Nothing struck more fear into some women’s hearts than the oft-posted photo of a group of elderly male politicians caucusing in Washington to decide on the rights of our bodies. Aside from the politics of what they were trying to do, there were no women present at that meeting of the males. It is as we were invisible.
So, this time when the politicos again came a storming at our door, in the guise of the old and tired, “Mommy Wars”, after Hilary Rosen made an inappropriate comment about Ann Romney, “never working a day in her life,” instead of getting divisive we changed the conversation.
We changed the conversation to one of issues not “pass the tissues”. We demanded that government take note that women are 50% of the electoral vote and asked them to stop treating us as a special interest group; we insisted that policies be enacted to support women and mothers; to provide paid family leave, paid sick days, quality and affordable child care, fair wages and end the war on women.
And make no mistake, this is a war on women.
In October of this year, a new ruling to the credit card act Regulation Z went into effect via the Federal Reserve Board and the ruling prevents a woman from getting a credit card in her own name based on her partner’s salary, even if she had a good credit rating prior to making the decision to stay at home. The new rule states that “credit card applications generally cannot request a consumer’s ‘household income’ because that term is too vague to allow issuers to properly evaluate the consumer’s ability to pay. Instead, issuers must consider the consumer’s individual income or salary.” Translation: the partner making the income will need to co-sign if you want a credit card and aren’t working for an income. Shocking, right? This sets women back one hundred years. This also means that women and mothers in abusive relationships have one more layer of control to fight against (and one more way they can be made to feel unequal in the relationship).
Debra Levy, a past Board President of Mothers & More first wrote about the issue back in March 2011 in a guest post on Kristin Maschka’s blog. Kristin is a former Director of Mothers & More and the author of Remodeling Motherhood, which redesigns the concept of “ownership of income for the breadwinner of the family” to that of ‘shared income, based on contributions, paid or unpaid from the members of the family”.
The title of her post was: “Stay-at-Home Moms SHOULD be Mad at the Feds“.
Following Debra’s post, Tara Brettholtz, president of the Board of Directors of Mothers & More, and Gina Earles, the CEO of Mothers & More wrote a letter to Dr. Elizabeth Warren at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year expressing their concerns about the ruling. The letter was also sent to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.
There was no response.
“Since over 80 percent of women in our nation have children by the time they’re 44 years old, this means the majority of women in our nation are disadvantaged by discrimination at some point in their lives,” As Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner on her blog on www.MomsRising.org.
These are alarming statistics. If we don’t see and shout our value to the world, we will remain invisible, and our work of caretaking, and supporting society and our community will remain invisible.
So who will help women and mothers? If you are looking toward established mainstream journalists, yes, somewhat, but look again. It is the bloggers who will bring forth a new generation of politically involved women (and we have to be involved, it’s a matter of our survival). These woman and mothers in the trenches know what is at stake. Bloggers are giving motherhood and the invisible work of motherhood a voice heard like never before in the history of our culture (since Gloria Steinem, my idol, created Ms. magazine).
Make no mistake. We are in a revolution. At stake: our value, our survival.
I will be working in the next few months and years on ways to give women a voice in government; a voice “around corporate America” policy, and a voice on the national stage. I will be providing tools and specific tips you can follow on how to create the change in your life that you want to see in the world.
In the meantime, there is much work to be done. Join Mothers & More, which touts the value of a mothers work whether paid or unpaid, provides opportunities to connect with like-minded women, and offers chances to give back to the community and economically disadvantaged women through advocacy efforts like Power of the Purse. You can also check out www.MomsRising.org, which highlights the issues and provides links to letters you can sign that go straight to policy makers;. Pay attention to bills on the table that will take away your rights and write to your local congressperson via writing to the United States House of Representatives.
Will you join me? Rise up and be heard. Together women and mothers are powerful!
Estelle Sobel Erasmus is a journalist, columnist, author, blogger, content curator, advocate for mothers’ rights, former magazine Editor-in-Chief (American Breast Cancer Guide, Women in Touch, Woman’s Own, Esthetique, Body by Jake), writer for hundreds of national publications and websites, blogger, social media aficionado, former adjunct professor at NYU and most importantly a mom. She recently read for Listen To Your Mother-NYC. You can like her author page on Facebook and follow her on Twitter at @mommymusings011.
©Estelle Sobel Erasmus, April 2012
I made $1.24 last week. Yes, you read that right: $1.24. I actually consider that a pretty good week… normally I don’t find anything at the bottom of the dryer drum.
