Excess Demand at Hotel Mama - Mothers seem to have made as much progress as we have!
These tips are priceless compared to a work empowerment seminar or self-care yoga for inner peace. I have four children, a full-time job with irregular office hours, and a relationship to maintain. I'm already stretched to the max. I have no spare time. For anything.
Juggling between homeschooling and parents' night
I often tune out when the kindergarten teacher asks me to buy shoes without laces for my four-year-old son. I barely notice, but I sneakily write emails when my twelve-year-old son's parents' night is about art and sports.
My two-year-old daughter's long-time nanny - she only knows me on the go. I help my ten-year-old daughter with her homework for an hour every weekday. My Latin is solid, in math I give myself a B+.
As a teacher's child and without a teaching degree myself, I intend to become a teacher one day: Corona and homeschooling have made this possible, even beyond the pandemic, because of teacher absences and a shortage of skilled workers in Germany. Parents teach. Mothers and fathers have been awarded diplomas as home teachers for a long time. It's a struggle. And yet I should be happy. As a modern mother in an advanced country with a quota for women in all industries that is not comprehensive but fragmented. I should be content.
Have we made so much progress compared to our mothers?
Especially on Mother's Day, the Mon Cheri chocolates I get for my bedtime coffee don't taste very good at all. But why not?
I think of my mother and her generation, my aunts, her friends, my mother-in-law from Hesse, and my grandmother from Leipzig. Those who, until the late 1970s, were allowed to work only if the law said it was compatible with housework and family responsibilities.
West German housewives, but also working women in the East, who had to take care of "a little bit of housework" as if it were just a few tasks - and not mountains of laundry as high as the Alps, blooming landscapes of dirty dishes, grumpy schoolchildren, and wailing babies.
I wonder, as I sit in bed on this Sunday, unfolding the homemade Mother's Day heart I've made (with just two spelling mistakes), whether we've actually made much progress compared to our mothers. Or is the feminism of my generation just a rehashed version of the same dry cake from before, only with frosting and pink sprinkles.
"Would you put me in a nursing home?"
Today, more mothers in Germany work than ever before. Every second mother with school-aged children works part-time, but it's not financially worthwhile.
While our mothers could still claim a share of their former husband's pension after 50 years as housewives, even after a divorce, millions of women who have chosen to devote themselves to housework and childrearing will be impoverished in old age due to the lack of a mother's pension.
"Would you put me in a nursing home?" I asked my teenage son the other day. "Sure," he replied. I quickly abandoned reheating his belated lunch and suggested he make himself a sandwich. Put simply, being a housewife for 60 years was a more comfortable retirement cushion for our mothers than our career-focused life between cooking, cleaning, childrearing, and part-time jobs.
Fathers receive three times more pension!
I don't need a gold calculator to understand that I'll have to rely entirely on my boyfriend, the father of my children, by the time I'm 50, when society has buried me with its gender pay gap.
Fathers rarely take more than two months of parental leave, but statistically they receive more than three times the pension. Moreover, according to a survey, fathers' favorite activity is not cooking, cleaning, nose-blowing, or shopping. It's "playing with the children."
So if you're still dreaming of having another child as a mother, you can start with your own spouse.
Less social pressures and scrutiny on former mothers
Yes, our mothers certainly faced challenges without the internet, parental leave, sex education, and equal partnerships. On the one hand. On the other hand, they were judged less, scrutinized less, and didn't have to compare themselves daily with career coaches, life coaches, or Instagram moms.
They could send their children (us!) "outside" for six hours without feeling guilty or waiting for the neighbors or the police to intervene. The children's radius of movement has been gradually shrinking in recent decades.
Our mothers also had (slightly) fewer social constraints. The notice board in kindergarten was more tolerant than the parents' chat group, which demands answers every minute about the school trip, the summer party, the vegan Mettigel for the teacher's birthday on Tuesday.
Our mothers didn't have to constantly optimize themselves and motivate themselves to maintain a good mood. And even on Mother's Day, they don't need our positive attitudes, our way of praising their hard domestic and professional work, and their sacrifices with our appreciation.
Perhaps they, our mothers, desire for us to confess our true feelings towards each other and work harmoniously to improve family policies in Germany. No longer should we feign contentment as participants in a "compatibility beauty pageant." Instead of pretending to be perfect, let's voice our indignation. This Mother's Day, we salute you, intrepid, fearless, and stunning mothers!
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Source: symclub.org
