partTimeParent, I mostly agreed with the points in your last post but do want to comment on "My point is that this lovely, enjoyable and important work tends to be grabbed by women"

I think it's much more complex that that. Women often do grab the reduced work hours and part time paid work to spend those first few years with the kids but men often also fail to take it up. I've met enough women with ex's who just don't bother to try to be parents (and been close enough to see that it's not always spin or maternal gatekeeping).

Men and women have both got a way to go on that. We need to be pushing unions and legislators to ensure that the provisions of parenting leave are not based on gender so that men have genuine opportunities to do more of this stuff. We need to be working for more family friendly workplaces and support services which allows parents of either gender to do parenting and still earn an income.

R0bert

Hi Robert,
Yes, it happens.

Neither sex has a monopoly on being bad. There are b@stards and b!tches.

Divorced dads often end up not having any time with their kids, and (as you pointed out) some is maternal gatekeeping or the "winner-takes-all" result of the Divorce Court.

Some is also the pain and anger that built up during our "winner-takes-all" divorce process... so the parents can't face each other again - even years later.

And, I agree, some men do not want to see their kids again. THink, however about how this family worked before the divorce? Perhaps if the man actually had a chance to bond and love his kids, would he feel the same? Perhaps if both parents had worked THE SAME hours, and he had the joy of part time work (a long weekend every week!). Perhaps he would think differently?

At the end of the day, the wife did the gatekeeping long before the divorce... keeping control of the house (and when he did some stuff with their kids, perhaps she kept complaining and telling him to "do it this way, you idiot") So he realy never has experienced being a parent, and lived his married life simply as a wallet? Poor bloke!

But hey, women put their kids up for adoption, and never see their kids again, and they don't pay C$A either

Country Gal,

'Surely if playing with children has no value, then there is no place for childcare centres.'

That's not really a valid argument. Playing with your own children is infinitely more enjoyable than supervising other people's children.

partTimeParent,
'I wasn't de-valuing it, quite the contrary, I was saying that it is "Great work if you can get it!" My point is that this lovely, enjoyable and important work tends to be grabbed by women, leaving their husbands to do the less enjoyable hard-slog of "work-work". '

Exactly!

'hey, women put their kids up for adoption, and never see their kids again, and they don't pay C$A either'

Ha, I wonder if the adopting parents can apply for CSA from the bilogical father? Surely in America they can.

Thanks for the article. I agree wholeheartedly.

Might I point out that the in 1950s computers were women maths graduates involved in doing intricate mathmatics calculations over a 3 week period. How would you know where you had got up to before your lunch break? Consequently more than half the early computer programmers were women. Women have left the IT field because of unfamily friendly work practices so that now less than 20% of IT professionals are women.

Part-time parent, nothing too specific about truck-driving, and its the largest mine in the state. Anyway just wanted to demonstrate that the figures dont always stack up to people's prejudices.

I tend to get particularly prickly about digs at women not earning their keep thanks to personal experience. I'm about sick of supporting my husband while he spends every cent he earns on himself, whilst I also do 90% of the child-raising (he contributes just enough to disrupt every routine that starts to work), 95% of the house-work and 100% of the household financial management. We'd be financially better off if he stayed home from work and raised the kids, but he thinks its beneath him.

Personal experience aside though, I dont think any discussion is going to get anywhere while-ever one side maintains that women are money-grabbing and lazy, and the other maintains that men are holding them down. And that is what this discussion is spiralling into once again. I havent been on OLO for well over a quarter of a year, given time constraints, but looks like nothing much has changed. Cheers to R0bert who continues to seek equality without letting prejudice get in the way. Keep up the good work.