WoLFi TaLEs

The central aim of National Families Week 2008 is to encourage all Australians to recognise that effectively balancing work and family makes for stronger families, workplaces and communities because it helps us to care effectively for our entire family, including the elderly, young, ill and those with a disability, and builds workplace productivity and morale.

Easy, right? Where I live the purple flowering of the Jacarandas coincides with exam time and report cards. So I thought it apt to reflect on how well you think work life family interconnectivity (or balance if you prefer) is happening in your life.  What’s working well, and what’s not? Is it problems in the workplace or on the home front or somewhere else that’s getting in the way? Don’t be afraid of sticking an F where it’s deserved, or an A + for that matter…

In our household, Mr G gets an A+ for being an equally shared parenting partner. Work, gets a B because it is permanent part-time, but not really able to be done in flexible delivery mode. I get a C minus this year, from trying to juggle too much - but by taking leave from work next year to concentrate on just study and family I hope to improve my score. The government gets a C plus, for being so much better than the previous regime, but could boost itself to a B plus if it brings in that promised paid parental leave next year.

Michelle Obama

The Obama campaign and victory has been about instituting change. Barack Obama’s election in a historic event emblematic of change. Barriers around race have been broken, a more egalitarian outlook promised. So while the media have been able to pick up on the significance of this social change, it seems the same grace has not been applied to the President’s wife Michelle Obama. Instead the media and ‘fashionistas’ have attacked Michelle Obama’s choice of dress for the occasion (which I have deliberately not shown here) of the Presidents victory speech. So while a huge step has been taken on race, it seems gender remains at the starting blocks.

What interests me more about Michelle Obama, is that she is an intelligent, independent and well-educated women, who seems to be passionate about her family, and focused on her daughters needs, and trying to keep this whole amazing event ’real’.  She is a lawyer, and advocate of worthy causes including literacy for the poor, supporting military spouses, and work family balance. The Newsweek article gives a more balanced picture of Michelle Obama, than more recent hype about her dress.

Admittedly, though not a fan of Sarah Palin for ideological reasons, I did notice the public fetish with her image and wardrobe as well. I do think, it is time to get over this obsession with women in leadership position as objects, but where do we begin?

Possum Magic

Possum has reached the pinnacle of ballet bliss…being able to wear a real tutu for her ballet concert this year. And purple to boot. Here she is taking it all in her stride with one of her best buddies at her side.

Gen F

Generation F is defined as women between 16 and 65 in a recent study by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA). This study, found that a lack of flexibility and recognition of the needs of working parents in the workplace is still a major stumbling block for mothers wanting to engage in paid work and raise children.

The study found 83 per cent of women considered work-life balance to be highly important, and yet 45 per cent stated a lack of genuine support for work-life balance in their workplace.  A further 36 percent said it was difficult to balance a career and motherhood. While these findings are not news for many mothers in paid work, who struggle daily with the juggle, it is disappointing that employers are not doing more to retain and nurture Gen F.

There may be a further cost to neglecting Gen F in economic terms. ( Go here for full article)

EOWA director Anna McPhee warns employers to ignore Gen F at their peril, describing them as ambitious, hardworking and looking for challenge despite remaining largely “overlooked, under-used and untapped”.

So what is at the root of this persistent problem? The EOWA found, “nearly a quarter of the men and women surveyed believe women were not treated equally at work and 50 per cent of all those surveyed believe a “boys club” existed at their workplace.” Seems like we need to address this root rot before Gen F has any chance of flourishing.

author mem fox

Now don’t get me wrong, as a children’s book author and early literacy advocate, I admire Mem Fox. ‘Possum Magic’ and ‘Where is the Green Sheep’ are much adored in our house. But as a spokesperson for the day care debate, Mem Fox is not as gifted with her words. In my view her orations present a blame-laden, hyped version of the difficulties parents have in decisions around childcare responsibilities and paid work.

Back in August she was quoted here as saying, “I don’t know why some people have children at all if they know that they can take only a few weeks off work”. To me this is a simplistic view. The subtext of ’some people’ seems to suggest mothers, who are still the favourite target of blame and guilt in our society.  Some mothers don’t have a choice about having children, and some mothers don’t have a choice but to return to work soon after their child is born due to financial pressures, or lack of paid parental leave.

