Misogyny - the today version. What is it and who is guilty of it?

[Frances]

10 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

I think the number of women choosing to stay single, or choosing to leave relationships because of domestic labor says that women are getting tired of it.  As the stigma of being single lessens I think we’ll see this more and more.   Women don’t have to accept working, plus doing childcare and all of the household duties all while the hubby plays video games for 6 hours every evening.  
 

Meanwhile a number of single men complain about women not being willing to do things like mom and grandma did. They really want women who will work, and do all the domestic labor while asking nothing of the men.  
 

These 2 things combined are going to reach a crisis at some point. 

It’s already reached a crisis point in places like Japan. 

[Ausmumof3]

Men around here might say something like “that woman” with emphasis in an insulting way if they’re annoyed with someone (as in woman is an insult in itself). 

Most female-dominated industries like child care and school support are poorly paid and conditions are poor.

The local volunteer fire brigade assumed that the sole female member would run the cadet program because she was a woman. They did not include her in activities and conversations. Not all members of course but enough to be noticeable. 
 

Within my circle (mostly religious) it was and to some degree still is expected that women will stop working after children or if money is tight work part time.

At my DHS old company they would get really annoyed if men had to do any child related tasks like picking kids up at school because they assumed that there should be a mum to handle that stuff.

That mansplaining university meme was from here.

We haven’t had a female state premier. The only female prime minister got there through a topple not an election.

[Frances]

2 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

We haven’t had a female state premier. The only female prime minister got there through a topple not an election.

And in the US we still haven’t had a female president despite electing some epically unqualified (but tall!) men. If this isn’t evidence that misogyny is alive and well, I’m not sure what is.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Frances

[historically accurate]

8 hours ago, Frances said:

Most people don’t have this choice because they don’t work from home for their own business. They are generally doing housework outside of work hours. Studies consistently show that women devote more time to housework than men and I don’t think it’s by conscious choice most of the time.

One thing that DH and I had to work through when the kids were little was the equity of cooking. We split the cooking 3 days for him, 4 for me before I quit working and took the chore over 100%. Sounds pretty fair, right? But...his 3 meals were a mix frozen pizza, mac and cheese and hot dogs, leftovers, surprise dinner out, or frozen waffles. This meant my 4 meals a week had to be vegetable heavy, actual cooking in order to have any nutrition for the week and stay in budget. I didn't even realize it for a few months because I just knew that we needed a mix of easy/fast/convenient and healthy/harder to cook.

Now we're having trouble negotiating household tasks since I did it all for about 15 years; some days it's just easier to do it myself rather than have yet another discussion about the fact that family has to step up since I'm working 30+ hours now. I still struggle with feeling like it is my responsibility to "smooth" things, either budgetary, chore-wise, stress-wise, etc. 

Edited September 29, 2023 by historically accurate

[Pam in CT]

There's structural evidence like, as pp have noted, professions  and vocations that are majority female tend toward caregiving, lower respect, and lower wages; professions that have recently BECOME fairly gender-balanced at the entry level like law/ clergy/ elected office/ professional services still become ever-more-male concentrated at higher management levels; and persistent wage gaps within the same roles.

There's cultural evidence like, as pp have noted, the ongoing societal acceptance (or handwringing, same effect) of rape, domestic violence, harassment on the job and in public spaces; or worse yet the redirection of accountability for such violence and harassment from its actual perpetrators toward what females should have done to avoid it.

There's political evidence including legislative and  private companies' differential treatment of female-specific bodily functions. I'm NOT speaking here of abortion which is its own case; but of the very.broad.swath of legislative and private company restrictions on/ coverage of contraception, infertility treatment, doctors' willingness to tie tubes without husband consent, access to pads and tampons in prison and detention centers.

There's marketing evidence like differential pricing on otherwise identical razor blades and moisturizer; the expectations that women in (certain, not all) professional contexts have manicured nails and complicatedly coiffed hair and expensively natural-looking makeup, the billion dollar beauty industry.

There's linguistic evidence, words like "shrill" and "whiny" and "gold-digging" and "trophy" that only ever seem to work one way.

