They are highly educated, have massive earning potential and were brought up
to believe that sexual equality was their right. But a new kind of
post-feminist is emerging that would have the suffragettes turning in their
graves. The neo-conservative housewife has given up her high-status job,
grown out her power bob and stays at home with the children and the vacuum
cleaner.
Of course there is nothing new about women giving up careers to look after
children but these housewives — or “home managers” as many prefer to be
called — are evangelical about home life and want the world to know that
life without shoulder pads is much more fulfilling than kicking butt in the
boardroom.
The American writer Danielle Crittenden is a champion for this reinvented
breed of homemaker in her new book amandabright@ home. Her husband David
Frum, a former White House speech writer, invented the phrase “axis of
evil”; Crittenden’s theories on modern motherhood have put her at the top of
the feminists’ hate list. Betty Friedan says Crittenden is anti-woman and
Erica Jong, the feminist writer who extolled the virtues of the “zipless
f---” in the 1970s, says she is “so ignorant”.
Crittenden’s novel started as a hugely popular fictional column in The Wall
Street Journal. The protagonist Amanda, a sassy, middle-class Washington
mother who has given up her job to look after her two young children, struck
a chord with thousands in the same position. Amanda misses the status and
the beige suits that went with her job and struggles chaotically, like a
grown-up Bridget Jones, with shopping and household chores.
Ultimately, however, Crittenden’s heroine believes that staying at home is the
right thing to do and in real life the author celebrates the role of the
stay-at-home mum, believing that pre-school children need to be with their
mothers in the daytime. It may sound like a return to the pre-feminist 1950s
but it is hard to write Crittenden off as old-fashioned.
Setting out her character’s stall in amandabright@ home Crittenden writes:
“Her grandmother’s World War Two generation had embraced motherhood and
rejected careers; her mother’s post-war generation rejected motherhood and
embraced careers. And Amanda’s? Well, that she didn’t know.” Millions of
women feel the same way and feminism is not giving them a clue.
In the flesh Crittenden is a clever, chic 40-year-old who was raised to be
independent. She was as ambitious as any bright twentysomething in the 1980s
when she became a successful journalist. But when she had the first of her
three children 11 years ago there were dilemmas for which her progressive
upbringing had not prepared her.
“None of my friends was staying at home like me and there was this very strong
sense that my life was being dictated by my children’s needs,” she says. “I
found it stressful and shocking.”
Her journey as a full-time mother has led her to the belief that modern women
have lost touch with motherhood. Where previous generations got on with the
job, women now “continuously cross-examine” the role. “We have to learn to
be part of a family again.”
If this means that well-educated career women spend the day loading the
washing machine, then so be it. “Men do seem to be rather hopeless at
laundry.”
It would send shivers down the spines of the millions of women who prefer to
live with Cherie-style juggling than sing “The wheels on the bus go round
and round” all day long, but Crittenden says American women, unlike their
British sisters, are reclaiming motherhood as an empowering role with more
job satisfaction than any office can offer. “I get the sense that Britain is
like America was 10 years ago in this respect,” she says.
But that is changing. A study by a leading sociologist, reported in The Sunday
Times last week, concluded that mothers who give up work lose social status
while working mothers continue to increase their “social capital”. It
provoked anger among British Crittenden-esque mums.
Melanie Jennings, from Warwickshire, gave up her job on a regional newspaper
to look after her two daughters, now aged four and two. She says: “I don’t
know why people think that housewives are unhappy or unfulfilled. We don’t
sit around moaning about loss of status and lack of stimulation. I love my
new status. I am having a fantastic time. It’s like being the managing
director of an expanding company.”
Justine Roberts, a founder of the cult parenting website www.mumsnet.com, says
the stigma attached to women who abandon their careers is gradually being
removed. They refuse to apologise for being housewives. “There’s a kind of
radicalism about stay-at-home mums that’s emerging. Whereas some women used
to hate saying they were full-time mothers, there’s a trend towards giving
up work and being out and proud about it. It’s not a thing to be ashamed of
any more.”
A recent poll on the site showed that if money were not an issue most mothers
would prefer not to work at all. A large minority would like to work
part-time but only a few favoured full-time work.
The new mothers’ pride has become a source of unsisterly strife and arguments
have flared up in internet chatrooms. “It’s such a contentious issue,” says
Roberts. “There’s a bit of a battleground between working and stay-at-home
mums which occasionally breaks out into a row on our site.” Who was it who
observed that a mother’s place is in the wrong?
Melissa Hill, author of The Smart Woman’s Guide to Staying at Home, has
provoked heated debate with some of her views. Hill, who lives in Kent,
worked in the City until her first child, now aged four, was born. While
many of the 21st-century housewives are undoubtedly conservative, few are
willing to be maids to their husbands. Hill’s theories on the father’s role,
however, would not look out of place in a Doris Day film. “The way I see it
is that I get to stay at home because he’s bringing home the money. It might
be nice for him to have a good meal when he comes home.
“He gives me all of his money and I’m not going to disrespect that generosity.
You’ve got to keep the peace, haven’t you? It’s like being at work in a way
— you don’t disrespect the boss, because he’s the one that’s paying.”
The dinner-party poser: “What do you do?” is still a tricky matter for
housewives, she says, and society has yet to afford the role the respect it
deserves. “There are still some people whose eyes glaze over when I say what
I do. But I’ve stopped caring what those people think of me and a lot of
mothers have. We know how happy we are.”
In words that would strike fear in the hearts of women who worry that
motherhood will push them off the career ladder, she says: “I don’t think I
could ever go back to working in the City. I just don’t think I’d have the
stomach for it. I’m just a softer person now.”
The decision to leave work is usually a temporary measure. The typical plan is
to stay at home until the children start school. Most of these former career
women admit to occasional cravings for daytime adult contact. (It’s a common
confession that they have become embarrassingly familiar with the postman or
the supermarket checkout staff, so desperate are they to have conversations
with people who can speak in sentences.)
Some, however, undergo an enlightenment and decide they never want to return
to their high-speed existence. Cambridge graduate Lesley Sharpe, 37, was an
English teacher at Godolphin and Latymer school in west London when she
became pregnant with her first child. “I knew more or less straight away
that I wanted to be at home with my child and a lot of my friends thought it
was odd, as if I was throwing something away.” Sharpe, whose two sons are
now aged three and five, has not returned to work.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever go back. I’ve learnt to see myself in a different way.
I realised that my job was just a small part of who I am.” For the modern
housewife, even the drudgery of domestic chores has a new status. “I don’t mind
doing housework, I think it’s all part of the role. It’s about creating an
atmosphere which is homely and secure,” says Sharpe.
“But this is about the children, not just me. When they ask: ‘How does the sky
stay up?’ I want to be the one there to answer.”
The rejection of 1980s yuppie values and surge in concern about work-life
balance has had a positive impact on the image of the housewife. It’s just
another way of downshifting. Many thirtysomething first-time mothers are
ready for a change of pace. If they were not having babies, maybe they would
be taking a year out in South America.
Jill Kirby of Full Time Mothers, a campaigning and networking group, describes
herself as a “maternal feminist” and says: “Most people agree that there’s
more to life than work and money now. It wasn’t long ago that women felt
marginalised if they gave up careers. Now they have realised you can have it
all but you can’t have it all at once.”
