Caitlin Flanagan's Nanny Problem
February 2004
Caitlin Flanagan is an exquisitely talented essayist who, as a young girl growing up in Berkeley during the 1960s and '70s, dreamed of being just like her mom -- in other words, she wanted to get married, pop out a couple of kids, and concentrate her finest energies on taking care of her family. But fate intervened, and Flanagan (who continues to refer to herself as a stay-at-home mother) was offered a job at the Atlantic Monthly, where she specializes in an interesting blend of literary criticism, nostalgic reflection and social commentary. Her most recent works -- including a controversial cover story for the January/February issue, "How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement" -- are flavored by Flanagan's affectionate admiration for the life of her own housewife/activist mother, and her conviction that feminism is really not as good for women as it's cracked up to be.
According to Flanagan's latest critique, the Faustian bargain of the women's movement is that the professional achievement of a select group of highly privileged, well-educated women depends on the cheap caregiving labor of legions of economically marginalized, emotionally exploited women of color. Flanagan's outrage is somewhat perplexing, of course, since she cops to hiring a full-time nanny to care for her twins and deal with the grubbier housework, even before her job at the Atlantic materialized. (Rumor has it Flanagan is also hard at work on a book about "modern motherhood.") But what Flanagan glosses over is that in between the big winners (white, high-earning professional-class women) and the biggest losers of the women's movement (the low-income women they pay to take over the "women's work" in their households), there are millions and millions of mothers who reap the benefits of feminist activism -- from white collar women down to women working in the service sector, who have rights and protections in the workplace that did not exist in the era of happy housewives. As far as the ruling class exploiting the labor of underprivileged women, one can reasonably argue it's been ever thus. Historic precedent doesn't make it right, but it certainly undermines Flanagan's assertion that the current mistreatment of domestic workers is all feminist's fault.
Flanagan holds the moral high ground by insisting that the unregulated employment of third-world domestic workers is a serious social problem, and one that any feminist or mothers' advocate worth his or her salt must actively address. It's a valid point, especially since the domestic workforce is overwhelmingly female and many low-wage domestic workers are also mothers. The lamentable fact is that some nannies and housekeepers are made to work long, irregular hours, are paid less than a living wage, suffer extended separations from their own children and families, and experience poverty in old age when employers fail to pay employment taxes as required by law. But just how pervasive is this deplorable situation?
Not very, it turns out. According to 1999 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, just over 3 percent of all preschool children were cared for by a non-relative in their own homes. That would be in comparison to 50 percent of children under five who were cared for by parents or relatives while their mothers worked, and another 18 percent who received center-based day care. Of preschool children whose employed mothers have four or more years of college, a mere 8 percent were cared for by nannies or in-home baby sitters. And we can assume that in at least some of these arrangements, nannies are treated fairly and decently since their work is indispensable to the well-being of the families who employ them.
Flanagan's real message is that professional mothers can't expect to have their cake and eat it, too. She wants to make sure women know exactly what they've sacrificed to make it in a man's world -- which, of course, is the perfect and unspoiled love of their children. Flanagan is in an excellent position to bring this to our attention, since she apparently has a paranormal sensitivity to the interior life of the child, as when she writes: "There isn't a nanny in the world who has not received a measure of love that a child would rather have bestowed on his mother."
Given that children arrive in the world as entirely separate and self-contained beings, and seem to be (based on close observation) in full possession of their own little hearts and minds, it's rather startling to see anyone make such a sweeping pronouncement with unshakable confidence. Setting aside the fantastic idea that good mothers always know, with unwavering certainty, the precise nature of their children's private worlds, how on earth can we take such wild projection about the source of a child's joy or longing at face value? Is a child's love a finite, non-renewable resource? Is there really only just so much of it to go around? How much of our knowledge about the nature of the intimate bond between mother and child is incontrovertibly true, and how much is merely truism that serves a larger ideological agenda? Are we feeling guilty yet?
How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement
Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic Monthly, March 2004
An interview with Caitlin Flanagan
on The Atlantic Monthly Web site
|