There's personal evidence like the Second Shift, where working women come home after a full day's work to 4-6 more hours of child care, dinner, housecleaning; how most voluntary civic organizations are nearly-entirely women and those that are mixed look expectantly at the women whenever pies need to be baked or caterers to be called.

 

To try to pick out all the evidence, and defend its reality, is exhausting and actually sort of irritating. It's like trying to parse out the toxins from the oxygen in air.  Misogyny is the medium in which we were raised, in which we move, from which we have no option but to somehow, nonetheless, draw sustenance and survive. 

So of course it is perpetuated by women as well as by men; there is no counting all the overt and subterranean ways that women too have internalized it.  Like the line in Barbie

Quote

Everyone hates women. Men hate women and women hate women. It's the one thing we can agree on.

 

(Sigh.)

[Indigo Blue]

Negativity I’ve personally experienced regarding being a SAHM:

My (female, obviously) sister in law: “Ask Indigo to bake the cookies for the band fundraiser. She doesn’t have anything else to do all day long.”

My neighbor (male) across the street: “What do you do all day?” This is a married neighbor who also called me on the phone one day to see if I would have a fling with him. Just called and asked. Not making this up. Disgusting man. 
 

One of Dh male coworkers before he had his own business: “His wife (referring to my dh) is a lady of leisure.”

My own father just a few months ago: “What are you, a do nothing? A zero?”

No wonder I’m happy to be an introvert. Some people can be so damn disgusting. 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Indigo Blue

[Indigo Blue]

And our toxic, misogynistic, narcissistic, EX pastor thinks the Barbie movie is a man basher. Of course he would. He also doesn’t ALLOW his wife to do yoga for fear she might inadvertently worship Buddha.
 

I wish I could have a do over in life sometimes. I wouldn’t be nearly so nice in so many misogynistic situations in which I was admittedly too nice. (And while I’m at it, I would be fiercely unafraid to set a different precedent in dealing with all the narcissistic garbage in my life. You just don’t know better til you’re lived long enough).  

[Paige]

On 9/27/2023 at 11:15 PM, Frances said:

Studies have shown that in general, males are more confident in their abilities and overestimate them while the opposite is generally true for women. Also, studies show that ultimately, confidence is more important than competence when others are evaluating us.

But, why do men generally have more confidence? Could it be the misogyny girls have experienced in childhood that teaches them to be modest, keep their heads down, your voice is not heard or wanted, watch what you wear, others thoughts are your responsibility, etc? 

I grew up in what I now see as a very misogynistic, patriarchal subculture. It's not gone- it's quite popular. Women had roles and responsibilities and men had roles and responsibilities and while we were supposed to be equal- somehow the men's roles had more prestige, money, power, fun, freedom.

I see misogyny in the rise of the Incel movement which I find very concerning because my daughters are beautiful and not submissive. 

I see misogyny when people I know in real life- people I thought were normal- say things like they don't want a the new principal to be a woman, or maybe the last one failed because she was a woman and just wasn't made to handle that kind of thing. 

I see misogyny at home when my DH assumes the girls will babysit, do chores, etc, but forgets to ask DS to step up unless reminded. Is my DH a misogynist? Not really consciously, but it's his air and water- he grew up in the same subculture as me.

I see misogyny when my mom insists that "the men" eat first at family functions. 

And that doesn't even include statistics about domestic partner violence, maternal deaths, wage discrepancy, invisible labor, and how women become culturally invisible at a certain age. 

 

[Indigo Blue]

My mom has consistently stated that she thinks all men are stupid. Yet, when she needs to go to a doctor, she wants a male doctor. 
 

At our former church, they were constantly begging for nursery workers since there was always a shortage. It was always done by women. The men never volunteered. They are always ushers, deacons, etc. 

 

[wintermom]

Yes, gender discrimination is still alive and well, and much stronger in some sectors than others. I've been incredibly fortunate to have worked, and currently working, in sectors that have equal or more women than men, and the women hold leadership positions and are very well respected. I started my working career in Norway, which has a cultural expectation of women and men equality respected. It set an expectation for me in what type of job I would seek in the future. I wouldn't have the desire or patience to work in sectors where women are not respected. 

