Is "parenthood" a career?

At the recent "Jobs and Skills  Summit" there was another demand for more women to return to the workforce. We are being told that there are all sorts of economic and other benefits to come if this happen. 

Women are told that it is their "right to go to work" and their "right to have a career" and that they will find their lives more "satisfying" if they have something "outside the home". I note the same things do not appear to be said about men. 

When I was a mere kitten many more women stayed at home and cared for the children. "Day care" and "preschool" were unknown and "kindergarten" was, if it was available, something you attended perhaps one or two mornings or afternoons a week. Now children as young as six months can be place in "long day care". The standard of care in such places varies enormously. Some of it can be very good but much of it is less than desirable when compared with good at-home care. 

Add to that the belief that both parents need to work in order to pay the bills. Yes, it might be true but it is less true than people want to accept. It costs a lot to have a child, even more than one child, in day care and preschool care. That has been recognised by "subsidies" provided not by the government but by other taxpayers.  Those subsidies, while often very generous, do not cover the whole cost. As children grow older there is "out of school hours" care, "holiday care" and much more.

Then there is expense of going to work (often a second car is involved), the appropriate clothing, the extra food expenses because "pre-prepared is faster", and all the other expenses associated with both parents going to work.  When available grandparents are also expected to help - expectations which come from government as well as parents. 

Having "more women in the workforce" is supposed to be "an economic game-changer". Perhaps it is. It has certainly allowed more people to work at childminding - minding the children of other people. 

My mother and other women of her generation who stayed at home and looked after their own children got something called "Child Endowment". It was a non-means tested,  universal allowance brought in by the Commonwealth government in 1941. small payment intended to be used for the expenses of caring for any children after the first under the age of sixteen. The first child was also included later. It was paid to mothers, not fathers at the rate of five shillings a week. 

I remember my mother going to the Post Office to collect the payment with a bank book. I also remember seeing many other women do the same thing. It is likely that the money represented the difference between eating and not eating. Of course there would have been men who demanded that the money was turned over to them and men who kept back that amount so they could use it for themselves but, for the vast majority, it was welcome extra which could be used on food and clothing for the children. It was certainly how my mother used it. "When the child endowment is paid we can...."

"Child support" payments now are much more generous but not everyone is eligible for them. It is one of those ways in which mothers are "encouraged to return to work".

But I do wonder about all this. I know mothers who did not want to go back to work. They would have welcomed a small payment to stay at home. The "economic benefit" of them being in the workforce was so low they were working for, at most, a few dollars an hour. There was all the stress of being a partner and a parent too. At the same time they felt compelled to return to work because that was what was and is expected of them. Sometimes they have to keep up professional registration and employers do not want part-time employees so they are working extended hours.

If we want both parents in the workforce surely we need to at least consider more part-time work and more job sharing? That of course will also involve ways of making that possible and cutting away a lot of the red tape involved in employing someone and the demands being made by the union movement. 

I am not holding my breath.