Given the option, the majority of young men and women say they would prefer to share both work and domestic duties equally with their spouses, according to a study published in the February issue of the American Sociological Review. “Our work shows that most people want to have more egalitarian relationships, says Sarah Thébaud, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who co-authored the study. “But they may fall back on to traditional gender roles when they realize that egalitarianism is hard to achieve in the current workplace environment.”
Sixty-two percent of higher-educated women and 59.3 percent of women without a college education said they preferred an egalitarian relationship. Among men, 63 percent of those with some college education, 82.5 percent with less education responded in the same way. And when the researchers asked the third group to imagine a world in which all workers had access to paid family leave, subsidized childcare and flexible work schedules, even more men and women said they wanted egalitarian relationships. (Copyright 2015 NPR)
All this is fine and proper. Epicurus himself would have approved. But bringing up children when both spouses have full-time jobs is extremely difficult. We know people with demanding jobs and very well brought up and adjusted children. But they have involved and hands-on grandparents as back-ups, school collectors, informal educators and gentle enforcers of manners and behaviour. Not many people are as lucky. What worries me are the children who slip between the cracks of part-absent, exhausted parents, and what can happen to them, especially in adolescence. I personally think children need full-time attention from someone. Does anyone have any views on this?
In the context of America, the problem is made far worse by the long working hours, terrible maternity and paternity leave, lack of holidays, and lack of state subsidised childcare. In my personal experience, women are better with young children than men, but once the child reaches about 6 or so, gender roles should be totally egalitarian- especially if the woman is capable of earning more than the man. None of this is inevitable: look to the Nordic countries, where maternity and paternity leave can be shared equally, and the state plays a far greater role in making people have the time and the money to bring up children. It probably won’t happen in America though, because that would be ‘socialist’, and we all know that socialism is bad…
Yes, it is extremely difficult for young couples raising children, something has to give because however much times change, there are still only eight hours in the day. What can substitute for attentive families and neighborhoods? Nothing, really. Schools or day-care centers cannot socialize the young, they can only augment the core people who make up our lives.
The price we pay for failure to socialize children are deracinated adults, crime, anomie, and dysfunctional politics and institutions. Our problems always seem to come back to the destruction of community life by various economic and political forces.