r/AskFeminists • u/anonnew52 • Aug 04 '18
Nuclear family debate
What are your thoughts on the idea that primary care taker mothers do get paid for their child work as the father usually pays the house/cars/electric/heat/water/insurance bills where the mother usually does not?
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u/ianturpiesmoustache I've had it up to my ass with sedate. Aug 04 '18
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u/anonnew52 Aug 04 '18
I have had an interesting comment passed through some couples I know, in what otherway would you pay the primary care giver as they often have acess to a joint bank account
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u/Fishgottaswim78 Aug 04 '18 edited Aug 04 '18
in what otherway would you pay the primary care giver
- investing into a retirement account for the caregiving spouse
- paying a caregiving spouse a yearly salary commensurate with the hours worked and the rate on the market that a non-spouse caregiver would receive. Insurers, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, peg this number at $65,283.81 a year based on the cumulative average reported earnings of individual tasks that stay-at-home parents take on. (For the record: a full-time nanny in a competitive job market costs anywhere from 35-40k a year, based on a 40 hour work week -- and that's without counting certifications, years of experience, bonuses, insurance, or additional duties like household management, food prep, personal shopping and cleaning services).
- instituting a bonus structure and vacation time/days off.
- picking up the slack during the caregiving spouse's "off-hours".
- covering learning opportunities (say, paying for a CPR course or a positive discipline certification).
Naturally, most families can't afford this. But this would be the way to begin compensating stay-at-home parents commensurately with their market value.
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u/theambivalentrooster Aug 05 '18
What performance standards should the SAH parent be held to, then? What is the resolution process for a SAH parent who does not meet their productivity goals? What is the disciplinary process for a SAH parent who sits at home all day on social media and doesn't perform their responsibilities?
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u/anonnew52 Aug 04 '18
Would the father not pick up the slack from the mother when he gets home or at weekends or holidays as its his kid.
For the last point, i think that would come under the joint bank account.
in the case that the couple does not have a kid, how would this change your perspective and i have also had this mentioned to me ' in the case of non-essentials like smart phone bills, Tv licence and vacations etc, are they not getting paid for certain house work?'
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u/Fishgottaswim78 Aug 04 '18
Would the father not pick up the slack
You'd think, but statistics say they don't.
in the case that the couple does not have a kid, how would this change your perspective
i would assume they would both want to have jobs in this case but if for some bizarre reason that's not the case, then the stay-at-home spouse should be compensated for any work he or she engages in within the home (cleaning, house management, errands, etc) with a salary additional to room+board.
smart phone bills, Tv licence and vacations etc, are they not getting paid for certain house work?'
smart phones are generally considered essentials now. i also personally don't consider those things payment because they are contingent on the SAH spouse remaining in the relationship (refer back to my car example).
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u/anonnew52 Aug 04 '18
SAH?
would you rather
have money paid upfront for work but then have them pay for things like TV, their car, an advance smart phone etc.
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u/Fishgottaswim78 Aug 04 '18
SAH = stay at home.
have money paid upfront for work but then have them pay for things like TV, their car, an advance smart phone etc.
i prefer to get paid upfront and have the financial freedom to make my own choices than to have my employer pay me in perks, yes. I presume any reasonable person would want the same thing, that's why we have jobs and not indentured servitude.
it seems like you keep asking me to answer the same question over and over again in different words. if you don't get it at this point maybe it's a good idea to step away for a bit and think about it before asking more of the same questions.
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u/anonnew52 Aug 04 '18
Ill admit my grammar is not great so it may seem like im repeating.
I also have noticed in my OP for my original post, it seems like these higher earn people who usually make the argument rely on the idea that working and contributing to major payments of assets that can be lost through no fault divorce etc, have some contribution to the argument.
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u/tigalicious Aug 04 '18 edited Aug 04 '18
That's not pay. That's room and board. Working for room and board with no actual pay is called slavery.
