Chapter 7 - Exploring the social biographical patterns of Dutch mothers’ attitudes
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authority.” (Astrid, 42 years old, 3
children, stay-at-home mother, adaptive
gender attitude and higher polytechnic school)
.
“I actually don’t know. I don’t have the impression that she missed anything.”
(Tineke, 38 years old, 2 children, 24 hours, traditional/adaptive gender
attitude, intermediate educational level).
Almost half of the mothers of traditional or adaptive daughters worked jobs,
mostly part-time, often to assist their husbands in their store or family company.
Sometimes these mothers’ return to work meant an essential change of family
life, which was not always liked by their daughters. Especially if their mothers
became too occupied with their jobs, their daughters could come to feel
neglected. As a consequence, two daughters tend to show the opposite behaviour
of their mothers, now they are mothers themselves. This is illustrated by Nora (40
years old, 4 children, temporarily
stay-at-home mother, adaptive gender attitude,
university degree):
“I thought it’s constantly about you and it’s constantly about
your job. And for her, it was a huge part of her confidence; she got a lot of self-
esteem from her work. I found that really stupid.”
The parental work ethic received by daughters with now traditional or
adaptive gender attitudes was: follow a good education to be able to contribute to
society. The narratives of stay-at-home mothers in particular reveal that after they
finished high school, their parents were not particularly helpful in assisting their
daughter’s choice of continuation course or profession. “
They never asked me,
‘what do you want to be, what is important for you?’“ (Leontien, 42 years old,
four children, stay-at-home mother, traditional/adaptive, university degree).
The family backgrounds of the interviewed mothers with
egalitarian attitudes
appear more diverse.
Remarkably, the interviewees were often raised in non-
standard families. Roughly one third of the mothers with egalitarian attitudes
were solely raised by their mothers, as a result of divorce or through alcoholism,
disability or death of the father. Sophie describes her youth with her alcoholic
father. “
He read nothing, didn’t have one friend, no contact with the neighbours,
or anything. When we came home,he just sat there, sloshed in his chair, and every
day a lot of fuss, you know, shouting in the house.” (Sophie, 48 years, one child,
32 hours,
egalitarian, intermediate educational level).
Yvette describes her childhood after her father had deceased when she was 8
years old: “
It was just natural that everyone did something. You saw that mom did
everything and that was not right, so we helped. We got the groceries; my mother
was not a very domestic mother. So we actually grew up like this: we had to take
care of ourselves and of mom.” (Yvette, 42 years old, 2 children, 30 hours,
adaptive/egalitarian, intermediate polytechnic).
Other stories of egalitarian mothers reveal that their parents did not give them
much attention when they were young. One daughter went to a boarding school in
England, another daughter experienced traumatic family happenings at a young
age, which preoccupied her parents, and there were parents who always fought.
Additionally, the mothers describe upbringing matters that made them
Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers
176
independent women, sometimes reluctantly. For example, some mothers were
only eleven or twelve years old when they were made responsible for taking care
of their parents’ shop while
they were away on vacation, or for baby-sitting much
younger brothers and sisters. One respondent was ‘pushed’ onto the train to
Amsterdam alone (while living in Groningen, 220 km away) so that she could go
and purchase her desired rucksack.
Also discerned from the narratives is the role of respondents’ own mothers,
who generally were not described as self-evident and consenting mother-figures,
as is the picture that emerged in the chronicles of traditional/adaptive mothers.
Regularly, their respondents asserted that if their mothers had lived in the present,
they certainly would have worked, or would have had a different job. The
daughters often describe their mothers as being clever, assertive, full of initiative
and reluctant to fulfil the mother role. Two egalitarian mothers saw their mothers
as
anti-examples as well, in the sense that their mothers behaved as victims of
their era and complained about not having had the chance to do the profession
they would have liked. It seems that such mothers’ reluctant attitudes towards the
traditional mother role, and subsequent feelings of regret, have stimulated their
daughters to fulfil their own work potential.
What also stands out is that among mothers with the most egalitarian attitudes
(often full-time working mothers), there are some examples of fathers who were
not the traditional (dominant) father figures, but who helped with household
chores and raising the children. “
My mother was the boss, still is actually. I have
a very sweet, quiet father. He’s not dominant or so [...] My father brought us to
school and made food for us. And my dad did the dishes, vacuum cleaned, etc.”
(Ebru, 40 years, 2 children, 40 hours, egalitarian, university degree).
“My father always did the dishes all by himself. And still, when I have dinner
at my parents place, my father says, ‘Sit down and chat. I want to hear your
conversations, and I’ll do the dishes.’ He cleans the whole kitchen on his own.
Then he will ask “Who cares for tea or coffee?” (Alisha, 43 years old, one
child, 36 hours, egalitarian, secondary school. Alisha grew up with 7 brothers
and 1 sister).
Another pattern among mothers with egalitarian attitudes is that they have
explicitly or implicitly received the message (verbal symbol): “
Make sure you
can stand on your own two feet”, or
“
You must not rely on a man”
. As mentioned
before, it was not always necessary to spell out the message, but obvious because
their mothers were sole providers.
“Particularly my mother used to encourage me a lot, and I feel it is nice to
have a lot of encouragement. Yet, maybe my mother encouraged me a little bit
too much.” (Michelle, 47 years old, 2 children, 40 hours, egalitarian,
university degree).
“Straight after finishing high school, I went to university, and that was really
because my mother was pushing me, like ‘you should not spill a year, then you