Comments on: Equal-Split Parenting

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 07:41:06 +0000

I don’t know what depresses me more; the idea that someone is out there not only putting vegetables into lasagna but boasting about it, or the (probably true) fact that most of our readers would need a recipe to make tomato sauce.

By: tim

tim — Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:27:54 +0000

Joe: Try two batches of red sauce, side by side, only in one, use fresh garlic (fresh as in, picked that day, bought fresh that day from the store, but not simply bought fresh and not yet sprouted), and the other garlic powder. Fresh makes an enormous difference. It’s the most important non-shortcut I care about, won’t add much to prep time. For that matter, make large quantities of red sauce (meat or ~~less) and freeze, just nuke and use. Harry: Okay, what’s the porridge recipe – actually, can you make that a new CT post rather than comment, easier to bookmark? If it’s as good as my father~~in-law’s (UK, not Eire) I’d love to try it, especially on a long weekend! Adoherty: It’s not philosophy, it’s simple bourgeois guilt, with a gendered twist. Some people don’t enjoy being employers, feeling that it seems to deny they believe in equality, or something. Judging and paying are awkward. Especially when you’ve been raised to think failure to do household chores makes you a failure, or at least lazy and inadequate. People who grew up with two working parents tend to be quite happy with a work relationship with decent people and pay.

By: adoherty

adoherty — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 23:21:46 +0000

I am bewildered by the idea that there’s something inherently morally wrong with having other people do a portion of one’s housework and/or childcare—even if they are paid well & treated well. Why? People (like Caitlin Flanagan) seem to be accepting that idea & saying gee, I wish I could be as holy as Barbara Ehrenreich who “doesn’t want that kind of relationship with another person.” What kind of relationship—employer to employee? What’s the difference between hiring someone to clean the kitchen floor & hiring someone to type (or to draft a will, for that matter)? Is there a philosopher out there who can explain this—I’m genuinely confused. If it doesn’t degrade me to clean a toilet (and I don’t think it does), then I fail to see how it degrades someone else (provided they are paid properly, etc.)

By: Toni

Toni — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 19:31:57 +0000

As Laura’s single female friend, I’d like to comment: 1. If your Italian, a good lasagna takes at least 30 mins to prepare! (Nice recipe Joe!) 2. While workign and finishing my Ph.D. I’ve been both a full time nanny and a high-paid babysitter. Paying your sitter well is important and like any work relationship there are those which are good and those which are bad. (Sorry for the oversimplification.) But in general, nannies in the NY metro area do quite nicely. 3. Having been privy to a number of households, the division of household work is often uneven though the wealthy tend to do a bit better because they can hire help. I argue that all relationships are based on negotiating (a la Dr. Phil)….so if you’re doing more of the work well, perhaps you need to re-negotiate. I have seen some situations, where the mom is the bread winner and the dad is essentially working part-time and the dad STILL doesn’t pull his share of the work. (How hard is it to call up the local store so they can deliver groceries?) 4. I need to dash and find me a slacker or careerist, oh, that’s after I clean the bathroom because I don’t have a husband : ( Toni

By: maurinsky

maurinsky — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:19:09 +0000

Lasagna is certainly not difficult, but it is time consuming – when I come home at 5:30pm, I need to have dinner on the table within an hour or my younger child won’t make it to bed on time. And I’ve never made tomato sauce – my sister makes huge batches of it and gives me some in exchange for babysitting services. My mother boiled everything, so I had to learn how to cook at least a little if I wanted to avoid eating things that tasted like hot water. When I say everything, I mean everything. We frequently had boiled chicken for dinner.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:14:52 +0000

Or even homemade sauce. It’s actually fairly easy, so long as you use canned tomatoes: 1 Chopped Onion (medium size pieces). 3-5 Cloves of Diced Garlic (depending on size and taste) 2 Tbsp. (or so) of Olive Oil 1 Large Can of Crushed Tomatoes in Puree Pepper, Salt, Oregano, Garlic Powder, Crushed Red Pepper In a sauce pan, sautee the onions and garlic over high heat until the onions begin to caramelize. There should be enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan thoroughly, but not so much that the onions or garlic are completely submerged. Add the can of crushed tomatoes, reduce to medium heat. Add a modest amount of pepper, oregano, and crushed red pepper. Be careful—you’ll add more later, and the sauce won’t begin to taste right until the tomatoes begin to cook in any case. When the sauce starts to boil, reduce to very-low-to-low heat and cover. After 15-20 minutes, taste and add spices as necessary. Go easy on the salt, as the sauce is intended to be more sweet-and-spicy than savory. Reduce the heat to simmer, cover, and begin to cook the pasta, which should take 15-20 more minutes. You can add meat to the sauce if desired. If you are using sausage, broil the sausage until it is about 80% done, slice, and add to the sauce 10-15 minutes before serving (you’ll want to keep it a little hotter than simmer in this case). If you are using ground beef, cook it in a skillet until fully done. Voila. Homemade red sauce.

