Kidding Ourselves: Breadwinning, Babies And Bargaining Power

by Rhona Mahony

Why do so many smart, career-oriented, even ardently feminist women end up with nearly sole responsibility for running their households and raising their children? Why does it happen even in couples who had promised to share that work equally? Kidding Ourselves traces the decisions that women and men make—usually unwittingly—before and after marriage, and especially after the birth of a child, that lead inevitably to an old-fashioned division of labor at home. It also explains why change is necessary. As long as nearly all men devote themselves first and foremost to paying work, they will on average outearn women, who reduce their hours and travel in their paying job once they have a child. With this groundbreaking book, Rhona Mahony suggests practical ways to bring men into child raising and end the unfair burden of women's second shift.

Genres: Nonfiction, Parenting

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED THIS BOOK! 4.5/5, after some time I might change it to 5/5 on Goodreads. ><

The greats:

1) Rhona Mahony seamlessly introduces new terms by describing the concept behind them first, which makes it so much easier to understand than memorizing the textbook definition of those terms. These important terms make it easier for people advocating for feminist causes to negotiate/explain concepts about the reasons behind why it is important for household chores to be split half and half by men and women:

- sexual division of labor
- occupational segregation by sex
- pink collar ghetto
- comparative worth
- statistical discrimination
- BATNA
- threat point
- commitment mechanism
- self-enforcing promises
- focal point
- tipping
- social exchange
- marriage market
- sex ratio
- head start effect
- pronatalist

2) The author sets a strong foundation for the book strongly by telling readers that she takes a look at the relationship between men, women, and babies through an economic lens, which requires considering three key factors that play an impact on women's bargaining power: time, energy, and scarcity.

While money isn't everything, and a higher economic status may not necessarily make an individual (male or female) happier, Rhona blatantly describes how salaries play a huge role in a partner-partner negotiations when decisions need to be made together, despite culture's common rhetoric right now to believe in love for love's sake. Not to mention, in order to make a stronger argument, measuring factors, such as time, which is more tangible than sentiment, becomes important in reasoning why women who contribute a significant amount of time to unpaid work (like childcare) will have little time to spend on other asset building activities, such as working for pay. Rhonda does an exceptional job at describing the innate value of women's time in childcare when oftentimes social expectations to take care of children/housework may cause people to take the importance of women's caregiving for granted.

3) I loved that she provided factual statistics for why women should only need to do half of the household chores. This information alone, I believe, gives women more comfortability in advocating for women's rights on a macro and micro level since the decreased bargaining power of women can lead to increased domestic violence, poverty and hardship after divorce, irrevocable career decisions, child neglect. These become strong reasons for why household chores should be split in half compared to common potential reasonings, such as "I have been doing all the work, so you should put more effort into chores," which is less convincing and more antagonizing to the other person.

The debatable:

Rhona is persuasive about her points for why women and men should share half of the household work each. However, especially when describing scenarios between three different types of couples, she becomes more biased in describing men as terrorizing agents who will divorce if the family situation does not befit his expectations. As my best friend described, the worst of the scenarios will mostly occur if the man you are dating is absolute trash. lol. However, I can understand from this author's point of view to reveal such scenarios as they can realistically happen in marriages.

I liked that Rhona touched briefly on the biological differences that some people may argue cause women to take care of children more due to the intrinsic maternal instinct by describing how female monkey/ape family animals only breastfeed and the male monkey/ape animal take care of the offspring. However, this is a weaker argument since there's such drastic biological and cognitive differences between humans and monkey/ape family animals.

After remarks:

This book was written in the 1990s, so some of the facts are a bit outdated, so I wonder if there is another similar book like this out there with newer information! I would definitely want to read additional commentary about how women's status in society compares to now.

[Sara Carlstead Brumfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the most formative book I read in my early 20s on the way to finding a spouse, a family, and a career. I suspect the ideas presented seem old hat now, but it was ground breaking at the time.

[C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kidding Ourselves traces the decisions that trap even feminist woman into taking on most of the responsibilities and costs - both economic and emotional - of child rearing.

It clearly lays out how the choices women make in high school and college affect how much their partners will later do to help out around the house and with the children. Two of the biggies noted that hinder a more equal 50/50 split of chores are women choosing more flexible and less economically rewarding careers that can be dropped b/c they don't contribute as much and the choice to "marry up" to men who are older and earn more.

I really appreciated the clear look at bargaining power and how the author traced 3 fictional marriages - traditional, transitional, non-traditional - to look at how more of the burden of childcare falls on women. It was eye opening.

From there, though, the book goes a little downhill for me.

For a solution, the author posits that women need to increase their bargaining power relative to men by marrying down, choosing more lucrative careers in math, science, law, etc., letting go of gate keeping in regards to childcare, and having their husbands stay home and raise the kids.

Yeah. So by her reasoning, we would just swap women being in a less-favorable and more vulnerable position (economically and socially, with the threat of domestic abuse) with men. Doesn't seem like a great solution.

I applaud her ideas of getting the government to create more family-friendly policies, and I like how she distinguishes between child-friendly, family-friendly and women-friendly policies and the implications for each.

I just don't think this is a viable solution that would better both sexes.

[Cyndie Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that takes a less defensive and more economic look at why often end up staying home when the kids are born and doing most of the housework. Has great insights for women who want to figure out how to balance career and family.

[Elizabeth AcesoUnderGlass · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second half seems wishy-washy, but the first half is extremely solid economics.

[Samuel Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read. Read it twice.

[Gello]

Didn't really want to read it all....