Zen-Mother

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When I first heard of this book I was determined NOT to like it. In fact I was angry that such a book was written. I mean imagine it…a book that tells stay at home moms that they are doing a disservice to themselves and to their children by staying home with them! The nerve! The book in question is The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts.

Well, I read the book and guess what I like the book….sort of. Sure it has its moments of preaching and arrogance but it is an important read nonetheless. I think all women would benefit from at least reading this perspective even if not inclined to incorporate any of its ideas or concepts because at least you will know that there are some risks involved in deciding to defer your economic independence and be a stay-at-home mom, dependent on your husband for all financial support.

The book begins with a story that is supposed to be all powerful in proving that a woman’s choice to stay at home can wreck not only her life but that of her children. It is the story of the Bennetts’s grandmother. In all her 80 years her grandmother never worked outside the home. Okay that sounds nice …what is wrong with that? Well, apparently when her grandmother was around 40ish her husband left her for another woman and cut off ALL financial support to her and their children. When faced with this dire situation the grandmother still chose not to get a job outside the home. Instead she became dependent upon family members and her own children to support her while she spent the rest of her days depressed and “waiting” for her husband to return. Bennetts tries to imply that social norms at the time motivated this behavior…women belonged at home…not in the workforce. Well, this story did not sit right with me. Social norms or not I take care of my kids! I was frankly kind of appalled at this woman…not because she made a bad choice in being a stay at home mom and letting her husband support the family but because she refused to even try and help herself after the marriage had dissolved.

This whole sad story resulted in her daughter having to work outside the home even after marriage and family…to support the mother. But having been raised that family concerns come before secular jobs she often quit her own jobs to stay at home for her daughter’s first year of highschool, her daughter’s wedding preparations, taking care of her much older and ailing husband, etc. She also shot herself in the foot so to speak with large gaps in employment, no wage increases because of turn-over, and no substantial pension accumulated. She faced her own golden years alone with only $6000 a year to live on.

This is where we start to see some of Bennetts story…scarred by the experiences of her mother and grandmother, coming of age during the feminist movement, and successful and dedicated to her career and NOT willing to relinquish that financial independence to anyone.

She goes on to explain why she wrote the book and how she sees what she claims is a disturbing trend. Young moms are deciding to stay at home and raise their kids and forgo a career or they leave an established career to do the same. It is in fact becoming a status symbol to have the mom stay home. It is a symbol that shows that the husband is successful.

This sounds all well and good until you meet some of the women interviewed in the book whose husbands left them or died after they devoted years to raising kids while ignoring the cultivation of any job skills that may have proven invaluable in their time of crisis. These moms are hocking precious possessions, working like dogs in low paying jobs, and even finding themselves homeless because they were thrown into a raging river without a life raft. They gave their life raft to their husband and he walked away with it. Here is a quote:

In an era when parents scrupulously outfit their windows with child guards and their cars with baby seats, when they babyproof every square inch of their homes and scour Consumer Reports to research the safest strollers, it is hard to understand why so many women are willing to turn over their ability to feed their children to another person who - if history is any guide - may not always live up to that responsibility. No matter how lovely their homes are, economic dependency is the proverbial elephant in the room - the enormous issue that is almost universally ignored despite its power to destroy everything in it path.

Now then the book did veer off into a place I did not like so much whereby the author talked about how the stay at home moms were overall very ashamed of their place in the world and they didn’t want to use their real names when they were interviewed for this book. The working moms, however, almost always let their real names be used and they spoke openly about their situation and they were proud of their work and life accomplishments.I also did not like the assumption that Bennetts made that most women who choose to stay at home were motivated to do so because they had unsatisfying careers and staying home was an easy out for them. Bennetts admitted to having a lot of anger towards the “Full Time Mom” title that stay at home moms often get and use. It is Bennetts belief that stay at home moms are no more “full time” than working moms…even if they are delegating some of the mom tasks to hired nannies or babysitters. She also claims that working moms do just about everything that stay at home moms do…the cooking, the cleaning, the PTA meetings, the carpooling, etc. They just seem to miraculously fit it all in.

