The presence of parents throughout the day enriches home and neighborhood alike
Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be by Timothy P. Carney. Harper, 2024. 368 pp., $29.99
This essay is the second in a series of two essays responding to Timothy P. Carney’s new book on the state of the family in America.
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In Family Unfriendly, Tim Carney considers the many aspects of twenty-first century American life that make raising children difficult. The challenges facing American parents today are diverse and include zoning rules, travel sports, and social media. Any parent who wonders why kids today aren’t allowed to play outside with friends until the streetlights come on, or how kid team sports became such a black hole of time and money will be intrigued by Carney’s investigation of these issues. As a lawyer-turned-homemaker, I was most interested in the two chapters he dedicates to feminism and stay-at-home parents. These chapters are titled (respectively) “We Need a Family-Friendly Feminism” and “You Should Quit Your Job.” They do not disappoint.
In “We Need a Family-Friendly Feminism,” Carney begins by identifying the key problem with how many modern feminists treat moms: it’s a “one-size-fits-all” approach that doesn’t actually fit all moms. For many twenty-first century feminists, the ideal is for mothers to put their children in paid childcare and join the workforce full-time. Captivated as these feminists are by the idea of “gender symmetry” or “equal representation of men and women in all parts of society,” they find that feminism’s goals will be achieved when women and men fill an equal percentage of all elite jobs, such as CEOs at major businesses, law firm partners, stock traders, etc.
Advocates of such measures hold individual autonomy “among the highest of goods.” In their view, women should be trying to maximize their independence through career advancement and corresponding pay raises. Consequently, these “individual autonomy” feminists support policies like universal daycare and early education programs to encourage female workforce participation. So what is the problem with this kind of feminism? Carney explains: “A certain sort of feminism—the one that seeks to remove women and men equally from the task of raising children—becomes indistinguishable from corporate workism, the line of thinking that prioritizes paid work and professional accomplishment over all else.”
What this brand of feminism overlooks is that many mothers do not want to leave their young children to participate in full-time paid work. Polls routinely show that a very significant percentage of parents want their children cared for at home with a parent, rather than in daycare. For these mothers and their families, policy proposals aimed at supporting universal childcare miss the mark. Similarly, for mothers who seek to stay home, efforts to eliminate the “Child Penalty”—which measures the gap in workforce participation and earnings between mothers and non-mothers—are beside the point. These mothers work less because they want to—or want to work less but can’t afford it. This is not, of course, to say that all women want to be mothers. Nor do all mothers want to be homemakers. But Carney makes an important point: Much of modern feminism fails to support the women who want to devote themselves to the critical work of the home.
But there is more. Homemakers offer significant yet too often unrecognized benefits for their families. In his next chapter, “You Should Quit Your Job,” Carney makes a persuasive argument that “we ought to change our policies, our culture, and our own lives in order to help more parents make parenting their full-time job.” To be sure, a breadwinner/homemaker partnership is not the best solution for all families. Still, for many families it is the ideal. As Carney points out, having mom (or dad) at home is often good for both parents. It allows one parent to specialize in the workforce while the other specializes in running the family. It makes a clear division of labor possible, reducing marital conflict. For many families it is also good for the kids. Time and energy are finite resources. It is obviously easier to put a home-cooked dinner on the table, help a child struggling with homework, or carefully nurture a colicky infant without the stress of a demanding full-time job.
Having more homemakers is also good for the larger community. Communities with a higher percentage of stay-at-home moms and dads are alive during the day. Instead of “bedroom communities,” where the adults and kids head off their separate ways during work hours, communities where homemakers live are active and social. This provides more opportunities for kids to play without direct parental supervision, since other adults are around. Homemakers also frequently volunteer for organizations like the PTA, and they are on hand to watch a friend’s kid.
So why don’t more women, even those who want to, opt to become homemakers? Carney addresses the most frequent objection to increasing the number of stay-at-home moms: the fear that it causes women to become vulnerable and dependent. Young women today are frequently told to be as independent as possible and avoid relying on a husband. Carney calls this “building a zero-trust life.” He suggests instead substituting an attitude of mutual “vulnerability and surrender,” in which each spouse becomes dependent on the other—and, critically, he defines this mutual dependency as a good. He writes: “Only through vulnerability and surrender do we ever find meaning in life.”
I found Carney’s impassioned advocacy for the value of the work of homemakers to be one of the most moving segments of the book. This work is too often deeply undervalued in a society mostly interested in GDP growth and profit maximization. Carney’s own wife—Katie Carney—is a stay-at-home mom who takes the lead role in running their home and nurturing their six kids. But their approach to the division of family labor might seem alien to some. When in 2022 Tim Carney went to the Berkshires to work on his book, an older woman criticized him for leaving his wife to handle the children and home. She implied that Carney was depriving his wife of the chance to do important professional work, asking “[D]oes she get to go away for a week to finish her book?” The assumption underlying the question is that Carney is lucky to be able to do meaningful work, while his wife handles the pointless drudgery of caring for the kids and house.
When Carney called his wife to discuss this conversation, she reminded him that she does a lot of essential work—all of it unpaid and largely unrecognized by society at large (including by Carney’s Berkshires conversationalist), but still important:
I called Katie first thing in the morning and ran this argument by her. She reminded me of the times she went up to New Jersey for a long weekend to stay up all night feeding her sister’s newborn twins. We recalled the times I was home alone with our own kids so that Katie could stay with nieces and nephews to give another sister a chance for a romantic getaway. We remembered the times Katie dragged a depressed or stressed friend out of her house for a walk or a drink, and was able to give undivided attention not to a manuscript but to someone she loved.
By reporting this incident and his conversation with Katie, Carney emphasizes one dimension of the special job homemakers have: the gift of time and flexibility for their families, friends, and communities. When a child is sick, a loved one is diagnosed with a terminal illness, or a teenager is having a rough time, stay-at-home moms and dads are often able to show up and help. Not having a full-time job frees them up to do the important work of caring for others.
Carney has rightfully won acclaim for his professional successes. But I applaud him for making it possible for his wife Katie to do her critical work of caring for her family, friends, and community. The role of homemakers is deeply important—and it is made possible by the breadwinners who support them. As a society we should do a better job of recognizing both halves of this important dynamic. We need more homemakers, but we also need more supportive breadwinners. Kudos to Tim Carney for being in the latter category.
Ivana Greco practiced for about ten years as an attorney specializing in ERISA and healthcare litigation before becoming a stay-at-home mom during the COVID pandemic. She writes at: https://thehomefront.substack.com.