There are sectors, particularly male-dominated professions such as construction trades, where women have to constantly prove their worth, are given cleaning duties rather than on-tool jobs even if they have equal or higher training than men, and face some male supervisors intentially trying to force them to quit. It's pretty impressive that there are women to put up with this kind of workplace for years and years. They are slowly making a difference, and paving the way for more women to enter and have a somewhat easier experience. With the rising need for workers in these sectors, more women are entering, but trying to change the "old system" to make it more flexible for the reality for the modern women (and men who are responsible for child care) is slow and painful. 

[wathe]

2 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

Negativity I’ve personally experienced regarding being a SAHM:

My (female, obviously) sister in law: “Ask Indigo to bake the cookies for the band fundraiser. She doesn’t have anything else to do all day long.”

My neighbor (male) across the street: “What do you do all day?” This is a married neighbor who also called me on the phone one day to see if I would have a fling with him. Just called and asked. Not making this up. Disgusting man. 
 

One of Dh male coworkers before he had his own business: “His wife (referring to my dh) is a lady of leisure.”

My own father just a few months ago: “What are you, a do nothing? A zero?”

No wonder I’m happy to be an introvert. Some people can be so damn disgusting. 

DH is a stay at home dad, and gets all this too (minus the direct propostioning.  I hope!)

Which is also misogyny.  The role itself is undervalued because is it a role usually held by women.  Patriarchy and misogyny affects us all.  

[SKL]

4 hours ago, Paige said:

But, why do men generally have more confidence? Could it be the misogyny girls have experienced in childhood that teaches them to be modest, keep their heads down, your voice is not heard or wanted, watch what you wear, others thoughts are your responsibility, etc? 

I grew up in what I now see as a very misogynistic, patriarchal subculture. It's not gone- it's quite popular. Women had roles and responsibilities and men had roles and responsibilities and while we were supposed to be equal- somehow the men's roles had more prestige, money, power, fun, freedom.

I've thought long and hard about this for decades.  Because I'm that woman with a low estimate of her worth.  But I was not raised that way.  My mom always worked in a professional office.  Since I was little, she always thought I should be a lawyer like her (female) boss.  My dad, who suffered from severe dyslexia, never came across like he thought he was better than women.  I was the middle child of 3 boys and 3 girls, but it was recognized that I was the most academically superior, I had the highest IQ, I was the one expected to come out ahead career wise ... and I did.  BUT.  I would still be afraid to ask for a competitive salary.  My (male) bosses would call me into their office and inform me that I was getting a raise.  It was never me asking for one.  I wouldn't dare.

It's not rational.  And yet it's real.

[SKL]

Dare I say that I think the SAHP attitudes are separate from misogyny?

Most women are not SAHM; even most moms don't stay home from work very long.  Most SAHP that I knew chose that path because they wanted to be able to do the things that we're now calling misogyny (like be room parents etc.).

Dare I say that there is some truth to the idea that working parents have a lot to do, and sometimes more than a SAHP has on a given day?  I would never comment to a SAHM in the way that's been described above, but yeah I have been up working at 2am many many times because my kids and my job both needed me a lot that day.  (Despite my kids being 16, last night was such a night - kid was being super needy, while I had a number of work deadlines.  I can sleep when I die.)  Meanwhile, I've deleted hundreds of requests to help out with extras at school, activities, etc.  People probably think I'm selfish.

I don't know what it's like to be a dad these days.  I mean when a note goes home from school asking parents to donate peanut butter jars for the class charity drive, it doesn't say "moms."  IME I have seen many dads show up for things like field trip chaperones, taking their kids to sports, etc.  I never checked to see whether it was 50/50, but it certainly isn't unusual enough to feel odd.

I just hope we're moving in the right direction.  Girls and boys can do anything, and they can say no.  (Recent trends among youth seem to be pushing against that, but hopefully not enough to undo all the progress.)