Despite this, research suggests most mothers don’t return to work, despite the lack of paid maternity leave. The Australian Institute of Family Studies found only 2 per cent of mothers were back at work within a month of their child’s birth, and 20 percent at 6 months. The bulk of mothers, 54 per cent went back to paid work when thier child was 18 months, and 44 per cent returned after their child turned one.

Yesterday she was quoted here as saying:

‘Putting babies as young as two-weeks-old into childcare for the first year of their life, for 60 hours a week, will cause their brains damage,” Fox said. “For me, the (correlation) is buying a puppy, putting it in kennels for the whole of the week and playing with it at the weekends.

So Mem’s argument that long-hours childcare for tiny infants or risks causing ‘brain damage’ in babies, although not completely without foundation, risks crossing the line into scare-mongering and finger-pointing.

In reading, the 149 comments on the Courier Mail news site ‘Mem Fox says putting babies in child care is abuse’, I found only one comment from a savvy Stay at Home Mum, who instead of feeling she, or mothers in paid work had to wear the blame, was able to give a different perspective to the blame game. She writes:

Mem, I agree with you entirely. I, however, don’t blame the parents. I blame our society….Our government thinks that putting extra money into childcare is preferable to spending money on parental leave. We are one of the few countries in the world that has no sort of maternity/paternity relief. Sort this out and I’m sure there will be a lot fewer tiny, defenseless babies institutionalised.

ouch!

I’m not an economist. I’m not even particularly comfortable around numbers. Ok, I’m virtually innumerate. So I have to admit this current financial crises has put me into a head-spin. But luckily my sister is an economist, and was able to explain that the common denominator this global financial meltdown, is basically - Greed.  So here’s my attempt at working out the equation. If Greed is hyperconsumerism to the power of buying>1can afford/need/wantxdebt divided by bank+credit+middleman greedxrepackaging bad debt-accountability, sensibility,feasibility, then this must =financial meltdown to the power of global recession. If this is true, and I’m not yet convinced I’ve got my numbers right, then perhaps it was is the financial meltdown we had to have, at least if we recognise greed is the square root of it all.

But all this this leads me to a thoughtful post by Amy from Equally Shared Parenting. Being a glass-half-full person, she sees a silver lining for parents facing this financial black cloud ahead.

This financial mess is going to affect all of us. Some of our worries are currently on paper only. Others, like lost paychecks due to layoffs or lost benefits due to employer belt tightening, are front and center. But I have a secret hope. It may be horribly naive, but I’m hoping that a bit of genuine good comes of this period in history. I’d love to see a reawakening of priorities. A return to the simple life, where families no longer need all the things that marketers say make up the American Dream. I’d love to see us proudly put our money where it can do the most good - to buy us time to be together.

It seems to me if we can literally weed greed out of our lives, and refocus on what is really important - including time to nurture our relationships - then I think will find that it’s not actually money or a McMansion that is the answer happiness or wellbeing for you and your family.  Perhaps time, love, trust, and care might be the new currency of value in this financial fallout.

Zora Simic

A short while back The Weekend Australian featured an article about the demise of feminism and ‘girl power’. The article featured some insights from the book ‘The Great Feminist Denial’ by Monica Dux and Zora Simic. These authors’ findings suggest that many women today are afraid to publicly identify themselves as feminists. This is no surprise with the negative stereotypes and narrow clichés that have been associated with feminism and perpetuated via the media.

So it seems for many feminism has fallen out of fashion, out of favour, a ‘dirty’ word, trashed and abandoned in an era of disposability. However, if you are prepared to go beyond the surface hype, dig a bit deeper, look around the blogosphere for instance; you will find feminism is alive with flourishing debates.

Indeed the whole work life family (WoLFi) debate has become an important focal point for feminist concern. As Jane Caro and Catherine Fox, authors of ‘The F Word’, write:

 ‘Mothers in particular are charting new territory, juggling parenting

 and housekeeping with paid work’.

It seems mothers in paid employment are part of the new frontier of feminism challenging the norms, and reshaping patriarchal moulds. Some mothers do fall into ‘super-mum’ trap along the way. Trying to do it all, without adequate support, respite or compensation.

