Discuss. 🙂
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Comments
14 responses to “Can a Feminist Homeschool Her Child | The Foundation for Economic Education: The Freeman, Ideas on Liberty”
well, chris [and andy] are presenting a very positive role then, of male home educators.
I don’t think this is really about home-education at all. It’s really asking “Can a feminist be a stay-at-home mother?”
And doesn’t that come down to *choice*? The difference between who I’d have been in the 1950s and who I am today is that the latter is a role I chose.
I am a stay-at-home, home-educating mother.
And I’m a feminist woman.
I’d suggest that the person who says I can’t be both is the one trying to oppress me.
tbh, I got more the impression it was to do with religion and feminism, but I could be wrong. I also think that you have admirably paraphrased the conclusion of the article, which basically said, iirc, that it was feminists who were oppressing women by somehow looking down on those who stayed at home.
I do think there is a valid question about role models though, as a home educated child’s day to day role models are going to be slightly fewer than a schooled child, simply by lack of having no array of teachers in it. Then again, the role models of a school aren’t exactly all that enlightening, usually lots of women teachers being looked down on by media as having an easy life and very often a male manager. What does that say?
I think Deb is right, it is mostly about being a SAHM really. I would argue that yes, it’s about choice, but I have been reading stuff this week that argues that actually, it’s a false choice.
The assertion is that women who ‘choose’ not to work, but to stay at home to look after their children, or just keep house, and are reliant on their male partner’s income (I’m not entirely sure how this argument extrapolates for same sex couples, or SAHFs) are deluding themselves that this is actually a rational choice between two equally-viable alternatives. They are gambling on their partner not dying early, leaving them or being otherwise financially dissolute. The odds are not brilliant tbh, and I find it hard to contradict the basic premise.
Where I differ is in my reaction to it – I don’t think, “Blimey, I’d better get myself on a decent career path *now* to have any chance of financial independence later.” I’ve pretty much made my peace with the not-having-much-money-later scenario. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the fear of what might happen stop me from pursuing the most enjoyable occupation I’ve ever had.
I think succumbing to the idea that we have no real choice and rushing out to earn some money would still make us oppressed victims of the patriarchy. I think that every day we believe that we *do* have a choice, and live that choice, and love our lives, makes that choice more real and more valid for *all parents*. There should not be this dichotomy between money and family life. Life, fulfillment and feminism should not be all about money (and I don’t believe it actually is!).
Would be interested in references to what you’ve been reading, have just tried three times to post coherent response to this and failed dismally!
Why does it say 5 comments, but I can still only see 4?
Ah, suddenly another comment appears!
Um, Twisty’s “No Post Today” open-topic comment thread – someone called LMYC is very angry at the idea that women who don’t work for money think this is a sensible decision.
“The assertion is that women who ‘choose’ not to work, but to stay at home to look after their children, or just keep house, and are reliant on their male partner’s income … are deluding themselves that this is actually a rational choice between two equally-viable alternatives. They are gambling on their partner not dying early, leaving them or being otherwise financially dissolute.”
That manages to completely ignore the risks inherent in:
– relying on your own income (lots of people lose jobs)
– going out to work and relying on your partner to care for your children all day (stay-at-home parents sometimes die too)
– relying on having two incomes (see option #1)
Have I missed out any of the options? Is there a risk-free one I haven’t noticed?
Life is a gamble. Marriage (legal or otherwise) is a gamble: people divorce. Having children is a gamble (I have at least three friends whose lives have been turned upside-down in the last five years by the birth of a child with special needs). Maybe we shouldn’t form marriage-type relationships or have kids.
There’s no “safe” option here – a fact that those making this argument don’t appear to notice. All the options carry risks of one kind or another.
The closest we get to a safe bet is this: Our children will only be children for a while. I’m not sure how choosing to spend time with them during that while isn’t “a rational choice”, or how it’s somehow a less viable option than sending them to daycare.
LMYC has missed another important fact, when she says “historically, women who stay home for 30 years and keep house tend to get bored out of their minds and depressed”. There’s a big difference between staying at home with your children by choice and doing so because there are no other options available. The same goes for working outside the home, by the way.
Hello – hope you don’t mind me commenting…
I found you via Playing It By Ear and this discussion was so interesting – as well as the linked Twisty thread.