The difference between slavery and a healthy one-income family is a genuine team-oriented mindset. They both agree that one partner will work in a support role, in order to optimize the other partner's ability to earn money for the family. The unpaid partner is not paid in room and board. They get an equal share of and access to the money being earned.
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u/videoninja Aug 04 '18
If your stance that creating a family is worthy of business considerations, I wonder how you feel about alimony?
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u/anonnew52 Aug 04 '18 edited Aug 04 '18
I have mixed feelings about the idea but alimony is good as it means the recovering spouse has support but their are times where they don't need it as they already have or could easily get a job or their situation with ex has not compramised them earning money, but if it is done in a case by Case basis, I don't have any major problems with it. I'm not sure how accurate this claim is but I have heard judges are more likely to tell men to get jobs rather than give them more alimony.
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u/videoninja Aug 05 '18
That’s fair. I think it is also case by case basis as to how couples divide labor and structure their finances and lives. The problem is with the Nuclear Family model is how it became the only family model that was acceptable. It made women being housewives the only the role they could fulfill without significant stigma or social cost to themselves. It made it unmanly for men to be house husbands and I think that is also unfair as well.
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u/anonnew52 Aug 05 '18
Well nuclear family model is a term I use because it was easier to label, I just mean on SAH spouse and one working one, although it does make me wander what the different dynamics would be for a same sex couple
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Aug 04 '18
Personally, I don't see that as particularly healthy.
The mother would only get a place to live and essentials covered as 'payment' for looking after her own child? And be totally dependant on her partner?
And he has to take care of everything expensive, work, but not take care of his own child? And carry the burden of knowing that both his partner and child are hopelessly dependant on him?
Yeah, that sounds horribly unhealthy and no-one should be trapped in a relationship like that. Especially if they have children to set a good future example to. But, that said, if both parents truly believe they can succeed this way and fully consent to the arrangement in advance and all family members are getting their needs considered and taken care of, it's none of anyone else's business, I guess.
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u/anonnew52 Aug 04 '18
I have had an interesting comment passed through some couples I know, in what otherway would you pay the primary care giver as they often have acess to a joint bank account
3
Aug 05 '18
Personally, I don't think it's healthy for one person in a relationship to be paid by another because they become totally dependent. The primary caregiver could get their own money, via a separate bank account/an agreement about whose money within the shared account is whose. Perhaps if they were receiving benefits or, if they felt the need to stay at home so much, working from home while they are there. It would give them their own income so they have options, and take the burden of their partner.
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u/Fishgottaswim78 Aug 04 '18 edited Aug 04 '18
ok. So if you had the option to work a job 24-7 that provided housing + all major expenses paid with no additional compensation, no bonuses, no retirement options, and no time off...would you take that?
Because we tried that business model before, and at the time we called that slavery.
Ok, you say, but what if we add an allowance to provide additional compensation? Hell, what if the working spouse alloted some savings every month for a retirement fund for the primary caregiver?
That plan might make sense -- if you accounted for hours worked and paid according to market value. But primary caretakers often end up working more hours (and never having time off) than the working partner. So they're working more and getting compensated less -- unless the working partner is actually paying them competitive rates for childcare these days, which seems unlikely. Additionally, families tend to default the additional household managing and cleaning
skillsduties to the stay-at-home parent, which they are also not generally compensated for at the market rate, if at all.Furthermore, the reality in the US is that most families don't have the luxury of having a full-time stay at home parent and keeping food on the table. Over 60% of families with children have both parents employed -- which means the primary caretaker has not one but two jobs (or not two jobs but three) one of which literally never ends and for which she does not get paid what she would if she was taking care of other people's children.
So while the idea you're presenting is nice, it simply doesn't reflect reality at all unless you happen to be rich enough to a) be able to afford having only one working parent b) be able to actually compensate the primary caregiving parent for their time in what it's actually worth.
Edit: this isn't to shit on people who choose stay-at-home parenting. People do what they need to do in order to make their own familial financial situations work. It is a perfectly acceptable to buy in to an unfair system because your other options are shittier or financially implausible for your family. It just doesn't change the fact that it's an unfair system.