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not relate to or associate themselves with hard-working mothers. “
My friends
have already had two burn-outs, and then I think for whom are you doing it?
Always in a hurry, and being exhausted all the time. And then those heels… and
the bag… and then I think that I am glad I don’t need to do that” (Mireille)
.
Nevertheless, Mireille doesn’t want to be allies with the mothers hanging
around the schoolyard drinking coffee either.
Gender attitude
The gender attitudes of the interviewed stay-at-home mothers are less traditional
than one would expect, based on their lifestyle. Full-time housewives consider
child-care and household tasks
as their main responsibility, and in general have
no other priorities. However they are not overly satisfied with their current
traditional division of labour and so deal with contradictory inner feelings. As
described, mothers would like to be in paid work and desire (often receiving) help
from their husbands. However where this is not the case, mothers generally tend
to withhold from complaining. “
Actually, he always does a lot, so I cannot really
complain about it. Always when I say, oh, and those children are so... he says,
‘leave the dishes for me’. But you know, sometimes I think, yes, yes, those dishes,
I can do those too. You should go and deal with our annoying children... But yes,
I also think, well okay, you can do the dishes then…” (Janne).
Stay at-home mothers describe their partners quite often as egalitarian
husbands. “
He always said, and I believe him: ‘You must do what you want. If
you want to work then we can arrange an au pair or bring the children to the day
care. If you don’t want to work, it is fine as well’” (Nora).
In other situations, mothers cannot remember explicitly discussing their work
decisions with their partners, yet they do remember that they agreed fully with
their conclusion to give up work. This marital decision-making process vis-à-vis
mothers’ employment activity expresses two rather opposite ideologies. On the
one hand, it expresses the modern view that work is something personal to decide
upon,
but on the other hand, it might also reveal a rather traditional attitude that
work for mothers is not a self-evident matter, and that not working is a viable
option. Whatever attitude prevails, the partner’s apparent tolerant attitude leads to
the situation that how children are taken care of mostly depends on their mother’s
decisions in relation to work. Partners’ tolerant attitudes may appear agreeable,
but as I have described above, mothers’ decisions to give up work are not always
such a pre-planned or positive choice for motherhood. Rather,
they are frequently
the result of a sequence of unfavourable happenings, for example escaping an
otherwise wearisome career. In this light, partners’ liberal or phlegmatic attitudes
allow mothers to slip into non-working situations that do not necessarily make
their lives easier or happier. In addition, there are examples of husbands or
partners who did not comply with earlier plans to work less. However this has not
led to an apparent conflict between the partners,
rather mothers deal with and
adapt to the situation.
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Another finding is that stay-at-home mothers are, unexpectedly, not very
critical about mothers who work full-time. “
If mothers really like their jobs, they
should work 40 hours. In that case it’s much less draining than sitting at home. I
really think so” (Nienke).
This ‘tolerant’ attitude of full-time homemakers towards full-time working
mothers may be a reaction to the fact that they often receive (critical) comments
themselves about not being employed. “
People ask me: what are you doing all
day: And then I say on purpose: Nothing, I do nothing all day” (Mireille)
.
Early adult attitude towards motherhood
Being a young adult, the mothers remember they had a strong wish to become a
mother and have children. They are particularly child-minded, and are somewhat
less outspoken about their maternal role; or as Marieke describes it: “
As a mother,
you have to put yourself aside.”
In their previous jobs, they had difficulties switching off: “
When I was at
work, I always thought of them sitting on the ground with dirty nappies, neglected
by the professional carers” (Nora).
Using the terminology of Duncan (2005), stay-at-home mothers’ gendered
moral rationalities about childcare are in particular expressed in relation to how
they understand the needs of their children, and less in relation to how they
understand their own needs, or the balance between the two (p.57).
Mothers want their children to have the same things that they were used to
having themselves when they were younger: a nice, cosy house, where there is
‘simply’ someone there for the children. In particular,
after-school day care is not
referred to enthusiastically. Mothers want to offer their children the freedom and
intimacy of home, instead of being once again in a structured and crowded public
environment (see also Portegijs 2006; Portegijs et al., 2008b) and also because it
is not ‘good’ for the children to be in professional childcare too often. Children
need to bond with their parents, and vice versa. The fact that mothers remain
primarily responsible for this bonding process is unquestioned.
Stay-at-home interviewees appeared successful in realising their juvenile wish
to have three or more children, a situation which makes
the option of being a full-
time home-makers acceptable.
“Large families tend to push women away from
paid work, whereas good jobs draw women into the labour force” (Risman et al.,
1999, p.337).