Australia’s federal government is seeking to introduce a nation paid maternity leave scheme in this year’s budget.
I not sure whether I’m for or against the policy itself. But I know I’m against the reasons being advanced for the policy!
Basically the reasoning being advanced implies that (i) motherhood is unproductive and (ii) it gives aid to the now established dogma that the two incomes needed to pay off the mortgage are more important than quality and quantity time with the kids.
I guess I won’t win too many friends with this because the paid maternity leave push seems popular with just about everyone. But this reasoning simply won’t do!
The reasoning
Here’s the main pragmatic reason I hear for why we should have it. This comment by Katie, who was interviewed on ABC Radio National’s morning current affairs radio program is typical:
These days most mothers have to get back into the workforce unfortunately; a lot of us would prefer not to until the children are closer to school age. But the reality of paying a mortgage and just surviving these days is forcing us all back into the workforce most of the time.
I love my job, but I would have preferred to stay at home for a bit longer with Laura.
It’s bizarre, but in spite of what she really wants to do, the mortgage ‘forces’ her to leave her children in childcare.
Maternity leave will delay this a bit. But all it does is prop up the thinking that what our children really need from us is a mortgage large enough to require the absence of both parents to service it. We know that our parents’ generation grew up pretty satisfactorily in much smaller homes—often with two or three kids sleeping in one bedroom—but even so, we are now committed to substantial real estate with luxuries as the essence of providing for our kids.
So it was ironic to see this article published on Mother’s Day. In it, Sydney GP and founder of parenting group Generation Next Dr Ramesh Manocha says,
We give our children everything. They have access to every opportunity, every material item, more information than ever before.
And yet, they seem to be unhappier and unhealthier.
This is an alarming trend. If we keep going this way, the current generation of young people will turn out to be less healthy than their parents …
As parents spend more time earning, thinking that they’re doing the right thing by their children because they are earning more money to provide better education, they’re spending less time with the children …
Our children are going to pay the price for middle-class materialism.
Contrast this to what Charlotte says about maternity leave in the above radio interview:
And I think it … doesn’t necessarily keep women at home with babies, but it helps throughout the bonding period, which is supposed to be the child’s first six to 12 months of its life.
As if bonding with your child is all over in a year, and the crucial bit is done and dusted! Then you can get back to servicing the mortgage and, perhaps, enjoying your career. There’s something wrong here.
The main principled reason advanced for a mandated maternity leave scheme is to increase national productivity. This clearly means economic productivity. Here’s Elizabeth Broderick, the federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, speaking on the same ABC radio current affairs radio programme:
The Productivity Commission found that it would encourage women who do have babies to stay attached to the labour market. And I think that’s very important.
We know that the rates of attachment of mums to the labour market are low by world standards, and this paid parental leave scheme will be part of solving that issue.
In other words, it’s a waste to lose the productivity represented by the training and experience of women in the workforce. They are no longer earning an income, and that means less money to spend, and so less stimulus for the economy, as well as less tax paid to the government for it to spend.
The implication is that having well-educated and experienced women at home, caring for their infants, reading to their toddlers, or helping their children with music lessons, sport or learning about God’s world is not a good use of their talents, training and time. It’s unproductive—at least, compared to paid work! So now a woman’s attachment to the labour market is more important than her attachment to her children.
The press reports that
The maternity leave measure recognises Australia has one of the lowest rates of female participation in the workforce among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The spin
But it’s all in the spin! Why not rather be glad that lower female workforce participation gives Australia the potential for one of the highest rates of community volunteering in the OECD? After all, schools all over the place are crying out about the lack of parents available to participate in the life of local schools by serving on canteen rosters and Parents & Citizens’ committees, or by acting as reading recovery help. And teachers are complaining about how they are being asked to add more and more ‘parenting’ extras to the curriculum in order to take up the slack of what some busy parents are now failing to supply (even things like breakfast), while the basics of the 3Rs get squeezed out.
