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We live in a time where our girls are receiving conflicting messages about their roles in society. They are challenged from all sides with subtle and not so subtle cultural conditioning determined to mold their value system to conform to the world around them.
The conditioning is not from the secular world, as this advertisement claims. The conditioning is coming from Seminaries and Bais Yaakovs, who push unsuspecting girls into becoming exclusive breadwinners, outside of the home, all for the sake of the modern idea of Kollel for all. The purpose? To conform to the world around them, with the threat that you will never get a shidduch if you don’t conform.
You are not accounting for the completely different motivations.
Secular society pushes women to work for equality and self-fulfillment. Torah society tolerates or pushes it as a modern day application of the gemara in Brachos (17a):
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You just made a completely different argument. You might want to start a new thread for that.
this is an insertion cuz i can’t not add it. then you can continue your discussion –
i truly believe everyone who can learn forever, should. I would be thrilled if my kids all chose to be sincere, honest, legit full time learners. Anyone who can’t learn, I wish they could learn part time, in big slots. This is what I want- seperate from what is financially possible.
Having said that and made clear where I stand – the insertion here is that there are so many fights about women being breadwinners or sole supporters etc. They have turned themselves into career people instead of just “working to support the family”. The big problem that there seems to be no answer to is WHO IS RAISING THE KIDS?????
I don’t think *any* child ever should be raised by anyone other than their parents – and every time a child goes to the babysitter, it should be because that was decided to be best for THAT situation. kind of like a heter or a b’dieved. These girls are being conditioned (in the more yeshivish and modern both) to expect their children to be raised by babysitters while they choose a work schedule that fits their needs.
We argue about what the motives for working are and who is pushing it, but all these kids are being left behind.
Gavra, I’m not arguing about whether it’s justified (I’ll save that for next post).
The cultural conditioning that article bemoans is (and is reflected in) the attitude given over to (and absorbed by) the girls, NOT the very act of going to work.
Syag, excellent point, and one which many families struggle with.
I think we agree that the ideal would be a situation where the husband learns full time (productively, of course, not just “being in kollel”) AND the mother raises her children full time.
The problem is that the bills need to paid somehow.
Without offering one-size-fits-all solutions, I will point out a couple of things:
1) It’s not all or none. A mother can work yet still be the one raising her children. It depends on the job, and on the kids. I have seen plenty of families with working mothers where despite having babysitting for a few hours a day, the kids grew up extremely healthy, and the mother was the mother. OTOH, I’ve seen where the mother stopped working because the kids were not doing well, and worse, where the mother didn’t stop working and the kids suffered.
2) Having a father who is a talmid chochom is not just a benefit to him, it’s a benefit to the whole family. In the difficult weighing of the pros and cons of of the different possible arrangements, this must be factored in. It’s not only a loss to the children to have the mother support a talmid chochom husband, it is also a gain.
3) Many families need to have two incomes regardless. If someone in kollel decides to leave for parnassah, it is far from a sure thing that his wife will be able to stay at home full time.
Again, I’m not disagreeing with your thoughts, I’m just trying to provide another valid perspective.
true, but i wasn’t commenting on whether or not the children will be okay or if a part time working mother can think of herself as raising her kids even when the baby sitter is putting in as many daytime hours. My comment was that whether or not these children need to be raised by their parents is rarely even a part of the discussion.
Part of which discussion? In the CR? Perhaps. In real life though, I have seen families struggle with the balance and sometimes make decisions they never thought they would make (or at least sooner than they thought they would make them), so I personally don’t know how rare it is or isn’t. I suppose everyone’s perspective is influenced by their own life experiences.
I have also seen families suffer for not making the right decision, so in cases where it wasn’t part of the discussion, I heartily concur that it should have been.
No, they’re not being hypocritical. As explained, those are two separate points which you are conflating. It’s not the working itself they are complaining about.
It may be bad to have children go to a babysitter (or even a grandparent)
I think the solution is that we should all learn, send our wives to work, and our kids to oomis.
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