I am a stay-at-home mom with a low-paying writing gig, and in economic terms… I’m not worth much. I am lucky to have health care, one-hundred-percent access to our joint account, my name on the title of our home and my car, and a husband who contributes regularly to my retirement fund. If I were to die tomorrow, however, I wouldn’t have much to leave behind for those I love.
There is no specific legal expectation for my husband to provide for me exactly the way he does. It is expected he care for me, provide for me, and generally look after my well-being, but we have freedom to choose what that arrangement looks like from in our house. I do thank him for the way he values my contribution to our marriage.
It’s always been a fairly equitable situation for me, and when I jokingly comment, “Hey thanks for feeding me this week.” My husband regularly responds, “Stop it… you know it’s your money too.” I do know that… logically. There is just something about my name on the top of a paycheck that I can endorse and then deposit. I feel like I’ve contributed something tangible to the family, and it’s nice to know that what I do has been recognized by others as having worth.
Several years ago, after reading a book called Wifework by Susan Maushart, I proposed that my husband start writing me a check every week for my services.
“Like an allowance?” he asked.
“No,” I told him, “like a wage. Do you have any idea how much it would cost you to pay someone to provide the services I do for this family?”
Lucky for him, I looked it up. Salary.com calculated that the average stay-at-home mom is worth $115,432 a year for the work she does. That translates to $317 a day and over $2,200 a week! That is more than my husband makes at his job.
Since it will never work out for me to expect a wage that is more than the income that finds its way to our joint account every couple weeks, maybe Wendy Luhabe’s proposal for a mother’s salary is more feasible. In her mid-October interview with CNN, Luhabe explains that the value of women who decide to stay home to raise children is not adequately reflected in economic terms. She proposes that mothers be provided a mother’s salary that is 10% of her husband’s income. This would add value to the decision to stay home, and it might ease some of the tension surrounding this increasingly difficult choice. She may be onto something, and it will be interesting to watch whether this proposal gets any momentum behind it.
We all want to be valued. The unfortunate reality is that money talks, and valuation often happens in that monetary language. In that case, stay-at-home moms are ridiculously undervalued, and as a society, what we say about the worth of women who make a choice to stay home to raise their children will determine so much more than dollar signs.
“Over the past decade, maternal ambivalence has finally been daring to speak its name. In return, it frequently is told to get itself back into the closet.”
Glass Half Full – Katy Read
During my pregnancy (with Jeremy), I received countless suggestions and pieces of advice from family members and (too many) strangers. I read books about pregnancy, but nothing prepared me for the experience of being a full-time, stay-at-home mom. I was steadily employed from age 12 through 29. I was used to demanding bosses, office politics and inadequate pay. I figured motherhood would be a breeze comparatively. I thought I would be my own boss, that I’d finally have a chance to catch up on my reading and the rest of the time, gaze lovingly at my beautiful son.
I now envy the commute my husband has to his job—a full hour of calmly drinking his Diet Coke before walking into a building full of adults. He conducts entire conversations with other adults, eats a meal without anyone clinging to him and attends to his bathroom needs in private. I, on the other hand, have a 10-step commute to my children’s bedroom doors. My meals are catch-as-catch-can and I frequently use the washroom with an audience of Jeremy, Rebekah and my two dogs, Rascal and Scout, all crammed into our half-bath.
I love my children in a way that words can fail to express, but this job was way oversold. In the course of the day, I enjoy laughing with my kids as I tickle them relentlessly. I also slam doors in frustration and beg (literally, beg) my son to stop asking questions. I gaze lovingly at my daughter and son as they play quietly with their toys, then pry them off of their little brother with undisguised rage.
I haven’t read anything longer than a magazine article in about 2 ½ years. I have a whole room for scrapbooking, but mostly I’m too tired to pull out pictures and scrap. My husband and I were last on a date for our anniversary. We struggle to get through a movie after the kids have gone to bed. I have been pregnant and/or nursing for the better part of the last five years.
Ms. Read’s article perfectly captures the ambivalence that is rampant throughout my circle of mom-friends. You would have to literally knock us out to take our kids away from us, but God help the child who has just pushed a younger sibling onto the floor. There is no wrath like mommy wrath. So I say we need to talk about this more. I don’t tell someone who’s just found out she’s pregnant horror stories about what lack of sleep can do, but when she calls me a month after her child is born, crying because the baby just won’t stop crying, I listen without judgement and assure her that this too will pass. If I’ve learned one thing about being a mommy, it’s that the best way to get the monsters out of the closet is to turn on the light. Hopefully, I can do that for someone else.
Susan Carbajal may not have much time to read, but she does make time for Brain, Child magazine (Where “Glass Half Full” was published).
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