Question for the women: Are you going to raise your children?

Question

I live in NYC where from 7 AM - 8 PM, all you see is black women pushing white babies in carriages. Not only are white women not watching their own kids, but they're also exploiting black women and taking them away from their own kids. This isn't just the in the city, this is also the suburbs of New York. The only kids being raised by mothers are kids from traditionalist homes waaaay upstate.

Not to mention nanny culture in L.A, S.F., Miami, suburbs of Detroit, and almost anyplace with a middle to upper middle class.

I stop and wonder if this is why so many people today shove their parents in nursing warehouses when they reach a certain age. "Why take care of mom and dad when they left me with strange women my entire life?"

Has feminism robbed children of mothers and turned the elderly into inconvenient burdens?

Such a sad state of affairs.

Answer 1

Why are you only directing this question at women? Do men not have children? Do those children not have fathers? Or does "raising children" just not apply to men?

And per your response to Blah, you seem  to think it's OK for "noble" women to do this, but not common women? And FYI, wealthy families, regardless of station, have always, always done this.

So, what's your point?

Answer 2

My mom was an elementary school teacher when I was a baby (well, for my whole life actually). She did not take time off to care for me. I don't remember it at all. No hard feelings. She's my hero. I think if the day ever comes that I have children, I will probably want to stay home for their first few years. Then again, that depends what I am doing with my life. Maybe I won't have children at all. This is my life, and it's the only one I get - I plan on living it for ME.

Answer 3

Well, women who could afford it have always employed other women to look after their children.  It used to be because they were busy managing their households, or socialising, or doing good works, but nowadays it's because they're all in offices somewhere.

Personally, I'd just as soon be at home with the kids as stuck in some dreary office, I consider that raising my own children in my own home is 'living my own life' far more than I would be in an office at the beck and call of my employer.  But there's no accounting for taste, and many women seem to prefer the office.

Answer 4

So, anytime someone hires someone to cook, clean, take care of the kids while they're at work, they are "exploiting" them?

So, do you think that corporations that export jobs overseas are exploiting the people that get paid little to nothing for their labor, and work in horrendous conditions, are being exploited? Or is only women who hire others to do "traditional" female jobs that are doing the exploiting?

Answer 5

Okay, first off it takes a man and a woman to create the baby, so they are both equally responsible. Two, if someone is going to stay home it should be the person with the lower income, not always the women. So stop blaming women.

Also, you can be very close to your kids and still send them to a daycare during the day until 5 pm for a while until they are 9 or 10. There are plenty out there. School is basically one, too, because they are taking care of and educating your children. You are still taking care of them a lot, feeding them, loving them, etc. etc. Just sending them to daycare for 2 hours after school until you get out of work for a while or during the day to a daycare when a baby until you get out of work. It helps get them out into the world while still getting loving attention. It's really not a big deal. People need these jobs, for one. It stimulizes the economy, for two. No one wants to give up a career, for three. You are still doing the majority of the care,  just with some babysitting also, for four. There is just nothing I can see wrong with it.

Answer 6

You need to earn money to pay for the necessities of life and to make a good life for your children.  If you must work outside of the home to do this and you have children, it is responsible to get good child care.  

Answer 7

This is true careers are now taking the place of rasing the family. People are ruled by money and status now. I personally wouldn't do that I wouldn't want my kid to grow up resenting that I never was there for them.  

Answer 8

They're not exploiting black women. The black nannies CHOOSE to do this. It is their job. If none of the mothers hired nannies, where would the nannies get their money? You show prejudice in assuming that black women are being exploited rather than choosing their own life paths. Why should race even come into it?

The link between nursing homes and nannies is interesting though. Never thought of that. I had nannies, and I don't feel much of a bond towards my parents.

However - what about fathers? It's the couple's choice what to do. Childcare should not be automatically lumped on the mother.

Answer 9

Is it feminism or capitalism? I mean, like several posters have pointed out, a class system in which the rich/relatively rich have the poor watch their old people and children is nothing new. What is new is the degree to which it is widespread and I think that has more to do with the slight expansion of the upper class and the rapid growth of the lower and working classes.   Clearly, I think it has to with capitalism and the ensuing social relations rather than feminism.

