Opinion & Commentary
Sure, we’ll breed (if we can afford it)
More women would put careers on hold to stay at home with their child if it wasn't so costly, writes Jennifer Buckingham.
Every day my seven-month-old daughter does something new, and I cannot imagine letting her spend more time with someone else than she does with me and her father. For this reason, and because I believe the care I give her is superior to any offered even in so-called high-quality child care, I am a stay-at-home "happy little breeder" and proud of it.
Exactly what is wrong with being a "cheerful little woman"? Reading the thoughts of federal Liberal MP Chris Gallus ("A chilling proposal for
women", on this page last Friday), you would think it was preferable to be a bitter workaholic.
We are the first among our friends to have a child. To do so, we saved like mad for a couple of years, rearranged our working lives and moved cities. This is not so much because babies are expensive, but because I did not want to go back to work full-time until my child and I were ready.
And I am not alone.
My female friends range from those who barely completed school to the postgraduate educated. Without exception, they want to be able to stay home with their babies for as long as possible. If, after a time, they can regain their attachment to the workforce with some part-time employment, that would be great, but it's not a big deal.
When the prospective fathers offer to stay home instead, they are promptly and emphatically turned down. Full-time work can wait a few years, but babies are babies only once.
The notion that all women want to be able to continue paid work while they have young children is a myth. Most women want to be able to give up paid work while they have young children. Statistics on the proportion of mothers who work depict only what people are doing, not why they are doing it. Surveys have shown that many mothers work only because they have to, not because they want to.
As I see it, the dilemma facing women is not so much "How can I have a child without sacrificing my career?", but rather "How can I afford to stay at home with my child?".
In some ways, the decline in the birthrate can be seen in a positive light. If women were happy to give birth, enrol their children in long-day care and get back to their lives, there wouldn't be a fertility problem. It seems women are choosing to not have babies rather than do this.
This is not to say that as soon as a woman has a child she must leave the world of paid employment and become some kind of martyr to her children. One's life does not end with the birth of a child, and it is hard to imagine one's career prospects are permanently damaged.
As for the suggestion that mothers not in paid employment are not "socially integrated", that's laughable and offensive.
Despite the good intentions and cure-all claims, a few months' paid maternity leave will not enable mothers to make choices. Maternity leave in
itself is not in dispute. This is as much as can be done to offset any employment disadvantages arising from the inalienable fact of life that the
female of the species bears the offspring. But compulsory paid maternity leave is problematic.
On the financial side, there are several options. One is paid maternity leave, which is narrowly applicable and difficult to design fairly. Another
is a universal allowance to all families with children, regardless of the mother's employment status. Yet another is to let people take responsibility
for their own lives. At the moment, I falter between the second and the third.
Not all people who say they "can't afford" to have children are being completely honest. What they really mean is they can't afford to have
children and buy their dream house, have regular holidays and eat out a lot.
Nonetheless, there are many young couples who would truly struggle to make ends meet if they had a child. The vast majority of them can be found in Sydney and Melbourne, where the cost of housing is putting families under extreme pressure. They do need support from the public purse - but not with the expectation that women want to "juggle" work and family life.
Many of them would love the opportunity to be happy little breeders, just for a little while anyway.
Jennifer Buckingham is a policy analyst at the Centre for Independent Studies.
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About the Author:
Jennifer Buckingham is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.
