by Ruth Scalpone

Created on: March 16, 2010

The feminist movement went to such great lengths to show that women were just as capable as men in the worlds of business, professions, and military, not relegated to caring for their homes and families, that numerous wives and mothers got jobs outside of the home in the 1960’s.  They did not necessarily want to have jobs outside of their homes, but they were made to feel that they must work full-time.  The march to jobs may have been started by the feminist movement, but there was so much publicity of the women who did have jobs, women who wanted to stay home and take care of their families felt they must be lazy or too dumb to hold a paying job.

Children, who had been accustomed to always having their mothers at home and caring for them, were suddenly thrust into the role of household manager.  Their house was empty when they got home from school, and during school holidays and summer vacations.  If there was more than one child in a family, one of the children, usually the oldest, was expected to care for all of them.  Not knowing how to cook, they were obliged to prepare meals.  Having no medical training, they still had to take care of their siblings and themselves when they were sick or injured.  It is hard for many adults to decide if emergency medical care is needed, while children are forced to make those decisions while still children themselves.

After the 1960’s, women, married or not, were expected to have jobs outside of the home.  Because birth control was available, the “choice” so vaunted by the feminist movement became a choice of whether to have children at all, in addition to having a full-time job outside of the home, not whether mothers should work outside the home.

After having had a baby, and being home with him or her for a month or two, many times it was traumatizing for the mother to return to a job outside of the home and turn over her baby to someone else to care for while she was at work.  A great many men, used to having two incomes in the family, demanded their wives return to work as soon as possible after the baby was born. 

No matter how she felt about leaving her baby with someone else so she could have a job, there often was no choice.  She had to continue working full-time to maintain the lifestyle they had.

  

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