59

When I became a grandparent I entered the world of parenting, again. It started on the day after the baby’s birth. My daughter attended the first class of her PhD program via Skype lying in the hospital bed.

For the first four months I drove from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and back, spending half the week taking care of home and baby and mother, and my son-in-law was in charge the other half of the week. After that, my daughter scrambled to find an at-home mom to watch the baby while she attended class and worked on her research. When she was ready to do her field research, we went to Morocco with her to help cover the bases. It took four years to finish the degree, but she did it.

She is still scrambling, now living and teaching in Morocco where domestic help is plentiful and cheap. She says she can’t afford to come home to the USA until her kids are both in full-day school.

I have another relative, here in the States, a young mother with a Master’s degree and a few years’ experience, who is today at home with two toddlers because daycare costs more than her earnings.

These are just two examples of the kind of calculations every young mother in America has to make to attain her goals. I’m fed up with it.

This country continues to punish young women for becoming mothers. Even though Congress passes bill after bill after bill to subsidize this little thing and boost that little thing, the bottom line is still there: “More than three-quarters of mothers and half of fathers had passed up work opportunities, switched jobs, or quit their job due to a lack of paid leave or child care.” (quoted from the First Five Year Fund website)

There’s tons of research showing every positive outcome imaginable for subsidized child care, but what becomes evident is that it’s most often couched in the framework of benefit to society, or to the children, or to property values! And it’s also evident that the patchwork of funding bills isn’t meeting the need, especially during the pandemic.

And what about the young women like me who failed to catch the wave and establish a career before childbearing? That $79,000 I failed to earn by the time I retired (also quoted from the same website) of which the SSA likes to remind me once a month (See 66).

I’m tired of reading studies. I’m tired of legislative bills full of Capital Letters. And I’m worried about the young mothers who feel trapped at home. For me it was the cause for full-on depression, frustration, catching up, and desperate efforts at salvation.

This is why we have old women. If old women don’t speak our truth, young women can’t hear it. If we don’t say it, who will? At my age I face no consequences for saying bluntly: our society continues to punish women for being women.