[Frances]

3 hours ago, SKL said:

I've thought long and hard about this for decades.  Because I'm that woman with a low estimate of her worth.  But I was not raised that way.  My mom always worked in a professional office.  Since I was little, she always thought I should be a lawyer like her (female) boss.  My dad, who suffered from severe dyslexia, never came across like he thought he was better than women.  I was the middle child of 3 boys and 3 girls, but it was recognized that I was the most academically superior, I had the highest IQ, I was the one expected to come out ahead career wise ... and I did.  BUT.  I would still be afraid to ask for a competitive salary.  My (male) bosses would call me into their office and inform me that I was getting a raise.  It was never me asking for one.  I wouldn't dare.

It's not rational.  And yet it's real.

I don’t think it’s just our parents that effect us though. If that was the case, I would likely have high self confidence and a more realistic estimate of my worth. I think we get direct and indirect message, both conscious and unconscious, from all different sources when growing up.

For example, my experience with the patriarchal Catholic Church in the rural Midwest probably overall was not good for my self esteem and confidence. Girls weren’t even allowed to be altar servers back then and priests were much more highly revered than nuns. On the other hand, my husband has a highly successful and self confident aunt who was profoundly effected by the examples of her two aunts who were Catholic nuns and a college president and hospital CEO.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Frances

[Momto6inIN]

I think the reason that child care is devalued in our society is because society devalues children, not women.

I have felt misogyny (definition = the idea that women are inherently less valuable than men) from a very few individual men in my lifetime, but not from an institution or a system.

[Frances]

I’ll admit to silently judging parents who both work full time and have their children in full time daycare or before/after school care for older children, partly because so much of the care I’ve seen is just not high quality. I certainly know there are situations where a family needs two FT incomes to survive and and I’ve always worked at least part time since my son was born. And while I would never, ever say anything directly or indirectly about how I feel to such parents, I am inwardly judging probably similarly to those judging SAH parents.

[Frances]

4 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

I think the reason that child care is devalued in our society is because society devalues children, not women.

I tend to agree with this.

[Pam in CT]

20 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

I think the reason that child care is devalued in our society is because society devalues children, not women....

Yeah, it's weird, as a society we TALK a very loud game about the preciousness of children's lives, but our actual societal willingness to invest in their healthcare, their education, their food security, their physical security viz DV/ gun/ other forms of violence, and etc, compared to other nations... actions speak louder than words.

Caretaking professions and services for elderly, disabled, and hospitalized patients are also skewed toward women, also underpaid and also under-respected; so maybe the more accurate lens is "caretaking," generally, of anyone who needs it, is devalued. Maybe that arises organically out of our longtime national elevation of Individual > Collective, I dunno.

 

I do see plenty of other evidence against women specifically that I *do* see as misogynistic besides the Caretakers Don't Much Matter trope (the difference in regulation of women-specific bodily decisionmaking, the indifference about violence against women, and ongoing wage gaps being topline, but there are others.) 

But our disinclination to value any kind of caretaking goes a good distance, I agree.

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

I've thought long and hard about this for decades.  Because I'm that woman with a low estimate of her worth.  But I was not raised that way.  My mom always worked in a professional office.  Since I was little, she always thought I should be a lawyer like her (female) boss.  My dad, who suffered from severe dyslexia, never came across like he thought he was better than women.  I was the middle child of 3 boys and 3 girls, but it was recognized that I was the most academically superior, I had the highest IQ, I was the one expected to come out ahead career wise ... and I did.  BUT.  I would still be afraid to ask for a competitive salary.  My (male) bosses would call me into their office and inform me that I was getting a raise.  It was never me asking for one.  I wouldn't dare.

It's not rational.  And yet it's real.

I was raised by a strong mom and a dumb dad. Almost sit-com-y! I am and my sisters are tough women. And yet… 🤔

[Carrie12345]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Dare I say that I think the SAHP attitudes are separate from misogyny?

Most women are not SAHM; even most moms don't stay home from work very long.  Most SAHP that I knew chose that path because they wanted to be able to do the things that we're now calling misogyny (like be room parents etc.).

I disagree, but I also have biases.

It never, ever crossed my mind to be a sahp until I assessed how much of me my family needed and how little money I was capable of netting with those needs in mind.

