I remember the first time I gave my mother a gift for Mother’s Day. I must have been about 8 years old, and I got up very early, before sunrise, and went out to the garden to pick some tulips. I brought them inside with luminous drops of dew still clinging to them, and set them in a vase on the kitchen table with my handmade card leaning up against them. The joy and surprise with which my mom received this simple but heartfelt gift made me wriggle all over with delight, and years later it still remains a special memory for us both.
Now that I’m a mom myself, I know well how important such gestures of appreciation are, and at the same time I’m acutely aware of how much more we could do, especially on a societal level, to truly recognize how important and precious our mothers are.
Back in the 19th century, Marx and Engels were on the right track when they put a real material value on the reproductive labor of mothering, and invented social policies to support women in this essential work. Many European countries today do far more to support mothers — and fathers — during the parenting years than we do in America.
Pregnancy, nursing and early childcare are still women’s work — necessarily so, given our biological realities, although American men often do contribute meaningfully to housework and the care of older children. In some countries (Sweden being the best example), mothers are supported in the labor of pregnancy and early child care by policies and conventions that make it possible for them to take substantial paid leave from work without being penalized when they’re ready to return. Many European countries provide excellent government-subsidized child care, and family-friendly flex time as a norm in the office. Fathers may also be able to take extended family leaves, which relieves the burden on moms.
Here in the U.S. it is rare for an employer to grant more than the 12 weeks maternity leave that was finally signed into Federal law in 1993, after years of concerted campaigning. And let’s note that this is an unpaid leave, which most American families cannot afford to take.
Other than that meager leave time, and some basic support via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (what used to be called food stamps) and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, parents are largely left on their own to figure out how to make enough money to support their children, while also having enough time to raise those children well.
We have probably all heard the horror stories about single moms who have to work two jobs to pay for food and shelter for their kids, and never get to spend any quality time with them. Even for married couples in higher income brackets in the U.S., quality time for the kids can be a rare and precious commodity, as both parents work ever harder to support the endangered American middle-class lifestyle. And very few of us are able to find employment that gives us the kind of flex time needed to deal with the day-to-day realities of school vacations or simply children who get sick and have to stay home.
A recent study by the Pew Research Center, “Breadwinner Moms,” reveals the contradictions and conflicts arising from American women’s increasing participation in an economy that doesn’t fully support their “double shift” of paid and reproductive labor. According to the report, 65 percent of married mothers with children were working for pay in 2011 (and this statistic would be higher if it included all mothers, not just the married ones), yet in a 2013 Pew survey, 50 percent of respondents said that women’s work outside the home has made it harder for marriages to be successful, and 74 percent said women’s paid labor has made it harder to successfully raise children. The same survey group acknowledged, however, that women’s paid work outside the home has become essential for most families to meet their expenses.
The days of the dual-income household seem to be here to stay, and most young American women want and expect to be able to “have it all” — a successful career, marriage and family. This goal is entirely possible, if we come together as a nation to create family-friendly social policies supporting mothers and fathers in both the paid workforce and the work of raising children.
The first step towards change is recognizing that we have a problem and starting to talk about it openly. As a writer, editor and publisher, I’m doing my part by calling for submissions for an anthology of women’s writing called Strong Shoulders: The Loves and Labors of Women, which will be published in 2016 by Green Fire Press. Women, please share your stories of the challenges of mothering in a society that expects us to do it all, but does not always give us the support to make that happy dream possible.
This Mother’s Day, by all means shower your mother with flowers, chocolates, and love. But let’s also think more deeply about the tremendous contribution mothers make every single day, and how we might work together to ease their burdens and give them the recognition and rewards they so heartily deserve.
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The weekly EDGE WISE column is curated by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D., associate professor of comparative literature, gender studies and media studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and the Founding Director of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. Women writers interested in publishing in EDGE WISE can find writers’ guidelines on the Festival website, or may submit queries or columns to Jennifer@berkshirewomenwriters.org.
