females, feminists and femininity.

I don't agree with @Herculite 's line of reasoning here. But with that statement I don't agree with yours either. Because the value of an individual is not measured by their ability to affect the production of goods and services, or not solely on that anyway.

 

I don't understand what you are saying here.

My wife could greatly increase her "value" as per your definition by putting the kids in daycare. One thing I didn't know until long after our first was born that that her former employer called offering her more money to come back, they couldn't find a suitable replacement. She turned it down, because to her the value of being able to raise ones children was greater than the value of economic production.

I have several young women working for me with children, and they choose to take more time with them than work full time. The inability to take more time raising your children is perhaps the biggest penalty of single motherhood.

Economically women in the workforce can be a liability. I've lost several months of productivity due to pregnancy, and more due to child issues requiring time off.

Until you can change biology, where children are developed outside of the womb, and raised in a creche you will have either a disparity in over all women vrs mens "value" (your definition) or an artificial equality based on what people want rather than what the economic reality is (either lowered productivity over all or artificially high salaries vrs output for women).

 

Well it could be a gift if she believes so, sure.

But in my case, I tell her that children will grow to be busy and fly away. And that it is better she has her own life perhaps with children being vital part of it.

 

I find it odd that we have to popularize these memes through the very medium (advertising) that has done more than anything else to make us feel shitty about ourselves.

 

Just that your wife's perspective on her singular life really has no bearing on how any of us should feel about her set of circumstances were they to be applied to our own lives. I would not consider her life a gift were it my own. It would feel more like a prison.

And I have been a stay-at-home mom in the past just in case you were going to ask.

 

A prison is something you can't get out of. Being she freely has taken this path and in fact when I suggested at one point she might want to go back to full time employment, rather rigorously protested, I think shes rather happy with the arrangement. Its not like she stays at home baking cookies all day and making sure my martini is ready for me with my slippers when I get home.

The gift is the ability to have a choice in the matter.

 

The problem with gender stereotyping is that women feel compelled to make that choice with a far greater frequency than men. Did you consider making that choice or just your wife?

Much like many conservatives (based on their policies) believe that women should be expected to bear the economic cost of pregnancy and child rearing much more than men.

 

The older she gets and the longer she stays out of the workforce the more the walls will close in on her opportunities to work outside the home. She may always feel the way she does now and i hope that she does. But it's a little disingenuous to suggest that she will retain all of her choices as time goes on.

 

Well if I had the B.A. and she had all the fancy degrees and had more earning potential than me let me sum it up here.....

FUCK YA!

But before you blame conservative society, its simply society which frowns on a man who does that. In the cases I've seen it, the man is less househusband than beta male. It goes against most sexual selection criteria for females and instinctively the woman respects the male less.

I live off my husband raising our children = fine (except for some breeds of feminists).
I live off my wife raising our children = freeloader

And whats funny is thats exactly the type of males I see doing that for the most part. They are looking for the easy life of sorts.

Until we change our very biologies females rearing the children just makes the most sense. Mothering isn't just learned its evolved for as well(Discovery Health "Is mothering instinctive or learned?"), and I sure as hell can't breast feed. I personally think I'm a great dad but early on, she was far more bonded to the children than I was.

So it "costs" them economically, and I would argue thats not how one should base their self worth.

 

The public (society) overwhelmingly supports paid maternity leave and paid family&medical leave...both of which are common place in every other industrialized nation.

"Pro-family" conservatives generally do not.

 

But other experts passionately disagree. Psychologist Susan Pinker, who suggested that the gender gap has in part neurological or hormonal roots in her bestselling book, The Sexual Paradox, says: "Subtle but important sex differences are observable from the first days after conception.

Anyone who thinks there are not differences is going on faith, not science.

Because we are the ones running the business. Paid family and medical leave are simply taxes added on top of taxes. It would make me not hire women who wanted children or were of childbearing age since a small business can not absorb the costs or lack of personnel. Its also unfair to those who are not on leave and have to make up the slack.

Somehow in this magical feminist world women should be equally valued in the workplace, equally valued as mothers, and paid to not work because they are having children.

Having a child is a personal choice, I give my people six weeks off, unpaid, for maternity leave. Its difficult enough to handle that without having to pay for them not working on top of it.

If I was a woman working in such a country and wanted a family, I'd be sure as hell to have as many as possible while employed being I get paid for doing nothing. I'm sure that won't be abused, women would never do that.

Run a business and get back to me.

 

California and New Jersey have paid family/medical leave in the form of insurance with employee/employer contributions at less than one half of one percent.

From most accounts, it is popular among small business and even good for business in terms of employee moral/productivity, lower turnover, etc.

And, I dont think birth rates are higher in these states as a result of women looking to get paid for doing nothing.

Unpaid family leave effectively discriminates against women (single mothers) and low income families who cannot afford to take leave.

 

This is exactly what I am worried about. And she understands that. And also I am interested in early retirement and take more of running the home if situation demands.

 

I had seen it a lot. I feel in love and married a girl who is taller bigger smarter than me. Where I come from that is extremely rare. Both guys and girls expect that difference to be male above female. We just fell...

Now she thinks I am a great trainer for our son. But involving and caring for him -there is no way I could get even close. iMPOSSIBLE. Perhaps when the kid gets bigger I could do be more contributing parent.