Late to the game but still fired up
Janel sent the Friday Gang a book review for a book by LInda R. Hirshman entitled "Get to Work: And Get a Life, Before It's Too Late"
The review was by Sandra Tsing Loh and I'm not entirely sure what her opinion was of the book or author; She came across to me as a bit annoying at the beginning but when I actually took the (long long long) time to read through to the end of her review I think I liked her wit and sarcasm. Whether or not I read the book that she is apparently publishing and releasing shortly is undecided But I do know that the review made me decide unequivocally that the book she was reviewing was not a book that I was interested in actually reading, and the opinion I was left with was that Linda R. Hirshman's view of the world was more likely to just piss me off than entertain me.
And apparently I'm not alone; I guess I've been living under the proverbial rock when the book came out and sparked apparently much debate and critique in the internet blogosphere. Ah well... yet one more thing I missed while I had my head buried in my ever-growing pile of self-doubt, working-mom guilt, and stinky laundry.
It's clear from the review I read as well as the publisher's remarks that Hirshman thinks very little of women who have chosen to stay home after having a child, vs continuing their careers.
The quote that really annoyed me: "Although child rearing, unlike housework, is important and can be difficult, it does not take well-developed political skills to rule over creatures smaller than you are, weaker than you are, and completely dependent upon you for survival or thriving. Certainly, it's not using your reason to do repetitive, physical tasks, whether it's cleaning or driving the car pool. My correspondent's life does have a certain Tom Sawyerish quality to it, but she has no power in the world. Why would the congressmen she writes to listen to someone whose life so resembles that of a toddler's, Harvard degree or no?"
Power in the world. In my book raising and teaching another human being the qualities that allow them to be kind, caring, empathetic, responsible, giving, independent, confident, questioning, challenging, contributing beings in life is wielding a fair amount of power. As for who the congress men (and women) do and do not listen to and why - our politics is flawed on so many levels at this point that it's meangingless to try and argue that a stay-at-home mother is going to have any less influence than I would as a working mom. I don't have any influence either. Neither do the majority of the "regular people" working or not in this country.
As for the level of skill it takes to "rule over creatures smaller than you are, weaker than you are, and completely dependant upon you for survival or thriving" I think that is a very myopic view of what it takes to raise a child in the world today. It's true that it is not rocket science. And it's true that the problems that are being solved at home are different than the ones that are being solved at work. But it is inappropriate to try and draw conclusions or comparisons about the skill involved in doing one vs the other.
I recently learned through an old friend that a high school classmate of ours has a child that was born with Cerebral Palsy. There was a spot on a local news show about their family that I watched on the internet. The skills that it must take him and his wife on a daily basis, to care for their daughter, to care for the rest of their family, to move themselves and their family forward and give them hope and opportunity and strength and unconditional love and encouragement and support is a skill I will never ever ever claim to exercise in the work that I do in my 45+ hour week high tech management job that provides me with full benefits, a pretty wide scope of responsibility, and a competitive salary. How can you compare the two? Our lives are completely different, filled with different requirements, different skills, different circumstances and in many cases those circumstances aren't choices that a person gets to make for him or herself.
Anyway... I think my friend Debra (who really does need to get a blog at this point; C'mon Debra; I set my sister up. I can set you up too. You know you want it ;-)) summed it up best with her response to the review which was "if the kids aren't raised well, we ALL pay the price" and "Irregardless of whether we are at home or at work, if we are all cranky or sucking the life out of the system or thrashing on others, we are not at our full potential. Tell me how that contributes to having 'a life'?".
I have such smart friends :-)
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