Journal: Tell the story of the role of motherhood, a mother, or mother-figure in
your life and the challenges you or she have faced.I actually have been discussing this type of mothers' movement in many of my other classes. Women are put to a double sword when they are expected to be supermom while keeping up a financially beneficial career. While I will admit men are taking part in the "domestic/child rearing" life than ever before, just as Judith Tucker said: women are still doing at least 2/3 of the work at home while still trying to juggle a career.
I do think that we are in a period of transition (yes a long one) but since the 60's and before women were not in the workplace and education as they are today. Welfare systems are not supporting mothers/families to keep them afloat and are driving many to go into poverty not to mention the enormous number of single moms due to divorce or children out of wedlock.
Our society needs to begin to mold into the current situation to help those mothers/families in need rather than policies that support families from over 2 decades ago. Our policies need to revolove around families that require two parents to work with affordable child care, flex time, health care, maternity leave, and parental leave that is not punished when taken. Yes we have some of these policies but not all apply to small businesses and/or these options are not encouraged to be taken advantage of by the employers. We do need these policies to be changed but no official is going to be elected when he/she proposes to raise taxes to support our society who is in need. This makes me think of the Social Security system when the public was irate about the fact they would be taxed for this policy (which was a low percentage at the time) but if one would suggest to take this benefit away for Social Security recipients we would have an uproar. The push needs to go forward to support these families (specifically mothers) so that we can create a society where all is supported in some way or another instead of the bare minimum. Other countries like Sweden has taken this approach, we just are not willing to elect someone who is willing to raise our taxes for these needed benefits. It's a vicious dead end instead of moving toward change (think of the problems that would be eliminated if poverty was not such an issue for single moms/poverty stricken familes!).
In accordance with the journal assignment that was tied to this reading in the syllabus my mom immediately comes to my mind. My mom came from a poor family with no support in college. When my mom met my dad at the 2 year college in my home town she got married and continued on to law school. As she was just about to finish law school before the LSATs she had my older brother Zane. My uncle was a huge help as he lived in the Des Moines area where she went to law school and he would watch my brother while she went to class/the library/and her final LSAT test.
My mom brought me and my brother as infants to her office to breast-feed and would juggle with appointments, bringing us to the office, or with grandma and grandpa during busy months for my dad in the field. My family was extremely lucky as my dad was a farmer/self-employed and we were able grow up with little child care other than immediate family before pre-school. Had my dad not been self employed and my grandparents available there would have been far more obstacles for my mom to establish her practice.
Journal: Tell the story of the role of motherhood, a mother, or mother-figure in
your life and the challenges you or she have faced.
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