In contrast, the Scriptures are clear that motherhood and ‘home duties’ (that much-derided term) should be the central focus of a woman’s life and service. In Titus 2:5 older women are told to instruct younger women to be “self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God” (NIV; my emphasis). Similarly, in 1 Timothy 5:10, Paul says that older widows can only be put on the church’s ‘welfare for widows’ list if they are “well known for [their] good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble and devoting [themselves] to all kinds of good deeds” (NIV; emphasis mine). In verse 14, Paul says, “So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander” (NIV; emphasis mine)
Of course, men also should be involved in raising children and ‘managing’ their households (Eph 6:4, 1 Tim 3:4 ESV). And I’m not for a moment suggesting that only women should be involved in raising children, or that women should never work outside the home. Some will have little, if any, choice. Indeed, honoured New Testament women also did so: Lydia as a dealer in purple cloth (Acts 16:14), and Priscilla, alongside Aquila, was a tentmaker (Acts 18:2-3). Furthermore, that wonderful wife of Proverbs 31:10-31 is depicted as earning an income, trading and investing. But the home is clearly the centre of her activity, and caring for her husband, children and servants is her primary focus.
Certainly, in God’s eyes, having and raising children and running a home is considered to be most honourable and, for want of a better term, highly productive! That’s why it makes me sad that we are now seeing social policies and attitudes that undermine the honour that such unpaid women’s work deserves.
It is interesting to note that major project house builders are now offering smaller houses with fewer expensive fittings again. 3 bedroom houses are a major feature of a new design of houses for one of NSW’s largest project home builders.
Land is very expensive in our capital cities, but at least now it is easier to build cheaper homes. And so to those who think they MUST work to pay off a hefty mortgage, consider what is now on offer and what is considerably cheaper.
Good post Sandy!
Interesting news about the smaller homes on offer by builders. Hope there’s some demand! Thanks for the info and encouragement, Philip.
Hi Sandy,
I was talking to a friend here about this issue today. She told me that here in Mexico you get 6 weeks leave before the baby is born, then six weeks after – then its back to work! It is very common for grandmas / nannies / friends to bring the baby in to work to be fed in the carpark or the lunchroom!
I asked her if this was necessary because families couldn’t afford to be without the second income. She said in some cases yes – people generally live closer to the breadline (tortilla-line) here, but in many cases it was actually a self-worth / can’t get off the career train for a few years sort of attitude.
Oh – and schools, volunteer organisations etc have exactly the same complaint here as in Australia. There is no one to come and help the kids in school, help coach the teams etc. All these things are being professionalised and outsourced.
Pete
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” – Luke 16:13
It’s a hard post Sandy – thanks for putting together your thoughts! The policy does seem to me to reflect increasing godlessness and anti-family (but yes in the guise/spin of “this helps you be a better parent”). Anyone who says so is damned as a mysogynisitic dictator.
However I would also add that it is just as big a problem for the blokes who abandon godly family leadership to sacrifice their all on the altar of career (ministry careers included) and or the idol of mammon. But, afterall, if the men are allowed to pursue their careers (abrev. code for neglect the priority of their family) then why shouldn’t the women also?
I think there has got to be a place for increased godly male leadership – by godly example not by macho behaviour or slavery to the idol of self image.
Again, thanks, it’s a hard topic to contain within a blog post but you’ve summarised some good points.
Al.
< /rant >
Hi Philip (first comment),
I’m wondering if the rise of 3 bedroom homes by builders may also have something to do with more people restricting the size of their families to 2 kids. Just a thought on a side issue…
And Sandy, thanks for your article. I agree that an underlying issue is the belief that unpaid work is not worthwhile work. As a mother, I come across this opinion all the time (“what do you do all day? etc). I’m trying to get better at quick explanations of the value of raising children and managing a home, without making anyone who has to return to work feel guilty about it.
Thanks Sandy, glad you said it.
My husband and I have recently run a series for our home group on glorifying God as men as women. We split into separate men and women’s groups for six weeks to talk biblical theology of manhood and womanhood, and then the practical implications of that (part of which is men and women making decisions now that will mean they can do marriage and parenting well in the future).
