<h1>465: I would say it’s a calling, a dedication, a wonderful, caring act but disagree that it’s a career.</h1>
<p>Just to stir the pot, my sahm friends are now empty nesters. If sahm is a career I guess they were “laid off”?</p>
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<p>Maybe retired? </p>
<p>"Somebody mentioned firefighter as a career. I agree that firefighting is an admirable career.</p>
<p>Why is it more valued than daycare worker? Why do we pay higher?"</p>
<p>That sounds like an odd comparison. A daycare worker generally just babysits your child for part/all of the day. We don’t expect them to bring some great educational experience into their lives, but it’s nice if they do. Most anyone without a criminal record can get a job as a daycare worker, if they can stand it. It requires little training. </p>
<p>On the other hand, becoming a firefighter is so competitive, many people never get the chance. You have to pass a multitude of tests, and be extremely strong. You deal with intense, life threatening situations, where you put your life on the line to rescue people. Many firefighters have died in the line of duty. I doubt many daycare workers have died, sacrificing their lives to rescue others, while on the job.</p>
<p>We put more value on jobs with serious personal risk, that are competitive, and require a large amount of skill and training. There is no comparison, how could there be? It is very often the case that salary is commensurate with the amount of education or training required, and personal risk, as it should be. If anyone could do it, the pay would be low.</p>
<p>A “career” typically refers to an occupation or profession which requires special training. Therefore not all work is a career, even if it is back-breaking work-- e.g., picking lettuce as a migrant worker is a job but it’s not a career.</p>
<p>SAHP is also not what I consider a career, because the role encompasses too broad a range of possibly activities from:
- unpaid homecleaning & hands-on childcare, to
- society moms who outsource the drudgery labor and just “do lunch” and pilates (my kids’ classmates have this kind of SAHMs).</p>
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<p>Which is not the same as in other countries where it is treated as a profession, pays well, and, like firefighter, is seen as a public good, not a personal problem for women to figure out “if they want to work.”</p>
<p>As I said earlier, I think this tells us a lot about ourselves as a country, and what we really value. Feminists should be appalled by this state of paid childcare workers in this county, and if there wasn’t this divide, they would be.</p>
<p>Valuing childcare is a way to change the patriarchy. I’m going to go hang out today at the corner store, with the primary childcare dads who don’t define as feminists but are changing what macho means in our community.</p>
<p>I despair of seeing our society value typical “women’s work”–especially considering the direction we seem to be going after Tuesday. If we can’t all get behind equal pay for equal work, and we think $7.25/hour is a living wage, forget it. It makes me very sad and very angry.</p>
<p>Sitting on my balcony, with an excellent cup of dark roast & chicory coffee, watching the sun rise over the fields and contemplating the end times:</p>
<h1>374 *We all croak sooner or later. *</h1>
<p>It becomes an issue for me how much control we can exert anywhere in our lives. I have to make the focus more and more narrow and local to get through times like these. And switch to wine earlier and earlier in the day. I am pretty sure our kids will fix what we broke. </p>
<p>Going back to post #473 . . . I’m not sure that education is just now being tilted against how many boys learn. I think that just now the path has been narrowed so that kids see only one option . . . college or bust. Again I speak as the parent of a boy who has spent 12 years clinging to that slope trying not to slide off. More young women are choosing to go to college and pursue both work and careers (staying out of that fight for the moment) AND there are fewer manual/spacial/kinesthetic, family supporting, ready at hand opportunities out there for young men who tend more towards the trades. Yes, our kids live in an AP/IB, test every year, jump through hoops, progress measuring world. What I’m saying is that I see that as being driven more by a reactionary fear over lack of opportunity in other economic sectors than purely driven by the “education system”. </p>
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<p>Just a thought…growing up in the '60’s and '70’s I never heard of a SAHM. I knew lots of moms (no dads) who worked at home raising children, including my own mom who worked very hard, but they all defined themselves as “homemakers” or “housewives”. So when the kids were grown, the women were still “homemakers”. The term implied that their job was in creating a home, not just raising children. I personally like that title as many of my friends who are now empty nesters are still busy at home.</p>
<p>I want your day today, alh! I’m going to go to my paid work that could be a career but I haven’t treated as such because my mind is only half there while I get my kids “brung up”. I’m interested to see how my mindset shifts when I get this next one out the door (God willing). Right now I am working in my function as unpaid private college counselor. 
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<p>RE post #481 . . . there are empty nest women who I see at the club who now look good for a living. It appears that it is a serious, full time job but I’m not sure it’s a career. There is some opportunity for advancement but a greater risk of being laid off or “outsourced”. </p>
<p>“A daycare worker generally just babysits your child for part/all of the day. We don’t expect them to bring some great educational experience into their lives, but it’s nice if they do. Most anyone without a criminal record can get a job as a daycare worker, if they can stand it. It requires little training.”</p>
<p>Really? If you say this about the person who becomes a sub-in of sort for working parents to the tune of 40-50 hours a week - likely more than 60+% of the waking hours of their children - than what are you saying about those homemakers/SAHP who stay home to do what the day care worker does? Shouldn’t our standard be that child care workers (if they can “stand” the job - wow - there is another hit on parenting!) WILL provide a good educational and emotional experience if we put our kids in their hands for all those hours?</p>
<p>BTW, while it varies state by state, quality state approved child care centers often require associate or bachelor degrees for their staff, required professional development hours yearly and several health related courses including first aid, communicable disease and CPR. Probably more than many professional careers require yearly of staff. </p>
<p>"Shouldn’t our standard be that child care workers (if they can “stand” the job - wow - there is another hit on parenting!) "</p>
<p>Our mothers’ generation led their lives, and the children fit in and around. We were sent out to play for hours. Our mothers had bridge clubs and the like, got their hair done, and didn’t feel guilty over having date night once a week. They didn’t schlep us to a dozen enrichment activities and if we were in the school play, they watched the final play, not every rehearsal. The stakes have been raised. </p>
<p>Well, actually, my mother worked, as did hers.</p>
<p>But, the reason the “stakes” have been raised are partly because of this brand of criticism of these women who choose to be the support team for their family instead of getting out into the overcrowded work force. So, the whole thing is just go, go,go… </p>
<p>It all ties together, like always, and it’s not one thing or the other. </p>
<p>It’s much easier for women like me who could hire nannys and go about the single-minded business of work knowing that someone would get the kids if they were sick, or be there on an inservice day, or whatnot. </p>
<p>We need to have that available for middle class and lower middle class and lower SES women, as well, and feminists need to stop devaluing childcare if they want to get this done. It’s a public good and should be a profession. It is not an afterthought or low wage work.</p>
<p>Just to stir the pot, though, when there is some Hollywood celebrity or power couple who hires a professional nanny for (let’s say) $100,000/year, they then get excoriated for spending that kind of money. </p>
<p>I agree that we need to have better childcare, but as long as it’s seen as “replacing the WOMAN” that won’t ever happen.</p>
<p>There is a lot of good child care out there - quality, accredited centers. The child care profession just doesn’t get credit for being good and valuable. They are seen, as above, as babysitters. </p>
<p>Firefighting might be exciting and all, but it isn’t exactly rocket science. Caring for kids (well) takes more skill and education.</p>
<p>This is how American Families live today. How on earth is it that we do not see quality available childcare as a public good the way they do in other developed countries? </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-570.pdf”>http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-570.pdf</a></p>