Millennial women are becoming mothers at a rate of practically a million each year, Forbes has pointed out. Columnist Sarah Landrum asserts that since the number of working mothers has doubled from the previous generation, that more mothers want to work, but can’t due to the market’s lack of flexibility.
It’s shown that 90 percent of mothers say the desire to raise a family is the top reason they work from home. That’s admirable. The additional reason Landrum gives for this trend is a woman’s hardship of balancing a fulfilling career and parenting. Those are certainly substantial reasons, however, this leaves out other possible variables like wifehood, financial responsibility, multiple dependents, and personal health.
In order for millennial mothers to maintain their work-from-home situation, it is presented as a misfortune for them to look “outside their fields to get adequate part-time hours.” As much as some want to blame the business atmosphere for its “patriarchal practices,” it is not incumbent upon businesses to cater to mothers who work. A business is not going to pay a mother to do a job that is not related to their business goals.
Landrum presents the pervasive falsehood that the “ever-present wage gap lead[s] millennial women to take their futures by the reins and preside over their homes.” The combination of motherhood, wifehood, and lack of professional energy are the recurring reasons why millennial mothers (and mothers in general) are paid less.
She continues by asserting that “the United States has poor family policies” in that it is one of the few countries that does not have mandatory maternity leave. However, Landrum does not explain how the industrially developed countries that do provide maternity services are socialized or socially oppressive to women. Saudi Arabia, Germany, Turkey, Russia, and Mexico are just a few examples. It is also regrettably omitted that when a service is socialized, companies aren’t the ones paying for that service or benefit. Government taxes are so high that working mothers are paying their job to provide ‘paid’ maternity leave. It’s an absolute scam.
In the case of the American business market, no one wants less take-home-pay for the government to provide a service they could afford.
As expressed by Professor Jordan Peterson, even when women hit the pinnacle of their career, they usually want to invest the energy they have left into the families they want. It is just a fact that when the workforce is doubled without doubling job availability and worth, the value of labor is halved. Only at the fringe margin are their women who can work 70 hours a week and raise a family effectively.
Author Christina Hoff Sommers exposes the research that shows that women are not being cheated out of the careers they want. The wants of women simply change or differ from their male co-workers.
The consistent allegation that women can have it all at once is a myth. Any attention given to one area in a woman’s life will always result in a sacrifice in another area. Technology only changes this so much.
Pressuring the business market to acquiesce to their female staff is not the answer. Demanding that the government subsidize family care is not the solution either. Corporations that can be relatively small are made up of people too, and society should not mandate how they negotiate with any demographic they hire.
Allow women to competitively fend for themselves. Do not judge women’s decisions based on a particular groups’ idea of society. Never assume what women, as a group, want. Each woman is different, and will desire things unique to them.
Rosemary Dewar (@Rlynnd1) is a Community Networker for the Republican Party in Tennessee and an avid supporter of Israel. Also contributor to Athens Now Alabama.