My sister was a sahp for years when she wanted to work, but her field of expertise didn’t have a schedule consistent with childcare hours, let alone cost.

Of course I know parents who did this on purpose, but not the majority in my circles. But my circles lean heavily in the homeschool and special needs worlds, so that’s a real factor.

[SKL]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

I’ll admit to silently judging parents who both work full time and have their children in full time daycare or before/after school care for older children, partly because so much of the care I’ve seen is just not high quality. I certainly know there are situations where a family needs two FT incomes to survive and and I’ve always worked at least part time since my son was born. And while I would never, ever say anything directly or indirectly about how I feel to such parents, I am inwardly judging probably similarly to those judging SAH parents.

Yeah, we don't care about the fact that some people don't understand or like our lifestyle.  So judge away.

Going back to my OP about how women are women's worst enemies.

[Frances]

43 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yeah, we don't care about the fact that some people don't understand or like our lifestyle.  So judge away.

Going back to my OP about how women are women's worst enemies.

Since you aren’t part of a two parent family, my judging (of which I’m not proud, just being honest) doesn’t even apply to you. I specifically said two parent families with both working FT so as to be clear I was not including single parents.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Frances

[Melissa Louise]

I don't judge anyone for working; I judge a system that promotes the success/survival of some off the (underpaid, female) backs of others. 

~

I was thinking about this thread yesterday, as I walked past a house where a r*pe (r*pists convicted and jailed) took place. And about how misogyny is also the division of women and girls into 'good women' and 'bad women' - this particular case involved a man describing the r*pe victim as 'meat left out for a cat'...aka she was immodest, and so could expect to be r*ped. 

And then I was thinking about the way when men here are asked if they would ever r*pe or coerce a partner, they say no, but then when the question is rephrased to describe the behaviours without the word 'r*pe', a solid third of them both agree with those behaviors and have undertaken them.

And then I was thinking about how, in the last week of school term, a male student punched and kicked a female teacher. 

And then I was thinking about how a Year 4 boy thought it appropriate to make 'sex noises' - not at his male teacher - but at his female support teachers.

And then I was thinking about the disability royal commission here, and how women with disabilities are at a staggeringly increased risk of r*pe and sexual assault, and how they are sterilized without consent to deal with this reality.

And then I thought about a 15-year-old girl who was murdered by a machete in the UK this week, standing up for a friend who had rejected a boy. And how the boy brought both flowers (to try again with the girl) and a machete (in case the girl or her friend said no). 

And then I thought about how much I like my son, and my dad, and how NAMALT, and how I dislike, say, my female boss, but I still feel pretty much like, no, women are not women's worst enemies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SKL]

49 minutes ago, Frances said:

Since you aren’t part of a two parent family, my judging (of which I’m not proud, just being honest) doesn’t even apply to you. I specifically said two parent families with both working FT so as to be clear I was not including single parents.

That's beside the point.

[livetoread]

23 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

but I still feel pretty much like, no, women are not women's worst enemies. 

Amen. Women disappoint me sometimes because I expect more, but the harm women do to other women is nothing compared to the harm men do to women. I'll take disappointment over terrorism, rape, and murder any day.

[Frances]

22 minutes ago, SKL said:

That's beside the point.

I disagree. Part of the discussion is about what people value or make a priority. Obviously, most single parents have no choice but to work FT. Some, but not all, two parent families do have choices.

[Terabith]

My introduction to misogyny at age four was when my very well meaning parents read me a book titled Girls Can Be Anything.  We finished the book, and I remember vividly looking at my mom and asking, "Is there another book called Boys Can Be Anything?  Why COULDN'T girls do anything boys do?"  

It seemed so incredibly obvious that girls could do anything (except to my great anger, pee standing up) boys could, that the fact there was a book devoted to this raised all kind of alarm bells in my mind.  It was the very first inkling to me that gender could be a limiting factor on my life.  

[SKL]

Well of course rape and murder are horrible, but the vast majority of men don't seem to be set on harming women.  In contrast, there seem to be a lot of women who will undermine and bully other women without any qualms.