I was a mom working outside the home and I can tell you personally that stay at home moms generally get more quality time with their kids…that is just the simple truth of it. Of course I am not one of those stay at home moms that spends hours at the gym, salon, tanning booth, etc. and very little time at home. This was another mom type that Bennett really dislikes. I think she has some anger issues she needs to work out. One of the working moms she interviewed had the audacity to say that he had a brain and she wanted to use it, implying that stay at moms are functioning without brain power. I also found it shocking that Bennetts herself claimed that her work was so personally satisfying that she would never give it up…not even for her “precious children”. Myself…I don’t think there is much of anything I wouldn’t do for my kids. That Bennetts can elevate her career to a place higher than her children is sad to me.

For the most part though, Bennetts seems to feel that women are living under some kind of delusion. They will not admit that they are sacrificing their independence and financial security by becoming dependent on their husband. They do not think their husbands will ever leave them and they are not prepared to accept that he might die either. They are living in fantasy land until cold, hard reality slaps them in the face and they find themselves at square one again….alone with no income and no skills set that would enable them to get an income.If, ten years from now, you knew your husband was going to leave you and you would end up living in a one bedroom apartment with your kids, and be working for minimum wage at the Gap, wouldn’t you prepare ahead of time and avoid that fate? Well, basically this book asks…why not prepare for that anyway?Another quote from Bennetts:

I have always been puzzled by such attitudes; no matter what one’s circumstances, that kind of blind optimism strikes me as highly unrealistic. Although I have been married for nearly two decades, I have never felt it was safe to depend on any man for financial support, for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with my husband as an individual. To me, it is only sensible to think about financial contingency plans, just as it is sensible to protect yourself and your family with medical insurance or home insurance.

Think about some of the points made in this book. When a marriage dissolves, in the best cases, a woman might walk away with a few years of alimony (which isn’t guaranteed against death, disability, or lay-off), child support until the kids are grown (but remember 69.7% of child support case in 2005 had money owed in arrears), and perhaps half of the assets. Your husband walks away with half of the assets, his career you helped him pursue, future earning potential, and his pensions and retirement plans. Who is better off in this scenario? The woman’s retirement plan isn’t looking so good if you ask me.So what is a woman to do? Well, obviously Bennetts feels that having a career is your insurance:

Finding an institutional structure that can accommodate family needs - or becoming an entrepreneur and building your own - is crucial to many women’s success at combining careers and children.

I actually really like this statement because as an entrepreneur this is exactly what I have done. Did I do it for the reasons she feels I should have? No, but I have built a stable at home business nonetheless. I take more comfort in that now than I ever have before.I am also not one to think my marriage in invincible. I love my husband and I am 100% positive that he loves me but things can change. My husband’s parents are proof of that. They were together for all my husband’s younger years until he was married and his youngest sibling was almost out of high school. That is when my husband’s dad announced he wasn’t in love anymore and he was taking a job out of state to start over…with a new woman. My mother in law was devastated and I won’t get into the details but the events that took place afterwards were heart breaking. Reality tells me that no marriage is secure enough to warrant blind faith.

And beyond divorce there is death, disability, and terminal illness….all these events could catapult Susie Homemaker into the role of sole breadwinner at a moments notice.

One of the last parts of the book goes off course IMO and discusses how men should be our domestic partners as well…doing 50% of the housework and menial family management tasks. I didn’t really agree with her logic because I really do feel as though there are tasks that I am better suited to than my husband and it just makes more sense for me to do them. I may change more poopy diapers then he does but he always changes the oil on the car. We might share the cooking responsibilities but I always do the clean-up. Why? Because I do it better. When the sink is plugged up or the disposal is acting funny, my husband is the man. It doesn’t need to be text book fair…it just needs to work for us.

So what does Bennetts suggest we do? Well, I found her book to be a bit long on the preach and a little short on the practical side when it comes to actual steps women can take. I would have liked a list with bullet points but here are some of the indirect tips

* Learn a valuable skill

* Get a job and stick with it…moving up in pay and position

*  Keep bank accounts separate from your husband

* Always look for opportunities to educate or improve yourself

* Make sure bills and household tasks are divided fairly

* Have a plan for worst case scenarios and be able to manage them if they do occur…divorce, death, injury, lay-off* If you are already married and not working, get a post-nuptial agreement, whereby you get a set amount for every year you out of the job market, in the event of a divorce 

So..now it is your turn? What do YOU think?

WIN this book! I am giving away my copy of The Feminine Mistake to a reader. Just leave me a comment below and tell me what you think…linking to me is not required but it will get you an extra entry!

I will award a winner on September 26th! Thanks for reading!

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