But others with a feminist agenda are campaigning for tangible solutions to the work-life-family conundrum including strong support from government (eg: paid parental leave), from workplaces (eg: flexibility, family-friendly policies & pay equity), and from partners (eg: equally shared parenting). It’s a challenging battle, and not nearly won. I’m glad to see WoLFi is a driving force forward in this new feminist frontier…

Is part time work the answer to WoLFi?

The theme of National Families Week 2008 in Australia is ‘work and family - getting the balance right’. Although this is pleasing - I am concerned about the probability of such a goal being achieved. It’s not just that I think balance is the the wrong word, but it the way we are trying  to get there.  Research suggests that one way in which mothers, mostly, try to achieve balance is by working part time. Australia has a very high proportion of women in paid work, who work part-time, with 51.5 per cent compared to the OECD average of 33 per cent (OECD 2007). We are second after the Netherlands with part time workers, mostly women.

A report on the ’snap-shot of family life’ by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found that 60 per cent of mothers work part time, compared to 1 per cent of fathers. Much research suggests part-time work, especially in Australia, has been a common ‘choice’ mothers use to reconcile the competing demands of paid work and family responsibilities. As many readers know I use the word choice tentatively, because I am not sure how many mothers actually get to make genuine choices in a country where the  male breadwinner model is still dominant.

So I really wonder if part-time work really achieves its aim of creating better work life family balance or interconnectivity ? Or does it just free mothers up to do more unpaid work (cleaning, cooking, taxi-ing etc). Also there are also workplace penalties (lesser pay, conditions, professional development etc) that come with part-time or casual positions. I am curious to know about the major swings and roundabouts, ups and downs, of your part-time work experiences as a working mother?

Yesterday I experienced what was an energy sapping day, all because my equally shared parenting partner was away for 11 hours doing an equally energy sapping paid work day. This is unusual for him, as he usually does paid work from home and loads of unpaid work too, as I now more fully appreciate.

Of course, it was the first day back at school for Possum who had experienced a rather extended vacation of time overseas tacked on to school holidays. So any memory of time dead lines had all but vanished just as her ‘anxiety’ sore throat had suddenly re-appeared. Needless to say getting out the door was the first hurdle, with scratchy uniforms to re-inhabit, school bags to pack, lost library books to find.

We managed to get to school in time, just! After un-stuffing Possum’s overloaded pigeon-hole, and digesting all the upcoming events and monies needed to fund them, I dragged my body unwillingly to the gym - to a mum’s boot camp class. Let me just say torture does not only exist in suspect prison camps. I was being punished for all that food I had consumed and muscles I had left to waste while on vacation.

I couldn’t get home quick enough. Working on my PhD actually seemed it might be fun until I realised I only had a couple of hours left to try to write something somewhat intelligent or at least intelligible. After I had done the breakfast dishes, a load of laundry, and bed-making, the doorbell rang, - twice. Before I knew it, it was 2.30, so out the door again to do pick up, pay some of those monies to the school, followed by a shopping trip to buy school stationary and to top up the groceries.

Back home about 4.30. A neighbourhood buddy of Possum’s visits, and plays, and makes a mess until 6pm. “Yes, it is a bit late to ask for newspaper, after you have already smeared blue paint into my treasured red rug, neighbourhood buddy dear.”  Next I feed the neighbour’s cats, and ours; make dinner, and check Possum’s school bag for homework. None, thank god! Then we swing into a wind-down routine of a game, some colouring in, a bath, a puppet show, a story and then bed. At 9 pm, after washing dinner dishes, I’m still standing but dead.

One day, one child, and I’ve had it. I feel kind of proud for a moment that I can do it all on my own if I have to, but do I want to do it again tomorrow? – not really. It wasn’t a bad day, there weren’t even any after school extra-curricula activities to squeeze in. Should I admit to being a wuss when I know there are sole parents, SAHMs, SAHDs who heft far heavier loads for far longer periods, without respite? Perhaps I’m a hyper-parent of the more hypo variety.

Can you share with me a day that left you gasping…for (energy, a drink, air) you decide. Why do I want to know? Because you, dear parent, deserve some recognition for the work you do ! Some respect, Yo! And because your stories, will make mine, I’m sure, seem like a walk in the park.