One hour at nine pm. That’s the only time many struggling parents see each other during the week. There might be a meal and a quick kiss before one parent dashes out to begin the night shift and another beds down to rest before the morning whistle. They are called tag-team parents and, while numbers are hard to come by, some reports are as high as 30% for families with children less than school age. Only one in five American families has the economic power to support a stay-at-home parent. Many others still can’t afford expensive day-care so tag team parenting, sometimes called “weekend family,” has become the solution. Parents who live this grueling schedule remind themselves that things could be worse. There are 14-million single mothers who might think that tag-team parenting looks like a cake walk compared to their lives.
Obviously there are many complicated pieces to why this disturbing family trend exists. But the more interesting debate is over who gets the chore of fixing it. Church, State or Individuals? I think all three need to do right by families.
Let’s start by looking at the great American workplace. It is perfectly suited to a family of the 1950′s, according to Joan Williams, in her new book, Reshaping the Work-Family Debate. Why Men and Class Matter. Remember the days when Dad was home for dinner every night? When a single forty-hour work week could support an entire family? When weekends were meant for camping, barbecues and Church activities?
Not today. Williams, who is Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, makes a startling case that mothers are systematically discriminated against in the workplace, their hours meticulously counted and work absences for child illness or school obligations, often punished. Then they are forced off their career track into lower paying part-time work or more flexible jobs. At the same time, fathers are forced to work longer hours to compete in the male oriented workplace, or take another job to keep a middle class life afloat. For them the work week looks more like 60 hours.
William’s theory is that women only experience true equality when they are under thirty and childless. After that, most women never even see a glass ceiling before they slam into the maternal wall. I remember as a young, single working woman (I’m about to bust myself here) I could dash out for a quick manicure during work hours with a wink to a co-worker who would have my back. But should I want to leave a work place to attend my kid’s Christmas pageant, I would have to clear it through human resources. And as for a co-worker who might have my back today? If she’s childless, she is more likely to squeal on me. Williams also talks about how our male ordered, 50′s style workplaces, pit women against each other. The “tomboys” who may outsource motherhood and the “femmes” who want a better work-life balance. And the only body who can change this elaborate, out-dated system is the government.
Now before my friends scream, “Not more government intervention! We need less government, not more,” I must remind you that government isn’t some ominous body intent on removing individual freedoms. It is more like a neighborhood referee making sure both teams play by the rules so one team doesn’t always win by default. In this case, families are like the team from the other side of the tracks with bad equipment and no ride to the field. They tend to be a losing team, because they miss so many games and practices. Wouldn’t it make sense to move the game into their ‘hood?
That’s precisely why some companies are allowing parents to work from home. But that’s not possible with highly skilled labor like electricians, hair stylists, plumbers, and receptionists. For those hard working parents, more work-place childcare and job sharing needs to be in place.
As for Churches, long the bastion of moral teaching, community fellowship, and charity to the needy, a new challenge exists. Middle class families have become the congregation’s “needy.” Often too proud to ask for hand-outs, tag-team parents and single parents need a web of support to help them hold their families together. But too often, in this wonderful salad bowl created by American immigration, Church leaders are using their valuable time to self-define, blasting other religions and other lifestyle choices, almost as a backlash against a perceived extinction. Dear Pastor, you want to know how to avoid the plight of the dinosaur? Get up on that pulpit and save families. Save children. And don’t do that by shaming them for their lifestyle choices. Do it by using your powerful voice to influence employers and politicians who can reshape an old fashioned workplace. Offering free childcare isn’t a bad idea either.
Finally, let me address the responsibility of parents to do right by their families. Parenthood is an enormous duty and clearly some burden must be put on American adults to be less greedy and materialistic and believe in the richness of family, even if it is a family that takes the bus and lives in a small apartment. Children are the real wealth of our lives. For instance, I am a mother, before all else. Except for the few occasions where I am obligated to put my own oxygen mask on first, my kids needs come well before mine. Their happiness is my happiness. The problem with this is that when I find myself discriminated against precisely because I am a mother, I am told I made a personal choice and parenthood is a personal responsibility.
I say hogwash. Parenthood is a basic human right. Even if I lived hundreds of thousands of years ago, foraging on the Savannah, without the worries of a sub-prime loan, bad public education, and rising unemployment, a tribe of my people would be helping me to raise my children. But today, whenever I suggest that my tribe of today help me create the next good citizen and employee or entrepreneur, I am somehow deemed a socialist. This nutty conversation mostly morphes into a discussion of politics and liberalism verses conservatism. And this gets us nowhere.
Let’s look at this a bit differently. I am a mother, but I am also an employee, a tax payer, and a patriot in the land of the “free.” So, why am I not free to pursue the most basic tenants of life, liberty, and happiness – reproduction? Is this right only afforded to me if I can find a rich man to underwrite it or if I make a vow of poverty? Why can’t I choose to be a good parent and have support systems in place to help me stay a good employee and tax payer? Just asking.
How many times have you asked yourself, “Why did I do that?” I should have learned that doesn’t work.
