The old praise it takes a village to raise a child… still hold many truths, even in today’s society.

All the best,
Amy

When required to consider the consequences or symptoms of any problem I’ve always found it helpful to identify and understand the players, and their evolutionary roots. Here are some out loud thoughts that I’m sure will make some upset, yet possibly have some secret acknowledgments as well, as so many topics are easier to hide behind what is popular or ‘correct’ that to voice and discuss openly.

Women are natural multi-taskers, although I cannot reference the studies, this is a biological fact. Also there are many studies looking at the hormonal protection mode of mother over children and ‘instinct’ that magically allows a woman to know a course of action to take. I find it interesting in many relationships that men are not ‘allowed’ to make the care decisions day to day, or on a specific event (child fall go boom) and that as with any activity, practice or lack thereof leads to a lack of knowledge in taking action at these times. My point is that there is an assumption (correct or not) that the mother knows best how to deliver care. Our society promotes men as being a physical force in the family for protection / breadwinning duties (it is unspoken, but immediately felt in a circle of men, where hierarchy is now determined by salary, replacing physical dominance of one another – I cannot explain it, but it is there) – finally some credence for men being loving and caring and able to laugh with the girls about sticking your finger in the back of a diaper and coming up ’successful’ is accepted, but I have to tell you – men and women are prejudiced and discounting of men being adequate caregivers. The irony is (in my experience) when the source of that derision is from feminist sources. It’s embarrassing, really. . especially when the only proper thing to do is to correct the prejudicial comment – because equality goes both ways. I don’t accept comments from my caregiver (which stopped quickly) like “Daddy must have dressed her” if she doesn’t match, when I spent 30 mins putting the right clothes on but wanting to allow my daughter her right of choice, to promote her in attempting to see value in what she wears, etc. etc.

Regarding workplace equality, you are bang on. Any business (I have owned my company for 13 years, and had 3 women employees of mid/late twenties age leave to raise their families. (God bless them, they are fabulous parents!) Here is something you may not know: EI dings us (employer) for women going on mat leave. Seriously. Then the tax system doesn’t give credit for SAHM/D’s – here is the crux of the problem: if you can’t assign salary to a person, society doesn’t recognize their accomplishments – which is bull. The ROOT of this problem is to give enough tax relief to a family to make it possible for one member to stay home. But there are inherent problems: people abuse systems like this. Society wants more workers in the workforce, our economy depends on everyone working for higher GDP. Businesses go out of business when they invest $10 000 of time and money training someone who leaves to raise a family and then is further penalized by EI. These are the realities folks. Employers “taking you aside” because you took an extra day off for your kid need to be reminded of your value. If you are not worth enough to them, find another job. Easier said than done? You don’t value yourself enough then. You will realize at some point that employers need you too – and if you aren’t abusing them by taking 20 sick days off, they will quickly get over their bullying and see that you need to take that time off – that you resent them when they stand between you and your family.

There are many elements here. They have to be addressed by communicating with each other – without fear of reprisal or being labeled. I’m sorry, but there are too many ‘feminists’ who have sullied an excellent original intention of equality by stomping on men instead of taking smart tactics (as mentioned above) of looking at how to fix the problem.

Just some ranting thoughts, sorry for taking up so much space.