be more dependent on mum than dad, so it just follows that mum is the preferred parent to provide the main nurture early on. If a second or third comes in quick succession, then, yes, it could be a pattern which is hard to break. This is something parents these days are well able to plan for, so communication of needs and desires should be paramount. However once children are in school, mums (or if need be, dads) are better positioned to resume their education or a career.
Apart from this, yes, dads should have an equal share in nurture, including nappy duty!
Do ALL Rw’s say mum should stay at home? No! Do they ALWAYS say mums should stay at home? No! Perhaps I should have said your question contained exagerations.
Basically I wouldn’t even attempt to disagree with what you’ve said, or your lifestyle as a mother. Without knowing you, I’d say you’re probably a terrific mum! Most are. It seems to come pretty naturally, which is why I believe mums are so good at being the primary carer early on, not that I would call it a rule or a standard. It is, as has been suggested, a matter of choice, but couples can and should discuss those choices before they decide how many children they have and how frequently, and what their roles will be once children arrive.
There’s such a thing as expressing milk, FaceLift.
Oh, look, Mark, of course you’re right, and I’ve said these things are parent’s choices, so I’m not arguing over this issue, really. But don’t you think there’s a huge comfort, nurture and reassurance connection between a newborn and mother’s breasts?
I don’t know, FaceLift, it’s about 3 and a half decades since I’ve been a baby!
And you look so young!
Well, just to refresh Mark’s memory, and to ‘express’my point better, here’s some info on the advantages to both mum andd child, and in binding, of breast-feeding for the first six months of a child’s life http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/feeding/breast_bottle_feeding.html.
When i said, ‘binding’, I meant ‘bonding’!
So basically, FaceLift, you are agreeing with us – it’s about choices and who gets to make them..
Basically, yes, but I just wanted you to know that I loved my mum for being a mum!
How sweet
Anyone who says I’m right wing is a fool. Or a liar.
Nor am I left wing.
I am not a RWDB. Until this week I didn’t even know what it means.
No one owns the truth, there’s truth at both ends. Calling people names to howl them down is old Totalitarian practice. A practice encouraging mobs to baa like sheep.
If I’m wrong, show me. Because I want to know. But don’t call me names and expect me to cave in. You waste your time.
I’m with you RH. Does that make you middle wing, outer wing, non-wing or wing neutral?
Joh Bjelke-Petersen always used to say there was the left wing, the right wing and the chicken wing.
What about those who just wing it?
R.H. on 5 January 2006 at 6:54 pm
“Anyone who says I’m right wing is a fool. Or a liar.
Nor am I left wing.
I am not a RWDB. Until this week I didn’t even know what it means.
No one owns the truth, there’s truth at both ends. Calling people names to howl them down is old Totalitarian practice. A practice encouraging mobs to baa like sheep.
If I’m wrong, show me. Because I want to know. But don’t call me names and expect me to cave in. You waste your time.”
Absolutely correct, neither the left or the right have a monopoly on being correct but trying to get one to admit the other is right is harder than getting blood out of a stone.
Nothing changes.
Years ago I belonged to a thing called the Socialist Labour League. I was lured into it by a little italian girl. She was THE SECRETARY, she told me, and very proudly too. Meetings took place every week in a room at the Trades Hall. There were around forty of us, including about twenty-five spies.
I remember two main things about it all. The first is that our leader had a Trotsky beard, and wore a dark revolutionary three piece suit. He was always in a hurry, as though required somewhere else on urgent business (subversive, of course). The second thing is that our arch enemies (the Sparticists) liked to pop up in the doorway and harrangue us all. It would go on for about ten minutes, and we’d yell back of course, and then they’d depart and return next week. Really, it was all a bit of a lark. But meanwhile Capitalism had to be fought. My word yes. Capitalism!- and all it’s dirty rotten pigs! A crisis was imminent, said our great leader, the working classes would be facing starvation. We had to get out and warn them, we were their only chance. We. Us. Fifteen true believers and twenty-five spies.
Paul,
‘trying to get one to admit the other is right is harder than getting blood out of a stone.’
Well, at least the left admit the right is right!
I’m with you on those thoughts on parenting, Naomi.
Look, I get tired of all this. If you don’t want a woman’s body and what it does, have a bloody sex change!
RH, go and have a lie down if conversation exhausts you so.
That is the kindest thing ever said to me in my whole career as an internet reply person.
Thank you ever so much.
R H Pretty Boy Tex.
we have had two boys.
neither were breastfed nor had expressed milk because of problems.
My wife fed the first and I the second.
I actually looked after both of them until school whilst at home getting measly amounts of money.
Most but not all women like to look after their children.
Their is a desire not only to have them but to bring them up whilst dads are good at playing with kiddies.
I actually did all the yukky bits like nappies.
I am totally in favour of children remaining home with usually mum for the first two years and then only having 1-2 days of day-care.
Not always. It depends on the kids experience. My mother was a stay at home mum even though she did do night shift when we were younger but we didn’t notice it because we were asleep.
I obviously read too many books when I was young because I couldn’t understand why my mother wasn’t going out and saving the world. I couldn’t understand why she did nothing.
I think it’s the case of wanting what we don’t have because I like the idea of Max’s childhood (love the post btw) because my mother was almost too present in my childhood.
I do seem to refer too much to US TV shows here but if you’ve seen the ads on Channel Nine for a show called Close To Home with the old Bridget, it’s a show about a prosecutor who returns to her job after having a baby. I don’t remember exactly whether the husband is a stay at home dad but I do remember a scene where she comes home from work and the husband is caring for the baby.
However, my point is that there is a scene when she comes back to work and she needs a refridgerator as she tells her boss for the expressed boss. He doesn’t want to give it to her until she says that she’ll just put the milk in the Main Refridgerator.
The show isn’t the greatest (another Bruckhiemer crime procedural) but it is interesting (at least the Pilot) from a feminist perspective.
“If you don’t want a woman’s body and what it does, have a bloody sex change!”
A woman’s body can get pregnant, therefore they should always be pregnant. If you don’t want babies, become a man. If I’m male and don’t want babies, should I be castrated?
Choice.
It’s funny that the ‘capability’ to have children can be preceived as the ‘responsibility’ to have children, as opposed to being just the ‘option’ to have children.
I mean, following the same logic, if you have the extra money to give an additional 10% of your income to the government you should, otherwise you may as well just burn it.
Heaven forbid you choose what to do with it yourself.