By: harry

harry — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:02:50 +0000

Daniel, did you have to start this lasagne thread? bq. Elizabeth Anderson makes this point explaining why, for example, firefighters ought to get paid for the socially-valuable work they do, and compensated for the extra danger nad health hazards, even if it is true that they are adrenaline junkies and love their work. We’re not paying them for their pleasure, but for the work. I know Anderson’s argument, and see its force, from the outside as it were. But I find it harder to feel the force from the inside. ‘Oh yes, I know I enjoy vaccuming and you hate putting out the trash, but they’re both work, so its ok that I am doing better than you’ What if we both hate putting out the trash, and she hates vaccuming? I’m not really arguing the point, just musing. djw—I didn’t mean to accuse you of accusing me of fetishizing the nuclear family—it was more a consideration of a self-accusation. The points abut different thresholds that people have made are absolutely right—my own mess and dirt threshold is much higher than my spouse’s and I don’t see that as a character flaw. But sometimes we stay in homes where women do all the domestic work (that is, all the necessary domestic work—the men might have DIY as their dangerous hobby, but that’s different). Mary Wollstonecraft has a lovely passage about the indignity of having other people do one’s own self-reproductive labor for one, and I am moved by that. Let alone the millions of men who, apparently, don’t know how to do self-reproductive tasks. Its only a less extreme version of Prince Charles needing someone else’s help to pee. So, sympathetic as I am to people whose paid-work splits are very uneven wanting to compensate with an uneven unpaid work split there does seem to be something undignified (to me anyway) about having someone else do all of one’s washing cooking and cleaning. In our 12 years of marriage there have been 3 when I was paid-working more hours, and about 7 (so far, and presumably the rest from now till retirement) when she is paid-working more hours. I’ve done more than half the HH work during most of those 7, and I was very uncomfortable in the 3 with her doing more of it. I think this is why lots of people are very uncomfortable with outsourcing house cleaning. (And, yes, as Laura suggests, I think the income is completely irrelevant to the indignity of having someone else clean up after one—we both regard how many hours we work and what jobs we have and what courses we take etc as collective decisions. And the higher earner, longer hour worker, is enhancing his own future earning power and depending for the conditions on his life on someone whose earning power is not being enhanced). Russell—thanks for linking to this. I have to confess that the daily breakfast is usually porridge (waffles etc are for special occasions), but it is porridge which my daughters declare that only I can make properly, and (for Daniel’s interest) is an absolute bugger to make (and for the interest of the Irish contingent is Irish—I’m trying to keep all the CTers happy).

By: ginger

ginger — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 15:23:04 +0000

Both tomato sauce and bechamel. Something like this. Even if mushrooms are not in the original recipe. The classic Lasagna Bolognese is only bechamel and ragu (tomato sauce + minced meat). Like this here. A nice alternative is ricotta and spinach. Lasagna is really not a good example of a quick dish anyone can make, is it? It takes too long... I'd stick to pasta with readymade tomato or mushroom sauce. Not even the most cooking-impaired man can go wrong with that one.

By: rea

rea — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 15:07:01 +0000

“for real lasagna, you also have to make your own bechamel” What, not tomato sauce?

By: ginger

ginger — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 11:46:24 +0000

mq: and don’t forget, for real lasagna, you also have to make your own bechamel. The best is to make your own fresh pasta sheets as well, but that’s too much to ask, I guess. :)

By: MQ

MQ — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 11:03:44 +0000

Dan: you seem to have a certain amount of paranoia or insecurity about the male gender role here—that if it changes or is redefined in any way then it will collapse entirely and men will turn into feckless boys. In particular, men are so weak that unless they are in an authoritarian breadwinner role in the family norms supporting male responsibility will collapse altogether. But taking the primary role in caring for the children and the household is easily recognizable as a form of responsibility. The key seems to me to be responsibility vs. irresponsibility. Both men and women would still be able to valorize responsibility as sexy in a world where some men stayed home with the kids. I mean, there is always the possibility that you are right about men, but I like to think of my sex as a little broader than you are depicting. To others: looking at the posts above I see we have some lousy cooks represented among the comments. To make good lasagana, you should make your own tomato sauce and also pre-cook the vegetables and meat. Plus add other spices or sauce for some recipes. Only then do you get to “stick it in the oven”. Good lasagna is just as hard to make as any other baked dish. My conclusion is that none of you deserve to marry a hot, sexy career woman.

By: ginger

ginger — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 09:27:23 +0000

Why is it something to blame on the women, if their husbands are not doing anything to help with raising kids? These are things that should come natural in a couple. It’s not a choice of “slackers vs. careerists”, that sounds like something from a fifties ad. It should be a practical matter, not one of gender. If any of the two, be it man or woman, has a job that doesn’t leave enough time for kids and house chores, and the other cannot do everything by their own, then by all means hire someone to help, it’s not exploiting, it’s paying for a professional service like any other. If you can afford it, go for it. If you can’t afford it, then find alternatives. Get support from family and friends. These are all things to think about before getting married and having kids…

By: Dan Simon

Dan Simon — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 07:14:49 +0000

MQ: I agree that these phenomena are different, but I don’t believe they can be treated completely separately. Both influence, and are influenced by, societal norms, assumptions and expectations. And they thus may be more connected than you suggest. For example, as it becomes more acceptable for men to give up their breadwinning responsibilities, the arguments for doing so can be (mis)used by irresponsible, immature men, and are harder for the less strong-willed among their partners to refute. The arguments don’t have to be justified in any particular case—their widespread implicit acceptance alone may be enough.

By: MQ

MQ — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 05:21:01 +0000

Dan Simon: your post seems off topic to me…the problem with single motherhood isn’t women stuck with men who want to be sensitive, nurturing fathers at the cost of cutting back on their earnings, but women hooking up with promiscuous men who want to extend their roaming adolesence and abandon their kids entirely. They are very different phenomena culturally, emotionally etc.

By: maurinsky

maurinsky — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 04:50:55 +0000

My husband and I are both wage slaves (he’s a bookkeeper, I’m a secretary at one job and a singer at the other). We definitely have a very even split for childcare, but we are both horrible slackers when it comes to housework, choosing to do things like read or put together a puzzle or play a game or check out some blogs, or even watch some TV. We do the minimum we need to do to keep our house from being disgusting or subject to health inspection. I really like a neat house, I love to see miles of clear counters and I would love to sit down to dinner without having to move some books or papers off the table first, but frankly, between working 50+ hours a week and having children who are involved in some activities, I don’t have the time or inclination to keep the house as neat as I would like.