Even when couples share more equitably in the work at home, women do two-thirds of the daily jobs at home, like cooking and cleani...ng up--jobs that fix them into a rigid routine. Most women cook dinner and most men change the oil in the family car. But dinner needs to be prepared every evening around six o'clock, whereas the car oil needs to be changed every six months, any day around that time, any time that day.... Men thus have more control over when they make their contributions than women do.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As long as the "woman's work" that some men do is socially devalued, as long as it is defined as woman's work, as long as it's tac...ked onto a "regular" work day, men who share it are likely to develop the same jagged mouth and frazzled hair as the coffee-mug mom. The image of the new man is like the image of the supermom: it obscures the strain.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Many women cut back what had to be done at home by redefining what the house, the marriage and, sometimes, what the child needs. O...ne woman described a fairly common pattern: "I do my half. I do half of his half, and the rest doesn't get done."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
She isn't harassed. She's busy, and it's glamorous to be busy. Indeed, the image of the on- the-go working mother is very like the... glamorous image of the busy top executive. The scarcity of the working mother's time seems like the scarcity of the top executive's time.... The analogy between the busy working mother and the busy top executive obscures the wage gap between them at work, and their different amounts of backstage support at home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Just as the archetype of the supermom--the woman who can do it all--minimizes the real needs of women, so too the archetype of the... "superkid" minimizes the real needs of children. It makes it all right to treat a young child as if he or she were older.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If in the earlier part of the century, middle-class children suffered from overattentive mothers, from being "mother's only accomp...lishment," today's children may suffer from an underestimation of their needs. Our idea of what a child needs in each case reflects what parents need. The child's needs are thus a cultural football in an economic and marital game.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The influx of women into paid work and her increased power raise a woman's aspirations and hopes for equal treatment at home. Her ...lower wage and status at work and the threat of divorce reduce what she presses for and actually expects.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The "female culture" has shifted more rapidly than the "male culture"; the image of the go-get 'em woman has yet to be fully match...ed by the image of the let's take-care-of-the-kids- together man. More important, over the last thirty years, men's underlying feelings about taking responsibility at home have changed much less than women's feelings have changed about forging some kind of identity at work.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Three factors--the belief that child care is female work, the failure of ex-husbands to support their children, and higher male wa...ges at work--have taken the economic rug from under that half of married women who divorce.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As motherhood as a "private enterprise" declines and more mothers rely on the work of lower-paid specialists, the value accorded t...he work of mothering (not the value of children) has declined for women, making it all the harder for men to take it up.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »