Interesting Perspective on Men and Childbearing

[emmiedahl]

In one of my anthro books, the author notes that in the fifties, American men became distanced from hands-on childrearing and that it has taken a few decades to get them back in the saddle. This is very different from the modern American assumption that men are relatively new to parenting because the mother has traditionally done the heavy lifting.

Thoughts? I have always assumed that the fifties were reflective of idealized traditional roles in that area. Nancy Sheper Hughes is actually writing about Brazil, so this is a side note. I know that women often worked outside the home before the fifties. Is this another lie that we are fed by the patriarchy movement?

[Rosa]

I think it's true and false at the same time. One factor is urbanization & industrialization, so it would have been different for different familie sdepending where they lived and what they did. For farm families, the dads are always more involved (or at least at home more), and the US was still pretty agrarian through the 40s. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/ei ... tm#changes - 41% in ag jobs in 1900, 21% in 1930, 16% in 1945, 4% in 1970.

[JumpingtheSnark]

Well, you have to weigh socio economic status/racial groupings before you make these distinctions. Black women have ALWAYS worked in large numbers outside the home, due to economic neccessity. The 50s ideal of a white, suburban middle class June Cleaver is on point. You had to have a certain level of whiteness and $$ to achieve it. The money saved up during the war years led to an increase in this group and therefore, the image become so common in our collective memories as a nation, however, it was a false memory.

I don't think men have been doing the heavy childcare lifting ever. I can't think of a culture that has an androcentric nurturing aspect to it.

Perhaps men handled more when families were larger? Gender divided work is pretty common across most cultures so I don't know what that book is going for, love to find out!

[emmiedahl]

Her point was (I think) that the fifties housewife made the father obsolete, while the dual working nature of a family in a developing industrial nation keeps them more involved in hands-on care. She was not suggesting andro-centric parenting.

It was just a sentence, but I kept returning to it. I wonder if she is still alive; maybe I will email her and ask for more info on that.

[Sola]

I would agree. Back at the turn of the 19/20th century, my great-great-grandmother was still in her child bearing years. She had 17 kids and all were born at home with her husband hanging around - though not assisting - but it wasn't all sterile and hospitalised with the midwives bringing out a clean and dressed newborn and presenting said baby to the father. Same was with my great-grandmother but by the time my gran and my mother (40's to 60's) had kids, child birthing was done in hospitals with fathers banned from the room. By that time it was a 'women' thing with fathers having no part. Same with child rearing too, my great-great-grandmother worked, she had to! My GGgrandfather was a miner and his wage didn't cover the expenses for all those children. My GGgrandmother did all sorts of jobs from cleaning houses, to sewing and taking in laundry. Often my GGgranddad would finish his shift just as GGgrandmother was leaving for her job so he would be in charge of the kids. Again, the same was with my great-grandmother. My grandmother had to work as my granddad died 11 years into her marriage so she was left as a widowed mother.

That fifties ideal of a SAHW was often just the life of the lower middle classes and upwards. Whilst married women in office work and the like (the profession of the lower middle classes) were usually given their cards on their wedding day and became SAHW, this wasn't the case for the working class who had manual jobs which required two wage earners to support a family.