[Sneezyone]

9 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

And our toxic, misogynistic, narcissistic, EX pastor thinks the Barbie movie is a man basher. Of course he would. He also doesn’t ALLOW his wife to do yoga for fear she might inadvertently worship Buddha.
 

I wish I could have a do over in life sometimes. I wouldn’t be nearly so nice in so many misogynistic situations in which I was admittedly too nice. (And while I’m at it, I would be fiercely unafraid to set a different precedent in dealing with all the narcissistic garbage in my life. You just don’t know better til you’re lived long enough).  

Something in me flipped a switch 10 or so years ago. I was just...DONE.

[Sneezyone]

4 hours ago, Frances said:

I’ll admit to silently judging parents who both work full time and have their children in full time daycare or before/after school care for older children, partly because so much of the care I’ve seen is just not high quality. I certainly know there are situations where a family needs two FT incomes to survive and and I’ve always worked at least part time since my son was born. And while I would never, ever say anything directly or indirectly about how I feel to such parents, I am inwardly judging probably similarly to those judging SAH parents.

Do you feel that same judgment when their kids are 'successful' by mainstream definitions and/or they have significant retirement accounts to draw upon?

[SKL]

29 minutes ago, Terabith said:

My introduction to misogyny at age four was when my very well meaning parents read me a book titled Girls Can Be Anything.  We finished the book, and I remember vividly looking at my mom and asking, "Is there another book called Boys Can Be Anything?  Why COULDN'T girls do anything boys do?"  

It seemed so incredibly obvious that girls could do anything (except to my great anger, pee standing up) boys could, that the fact there was a book devoted to this raised all kind of alarm bells in my mind.  It was the very first inkling to me that gender could be a limiting factor on my life.  

That's interesting.  I didn't have a book like that, but I was born into a world where girls just didn't do certain things.  I was a "tomboy," which was tolerated for the most part, but it would get me in some trouble, like that time I accidentally ripped the pretty dress my grandma made me while falling out of a tree.  All of our story books were pre-1960s, so the characters (if human) followed older stereotypes, and it wasn't something to even talk about.

But the fact that your book brought up the topic made you question things you might not have otherwise questioned.  I wonder how much we do this to our kids even now.

[Melissa Louise]

I think it's misogyny to downplay the extent to which women and girls are impacted by male violence 

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women

[Frances]

17 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Do you feel that same judgment when their kids are 'successful' by mainstream definitions and/or they have significant retirement accounts to draw upon?

These things don’t enter into the equation for me and I’m not viewing it long term. My judgement mainly comes from the mistaken notion that people can have it all. Except for in limited cases, I think something suffers when parents try to both work FT jobs with FT institutional daycare starting with infants. And I fully acknowledge that some don’t have a choice, including single parents.

[Sneezyone]

11 minutes ago, Frances said:

These things don’t enter into the equation for me and I’m not viewing it long term. My judgement mainly comes from the mistaken notion that people can have it all. Except for in limited cases, I think something suffers when parents try to both work FT jobs with FT institutional daycare starting with infants. And I fully acknowledge that some don’t have a choice, including single parents.

Do you have much experience with those who've juggled both? My DH and I have been doing it for years and, while I admit I took off 7-8 years to be a full-time carer, it was reluctantly. Both of my kids were in daycare through age 3/4. None the worse for wear. I am happy that I was able to maintain some semblance of control over my financial/professional future. Most of my dual-income friends are high-income (private schools on the coasts) parents who coach soccer/basketball and remain heavily involved tho so I haven't seen what you have. It seems to me that implicates the quality/affordability of childcare more than the decision-making. I agree 'people' can't have it all and yet many men seem to have it (with extras and extramarital benefits) with ease.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Clarita]

1 minute ago, Frances said:

I think something suffers when parents try to both work FT jobs with FT institutional daycare starting with infants.

Some daycares are absolutely amazing. My son's first daycare really supported me and actually taught me a lot about how to raise a baby (I first entered him when he was 3 months old). I would have kept working after my daughter was born to send her there too but sadly the lady who ran it retired. They are better with babies than I ever was with them. A lot of people feel like there is no specialized skill involved with taking care of children, but I think there is. 