I think it's an interesting question for feminists though.  

Answer 10

How do you know that these caregivers are being exploited! Are they not being compensated for their work? Is childcare in your eyes a low level job or something? What's WRONG with you?

I am a working mother. I can afford to send my children to daycare but I can't afford to not work, my income is important to our family and home.  My kids are at a 3:1 and 4.5:1 ratio at this daycare, based on their ages.  The children you are talking about are 1:1.  That's not too shabby.

Answer 11

Why is this question addressed to women only? You would assume that these children with nannies also have a father. You should also understand that not everyone is a traditionalist. So why aren't you addressing the father? Why is it directly assumed that women will want to give up their jobs once a baby happens? I live in NYC. Life here is fast, fast, fast, and VERY expensive. Most of these women are probably earning to make ends meet.

Feminism is not responsible for the elderly becoming "inconvenient burdens"; the selfish "me, me, me" attitude propogated by western culture is. And although I know this sounds selfish, but this is the hard truth: Parents bring children to this world. They are obligated to take care of them. It doesn't work the other way round.

Answer 12

I think I agree with blah...welcome to the new aristocracy...there are no titles, but there is money and money rules here.

Anyway, a lot of the elderly people wind up in nursing homes because their children simply cannot care for them. They do not have the resources or know how that a nursing home does...example, if my 84yo uncle were here and had a stroke, aside from calling 911, i wouldn't know what to do, and by time the emts got here, he might be dead. His nursing home has everything he needs if that happens to him there. (once stable he would get transferred to a hospital)

As for the children...as the cost of living rises (and you can thank uncle sam for that) with little or no help from the government, working parents have to decide what's more important, paying for the roof over their child's head or being at home with them and eventually losing that home because there is no extra income.

does anybody remember that chris rock movie where he was running for president? "On the count of 5, everybody take care of your own d**n kids." If only it were that simple...

Answer 13

Nothing new, nobility often had servants raise their children in the Middle Ages.

While we may not consider these women nobility, they clearly have the power to afford someone else to raise their young for them.  Call it what you will but they have it.

Answer 14

Well, I'm white and I plan on raising my kids thank you. I think babysitting is okay, but kids also need their parents, they shouldn't be left with a nanny all the time.

Answer 15

I live in a suburb of NYC and see this all the time first hand.  

Answer 16

How is that exploiting black women? Nobody forced those women to be babysitters. They obviously needed a job, and they found one. If the woman didn't want to babysit, she didn't have to.

Secondly, a woman has the right to work if she wants to. While some women would rather stay home, some women don't want to, or can't afford to. Personally, I don't think I would ever quit my job if I had kids. Women need to stay connected with the world. Just because you're a mother doesn't mean that's all you are. You're still who you were before you had kids.

Feminism hasn't done anything harmful to society. It is thanks to feminism that one of the little girls being babysat by the nanny can grow up to be whatever she wants. That little girl doesn't have to sit at home and knit curtains and obey her husband, all thanks to feminism.

Answer 17

The sad state of affairs is that you address your question to women and blame feminism......not sure if you're aware but there is a father involved.

Also, as far as the exploitation of nannies......do you feel public schools are exploiting teachers and taking them away from their own kids?  Perhaps education is really the root of the nursing warehouses.

As usual, your premise is so full of holes, you should use it to drain pasta......

Answer 18

Well I'm not what you would call a traditionalist, more like a flybytheseatofyourpantsist, but I'm taking a few years off work to stay at home with my children. In fact it's 2:00 in the afternoon here and I'm watching them kick their little legs as fast as they can.

It's really nothing new though.

In years past children were raised and taught by a governess.

You should also keep in mind it takes a male and a female to create a child therefore they both should be equally responsibile for raising the child.

Directing this question solely to women is part of the problem.

Some men put off child raising on the woman, some women put off child raising on the daycare system.

In the end it's the children who are being harmed.

We've just increasingly become a culture that wants everything now, now now but we don't want to bare the burden and responsibility.