Where's Mom?

With the recession impacting mostly male jobs (only 18% of jobs lost are to women), the NY Times reports that women hold just slightly less full time jobs than men and may pass them soon for a historical first. In 1965, men held about 70% of the full time jobs with women holding 30%. The gap has now closed and men are losing jobs at a rate quadruple that of women since construction and factory jobs are more vulnerable than those in fields like medicine or education.

This is a milestone in the drive for woman’s equality. Women are now earning more college and graduate degrees than men and are about to surpass them in the job market. You Go Girl! Equality at last!

But if we move beyond the rights and equalities of the individual, let us ask if this is good for everyone: For the family? For the little ones? For men? For the elderly? For the Home? No! It is terrible for everyone, especially for women.

In 1965, most families lived on the “family wage” of the male provider and most homes and families were rooted in and supported by the homemaker mother. This was especially good for younger children, the elderly and other sick or needy family members. It is the particular genius of the woman to create a home, not a just a dwelling or residence, but a womb-like, life-giving ecology of beauty, nurture, safety, inspiration and attention.

In general,masculine self-esteem is highly invested in achievement and performance while the female’s sense of self worth is less preoccupied with career success and more involved with relationships, family, and nurture. The loss of a job for a man oftentimes, beyond the financial stress, is more costly in terms of morale and mental health. The Great Depression saw many male suicides. Our own Grandfather suffered a severe nervous breakdown from which he never recovered; while his wife went on to raise three children in dire conditions and remained mentally and emotionally resilient beyond her 100th year. This case is quite typical and paradigmatic. The loss of so many jobs by men is a deep concern beyond the obvious economic distress.

With women surpassing men in the workplace, the big loser is the home and the family. The home has been greatly deflated as an environment of life. The care and attention formerly rendered there has been delegated to impersonal, bureaucratic institutions: day care, nursing homes, summer camps, and specialized group homes. Children are the biggest losers as they grow up in a “latch-key” environment.

Meanwhile, the stress on Supermom continues to increase. Women still do most of the domestic work. When women lose a job, their time devoted to domestic chores doubles; when men lose a job, their time devoted to this remains the same. They either devote themselves full time to finding a job or they use the time for TV and golf. The brave new feminist world places inordinate expectations upon women.

We live in a world of careerism in which the bourgeois parent’s biggest nightmare is that her child not attend college; a world of individualism where few renounce their own private ambitions for the good of the family; a world of materialism where safety and security are located in insurance policies, retirement accounts and equity statements; and a world of bureaucracies which structure life from infancy to senility.

The current economic crisis will go away soon enough. The destruction of the family is a deeper and far more ominous reality.