In fact my son's amazing daycare had a lot of parents who were just sending their children there because they felt it was the best place for them. There were several other moms sending their children there who didn't really have to work for financial reasons but chose to because the daycare was wonderful and their jobs gave them great satisfaction. 

[Sneezyone]

8 minutes ago, Clarita said:

Some daycares are absolutely amazing. My son's first daycare really supported me and actually taught me a lot about how to raise a baby (I first entered him when he was 3 months old). I would have kept working after my daughter was born to send her there too but sadly the lady who ran it retired. They are better with babies than I ever was with them. A lot of people feel like there is no specialized skill involved with taking care of children, but I think there is. 

In fact my son's amazing daycare had a lot of parents who were just sending their children there because they felt it was the best place for them. There were several other moms sending their children there who didn't really have to work for financial reasons but chose to because the daycare was wonderful and their jobs gave them great satisfaction. 

I had a similar experience with my oldest. Youngest was harder because we moved and options were scarce so I stopped working. DDs daycare was amazeballs.

[Frances]

40 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Do you have much experience with those who've juggled both? My DH and I have been doing it for years and, while I admit I took off 7-8 years to be a full-time carer, it was reluctantly. Both of my kids were in daycare through age 3/4. None the worse for wear. I am happy that I was able to maintain some semblance of control over my financial/professional future. Most of my dual-income friends are high-income (private schools on the coasts) parents who coach soccer/basketball and remain heavily involved tho so I haven't seen what you have. It seems to me that implicates the quality/affordability of childcare more than the decision-making. I agree 'people' can't have it all and yet many men seem to have it (with extras and extramarital benefits) with ease.

Yes, myself and my husband, all of our siblings, virtually all of our coworkers, most of our neighbors and friends, etc. Being that you took 7-8 years completely off, again, you are not the demographic of which I speak. I also agree that it’s a somewhat different scenario when the parents are high income because that generally comes with more options and choices.

[Frances]

35 minutes ago, Clarita said:

Some daycares are absolutely amazing. My son's first daycare really supported me and actually taught me a lot about how to raise a baby (I first entered him when he was 3 months old). I would have kept working after my daughter was born to send her there too but sadly the lady who ran it retired. They are better with babies than I ever was with them. A lot of people feel like there is no specialized skill involved with taking care of children, but I think there is. 

In fact my son's amazing daycare had a lot of parents who were just sending their children there because they felt it was the best place for them. There were several other moms sending their children there who didn't really have to work for financial reasons but chose to because the daycare was wonderful and their jobs gave them great satisfaction. 

The daycare my brother used was similar. Unfortunately, I’ve encountered so many that are not. When I was in grad school and having baby dreams, I volunteered for awhile at the best daycare in town, the one most used by faculty. It was very eye opening to me and made me realize that unless I could find something significantly different and better, any children I had would never be in full time care.

[Sneezyone]

12 minutes ago, Frances said:

The daycare my brother used was similar. Unfortunately, I’ve encountered so many that are not. When I was in grad school and having baby dreams, I volunteered for awhile at the best daycare in town, the one most used by faculty. It was very eye opening to me and made me realize that unless I could find something significantly different and better, any children I had would never be in full time care.

We all have choices. Perfect is the enemy of the good IMO. I would much rather have happy, healthy well-adjusted kids who spent some time in the pen (read: daycare), deprived of perfect parenting (which I NEVER offered) while I enjoy a comfy retirement but that tradeoff may not be what everyone faces or wants. The misogyny comes in, for me, with the fact that these are considerations my DH NEVER dealt with in any real sense of the word. They were abstractions and irritants (when I brought it up) but not REAL concerns unless I insisted on him opening his eyes to the cost I paid for his career. It's a wonder we survived/I caved (for a time). I'm glad we're on the other side but I absolutely taught our kids differently.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Sneezyone

[Pam in CT]

1 hour ago, Sneezyone said:

Something in me flipped a switch 10 or so years ago. I was just...DONE.