I agree with your comment, Jax, (if I understood it correctly) that the question about role models for HE children is probably the most interesting aspect of the article… a valid question to recognise and think about, and then to deal with! E.g. by providing a range of role models through encouraging our children to mix with and interact with people from all backgrounds and family structures. Er, like most HE-ers do! More than schooled children too, I strongly suspect…
And what of working parents – in particular, working mothers, given the topic title – who HE?
tbh, it isn’t role models that they see once in a while that worry me, it’s the kind of day to day subconscious stuff. So my daughter knows that I work, and that Tim works, and she knows that some of the other he mothers work, but mostly it’s women who are at home. That is the kind of thing that sinks in I think, other than ppl that she meets once in a while.
And I don’t mind you commenting at all Angela, good to have you aboard.
I’m not sure why it would be a problem that she sees that it’s mostly women who stay home to look after their children – that *is* how the world is, after all. I think the important thing to remember here is that she sees that as she grows up, she has choices – and she clearly does see that.
I’ve been pondering this lots too and also spent some time yesterday reading this thread and the linked one. There has long been something about feminism which makes me feel both slightly uncomfortable as though I have either missed something or am ‘letting down the sisterhood’ by not being angry. I have to conclude – for now 😉 – that for me feminism is about choice. Choice and freedom.
I am both happier now and feel freer at home, playing the role of childcarer and educating my children at home, than I ever was at work. I felt far more oppressed and downtrodden competing for promotions and working ever longer hours disproportionate to the pay when I was working pre-children. Now I don’t get ‘paid’ at all but I feel more fulfilment, have more examples that my life has meaning and I am making a difference on a daily basis than I got perhaps annually at work. And I know that this could all be written off as me being conditioned to think that way but frankly in terms of carrying out the ‘traditional’ female role, I’m crap. I don’t do anything that makes me feel ‘housewifey’ as that does sit uneasily on me.
I read the words of the poster on the thread Alison linked to about likening my situation to ‘playing in traffic’ and how I am setting myself up for disaster if my husband, my ‘provider’ were to abandon me – by choice or death. But to be honest those words sounded more about her feeling bitter about her own personal situation (clarified a few comments down for me when she made a specific rant about her ex. I hold as many cards in my partnership as my husband does, he’d be as fucked without me as I would without him. I certainly refuse to see him as the enemy, or the potential instigator of my downfall!
Just re-read that and as I suspected for this time in the morning it is very incomplete in terms of my complete feelings on the subject. Will go and muse further and attempt to better articulate myself on it later.
Interesting.
I think, like Alison, i have made my peace with the fact that i live off Max and rely on him for financial support at this time. I also agree with Debs that there are no solely safe options unless you live in a box.
My personal take on my life is that i have managed to carve out a niche for myself that i see as personally fulfilling (and all i ever wanted to do really and let’s face it, my mother role model was of a highly qualified, well paid and intelligent, workaholic woman). My school pushed me towards a career that was the same, on the basis that i was a woman and i therefore owed it to myself to succeed in a way they had prescribed.
I therefore consider myself to be utterly free of having been co-erced into anything. I went into this marriage having told Max on our first date that this was how i wished my life to be and he had the choice to agree and aim to support me in that.
Where i see women have more choice now is that i feel *I* have the opportunity to carve things out for myself. I am NOT a SAHM, i am staying at home doing what i wish with my children while also working for myself; in this my dad has been my role model, i’m doing what he did. If Max left or died tomorrow then yes, i’d be somewhat ****ed for a while, but essentially i know i have skills to work for myself and these are things i’ve had the opportunity to learn while doing a “traditionally feminine role” – in fact, we were talking about my future the other day and what i’d do if the kids chose to go to school. I remarked that i didn’t know what job i would go out and do and Max looked surprised and said “surely you’d just work for yourself full time?”
It hadn’t really occurred to me until then what a person i have become. For me, this role i chose has been extremely positive, it has actually opened out my opportunities for the future, rather than narrowing them. Some of that is me, some of it is Max, some of it is this world of technology we live in, but i do think that some of it comes from the levelling of attitudes there has been. Okay so the glass ceiling might still be there in some places and higher up the professional scale (my mum has experienced it undoubtedly), but *my* life is vastly different to the “no choice child carers of the 1950’s”. I’d have been a suffragette in the 1900’s, but i don’t feel oppressed now, i feel liberated. I’d have hated to spend my life in a career path.