Follow Up: Responding to Hilary

This week’s readings provided me with a lot of insight into the world of working mothers with children. I always knew that it was harder as a female to get equal pay to men, simply because of how history has unfolded itself. Women were always subordinate to men. However, women are slowly moving up the ladder, but when we look at the statistics closer, we see that it’s only women that don’t have children that are gaining equal pay to men. Women that choose to put their family first and have kids but continue to work are given the shaft, also known as “the mommy tax”, according to Critenden.

For those women that have felt the effects of having children, Critenden states, “One could even say that motherhood is now the single greatest obstacle left in the path to economic equality for women” (Critenden, 87). It is wrong that there is still such discrimination in the workplace, and that women feel that they must choose between having a family and having a successful job. Although there are women that are capable of balancing both, they are the lucky ones, those that have a successful job, make a great income, and have a family they are able to care for; this is not the norm in our society.

I liked the fact that Crittenden discussed “the daddy tax” and let readers know that this is not just something that women deal with. Men that choose to balance their time between work and home and take on more of a role in their children’s lives also lose out. Many of these men lose respect as they are leaving work early, coming late, etc. More often than not, they too lose income over time, except not as much as women in the same position as them.

Reading these articles made me realize how lucky I was as a child to always have my parents come to my sporting events, concerts, dance shows, etc. Crittenden’s article especially opened my eyes to the situation of working class parents. I wanted to find some more recent statistics to see if the situation of working women has changed at all, and it looks like things are heading in the right direction. According to these statistics, “women earn only 77 cents nationally for every dollar earned by men” (womenemployed.org). Crittenden’s statistic at the time “The Price of Motherhood” was written was lower. Although things are improving for women in the work force, equality seems to be a far-off goal. It is unfortunate that less and less women are having children, because their careers are taking precedent over having a family of their own. Will this continue to progress, or can we stop the trend?