A switch flipped for me somewhere around the same time when I woke up, Rip van Winkle like, from a decades long nap during which I vaguely dreamed the narrative arc is long but it bends towards justice, and I looked around and realized

Quote

By any and all measurable metrics, things are no better for my nearly-launching age daughters than they were for me thirty years ago. By some measurable metrics, things are actually worse.

And I felt like a complacent moron.

Switch. Flipped.

No putting myself back into that dreamy rose-colored box.

[Sneezyone]

7 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

A switch flipped for me somewhere around the same time when I woke up, Rip van Winkle like, from a decades long nap during which I vaguely dreamed the narrative arc is long but it bends towards justice, and I looked around and realized

And I felt like a complacent moron.

Switch. Flipped.

No putting myself back into that dreamy rose-colored box.

It takes WORK. ACTIVE, HARD work to make change. That can happen in myriad ways, small and large, but it finally dawned on me that holding my tongue was only hurting *me*, not DH, not my parental tormenter, just *me*. My life has been infinitely better since I stopped biting my tongue.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Sneezyone

[SKL]

59 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

We all have choices. Perfect is the enemy of the good IMO. I would much rather have happy, healthy well-adjusted kids who spent some time in the pen (read: daycare), deprived of perfect parenting (which I NEVER offered) while I enjoy a comfy retirement but that tradeoff may not be what everyone faces or wants.

Yeah, I came to realize rather quickly that there are benefits to group care that can't be duplicated at home; and nobody's home is exactly perfect either.  But we don't need other people to approve of how we cared for our kids.

[Pam in CT]

23 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yeah, I came to realize rather quickly that there are benefits to group care that can't be duplicated at home; and nobody's home is exactly perfect either.  But we don't need other people to approve of how we cared for our kids.

One of the self-reinforcing mechanisms that sustains misogyny is that on average, women care more about what other people think and say about us than men do.  Part of that is in turn rooted (on average) on socialization that (on average) asks/ expects/ rewards girls to be nice and make other people happy and etc, and boys to take risks and be assertive and etc, so the whole sorry system is circular.

But that's how perpetuation functions, circularly.

[Sneezyone]

46 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yeah, I came to realize rather quickly that there are benefits to group care that can't be duplicated at home; and nobody's home is exactly perfect either.  But we don't need other people to approve of how we cared for our kids.

Do you *expect* your kids to care for you, ALL of you, in your old age? That's bold.

[SKL]

49 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

Do you *expect* your kids to care for you, ALL of you, in your old age? That's bold.

?? I am not following.  I was talking about child care, not elder care ??

Edited September 30, 2023 by SKL

[Rosie_0801]

We don't have to care what other people think of our child raising until our ex takes us to court or someone calls Child Protection, which is pretty routine if you have kids with disabilities.

[SKL]

1 minute ago, Rosie_0801 said:

We don't have to care what other people think of our child raising until our ex takes us to court or someone calls Child Protection, which is pretty routine if you have kids with disabilities.

Well yeah, I had originally included a disclaimer that my comment applies if we don't have an open CPS case, but I decided to delete that part.

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, SKL said:

?? I am not following.

What does:

"there are benefits to group care that can't be duplicated at home" mean to you?

I interpreted it to mean group child care outside the home but assumed you meant there'd be an expectation of reciprocation. That may have been an incorrect assumption on my part.

[Rosie_0801]

3 minutes ago, SKL said:

Well yeah, I had originally included a disclaimer that my comment applies if we don't have an open CPS case, but I decided to delete that part.

It's not even an open CPS case. It's what all the reporters are thinking when they ring up.

It's fresh in my mind because a mate has just been inducted into that particular form of hell for having a kid with overwhelming trauma that she didn't cure by doing things that the experts said will work.

[SKL]

Just now, Sneezyone said:

What does:

"there are benefits to group care that can't be duplicated at home" mean to you?

I interpreted it to mean group child care outside the home but assumed you meant there'd be an expectation of reciprocation. That may have been an incorrect assumption on my part.

I wasn't thinking about reciprocation at all.  I was just saying there are good things about group daycare that you can't duplicate at home.