We have noticed that lots of people are happy to have a theoretical complementarian belief, but start putting it in concrete terms and lots of people get really offended.
In practice we (Christians) really don’t believe in the value and significance of motherhood.
Christian motherhood takes time. We can’t do it by remote. We need to be with children a lot, for years on end, if we are going to be doing gospel shaped and saturated parenting.
Training a child’s heart and character in a way that points to Jesus can’t be outsourced or short circuited.
I do agree that motherhood shouldn’t be considered apart from the crucial (although different) role of fathers.
Thanks again.
Professional women married to professional men generally have reasonable maternity leave, and can afford to take more time off, or even stop working, depending on how substantial their mortgage is. The various talkback speakers are from this part of the economy, I think, and they may not accurately reflect the mind of the Government anyway.
Life’s a bit different at the bottom end of the labour market, where job security is much lower, along with the pay, and the legal requirement is merely six weeks’ unpaid leave. How many women actually want to be at work at that point? And how much choice do they actually have? (Mortgages probably aren’t in the picture at all.)
You might be doing Elizabeth Broderick an injustice, too. The reason women need to stay attached to the labour market is because of the divorce rate (~40%). Divorce is a financial disaster for most women, but particularly for those who have been out of the workforce for a while—it’s harder to get a job, and it’s usually a lower-paid job if they do get one. That translates to more social security payments, and higher public health costs, for mother and children. In economic terms, it’s therefore more productive to keep women ‘attached to’ the workforce.
And that’s leaving aside death or disablement of the breadwinner (still common), and the fact that most men these days no longer have have the level of job security enjoyed by Anglican ministers. Ahem.
FTR: I’m married, 2 kids, permanent part-time librarian; hubby has a full-time IT job which relies on venture capital funding, and we have a mortgage in an unfashionable Sydney suburb. My parents divorced in 1976.
Pete, interesting to hear issues similar in Mexico. I recall hearing from CMS missionaries in Slovenia that it was standard practice for every child to go into childcare from a very young age, and that it was a radical thought to think of keeping your children home and to run things like playgroups, because the childcare people could actually do a better job than the parents! (Hope I am not misrepresenting the situation.)
Al, Caroline, Cathy, thanks for the encouragement and reflections. I am certainly conscious of the damage Christian men (e.g. myself) can do by being married to their work, even their ministry.
Ellen, I am so glad to have you commenting. Your insights are exactly why I said I was not sure whether I was for or against the policy itself. It was the reasoning for it that I was concerned about.
I can see how the policy may actually benefit lower wage earners, by enabling them to spend more time with a new child than they may otherwise have been able to manage. Although it seems to me the current family tax A & B has also assisted at least some mothers to stay home longer already.
And yes, you are right than Anglican rectors have pretty high job security. The same is not true for Assistant Ministers and Lay Stipendiary Workers. However I am the former, so no high moral ground for me!
Attitudinally, I want to dignify the unpaid work of mothering. And I want to resist the idea that we need bigger and and more luxurious homes and contents and mortgages.
I am a full-time homemaker who has found that the argument of a mortgage to pay off is ridiculous. We don’t need to work to pay off a mortgage. We need to accept that we cannot have everything that we want.
My husband and I did have a mortgage but we sold it to finance three years of theological study for my husband. I’m pretty sure we’ll be living in rented houses for the rest of our earthly lives. But I’m not going to be here forever, am I? There is a place in heaven for me (John 14:1-4) that will be better than anything I could ever buy or rent here.
“Smaller houses…3 bedrooms”. To mean to say the ‘average’ is more than 3 bedrooms in Australia – thats nearly close to mansion size in the UK!!
I to fell for the lie that both husband and wife need to have full time jobs just to even rent. Sometimes I’m realy glad that I am wrong
Hi Sandy.
With much less thoughtfulness than you, I reckon I might have said the same as you – that there can be weird arguments for this policy.
http://oops.blogs.exetel.com.au/index.php?/archives/12-call-your-mum.html
By the way, one of my pet hates is use of the phrase ‘child care’ – it always refers to paid child care, never family or friends!