12/01/01

The hardships of motherhood received a brief examination during the summer of 2001, when news broke about Andrea Yates’ murder of her six children. The private realities of postpartum depression, isolation, and lack of financial independence were contrasted with the formerly sunny public image of the new "stay-at-home" mom, a woman who happily trades her former life – career, wages, outside interests – to selflessly rear the next generation. In addition, in Massachusetts, Jane Swift became the first female governor of the state. Pregnant during her inauguration, she gave birth to twins a few months later. Her ability to govern was challenged when fellow politicians questioned the validity of meetings she presided over via conference call during her maternity leave. In the press, some wondered whether there was a conflict of interest between her public duties and her duties to her young family, and questioned whether she should have selected one over the other, rather than attempting to balance the two.

Current attitudes towards motherhood were similarly examined in a few books released in 2001, including Ann Crittenden’s book, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued. Crittenden, a former financial writer for Newsweek and Fortune, focuses on the harsh economic penalties of motherhood. Herself a mother of one, Crittenden calculates her own "mommy tax" – the wages she lost by having and raising her son – at 1 million dollars. And although she possesses plenty of the qualifications to be an interesting acquaintance at a cocktail party, she professes that, when she became a full-time mother, she felt belittled and ignored by society. In fact, her catalyst for writing this book came after she left the New York Times to care for her son, and she "ran into someone who asked, ‘Didn’t you used to be Ann Crittenden?’" (12).

Unlike other recent books on motherhood, including Naomi Wolf’s cleverly titled Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood which catalogued every possible bad thing that can happen to a mother, I found Crittenden’s book to be tightly focused and supported with massive amounts of research. Crittenden’s book is a fact-filled indictment of the American government’s policies on welfare, income tax, immigration, divorce, and maternity leave allowances. These structures favor the "unencumbered worker" – childless workers and non-custodial parents (either through an arrangement where one parent manages the childcare, or through divorce). The statistics are depressing; while she reports that thirty-year-old women without children now earn 90% of men’s wages, comparable women with children earn only 70% (95). While men have increased involvement in parenting or tending house, the division of labor at home is by no means equal. "Even when a wife earns more than half of the family income, the husband will typically contribute no more than 30% of the domestic services and child care" (24). Women are responsible for twice as much of the world’s unpaid labor as men, where unpaid labor includes childcare, housework, and the care of the elderly (77). But since this labor is unrecognized and unpaid, mothers do not accumulate savings, 401K benefits, or even earn Social Security credits for their work as a parent – even though they are raising the workers whose future earnings will fund these Social Security benefits.

The analysis of the situation is fleshed out by anecdotes from mothers, policy-makers, and economists, providing a fascinating history of how mothers’ contributions devolved into unpaid labor, so much so that a full-time mother is now counted as a dependent on the family’s resources. But Crittenden also suggests an interesting solution – that we treat children as the product that mothers are contributing to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and compensate mothers accordingly. The product that a mother (or the main custodial parent) contributes is a future generation of workers who are able to succeed in and advance a productive society. "In the modern economy," Crittenden posits, "two-thirds of all wealth is created by human skills, creativity, and enterprise – what is known as ‘human capital’" (2). Thus, the producers of this human capital need recognition (and restitution) for their contributions.

Crittenden does not advocate payment on a per-child basis. Rather, she suggests that society recognize the time and effort required by parenting as a necessary and valuable endeavor. As such, employers would tailor career paths for parents and the government would revise tax structures, leave of employment laws, and even the division of assets during divorce to enable custodial parents to successfully fulfill their parenting duties.

Crittenden’s identification of the problem is more solid than the solution. Her suggestion may not be viable in the current economy, as it seems to require an extremely enlightened – or socialist – society. Some recent parent-friendly advances in job-sharing, flex-time, and part-time benefits are already slipping as jobs become less plentiful and competition increases among workers. Where companies once had to offer these benefits to lure employees (including mothers) during a time of extremely low unemployment, the unemployment rate has doubled from last year. Employers are watching the bottom line for their own survival, not for the survival of society.

Her idea is one possibility – and one that may spark a dialogue for other possible solutions. In the meantime, Crittenden’s work empowers and instructs mothers to push harder for compromises from their employers, partners, and society as a whole, which is, I think, her ultimate goal. When relating the story of a group of Canadian women fighting to include their "unpaid labor" in the census and GNP, Crittenden ends with a quote from Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has" (84).