Seeing Childcare as
Society's Problem
Penelope Leach
...If we want real solutions (to the working parent's dilemma) we must try to solve the real problem which is not "how can this woman pursue her chosen working life and rear her chosen family?" but "How can the vital people-function of parenthood be re-integrated into our society of workers?"...
...The most radical social change such a scheme would require is the change that would take us from the belief that children are the business of women-who-are mothers to the realization that children are the business of us all, and specifically of all people-who-choose-to-be parents. As long as the work/parent dilemma is seen as a woman's problem solutions will continue to be sought, or scratched together, in a woman's world, leaving the world of men, still the real world of work, untouched. However honestly men seek solutions for women, a division between the sexes will prevent a true recognition of parenting as an issue for all people.
I believe that there are many men who genuinely accept the concept of equal responsibility for children and who would welcome the opportunity to act on it. Most of them are foiled by the work-ethic; by the pressures on them to perform as wage-earners and career-people and, sometimes, by feminism itself. Until recently children's needs have not formed a substantial part of the feminist platform; women have fought males at their traditional games but have scarcely sought to involve them in traditional female games. There is a growing recognition of the dangers of sexism both ways round and this is a trend which must certainly be encouraged. During an inevitably lengthy interim, women, still principally responsible for young children, can do much to prepare for a different, a gentler and more child-orientated society. Today's boy-babies are tomorrow's men. Their education is critical to a future in which all human beings are people first and workers afterwards; a future in which new people take priority over any other product.