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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Momma's in the kitchen, daddy's in the field

Upon further inspection it has come to my attention that the GSS is even more oblivious to PC etiquette than I gave the survey credit for. In 2012, it queried respondents on what they conceived of as the most ideal situation for a family with a young child to organize their family and work lives (and even more controversially, the question is written with the assumption that a "family" consists of one man and one woman married to each other). Despite all the putatively egalitarian feminist-inspired blathering about how parenting roles are fungible across sexes (and orientations), contemporary Americans trust biological realities more than they rely on the harping of the harpies. The distribution of responses among the broader population (n = 1,004):

Arrangement, all responsesDist%
Mother home, father full-time39.7
Mother part-time, father full-time41.6
Both full-time11.3
Both part-time6.8
Father part-time, mother full-time0.2
Father home, mother full-time0.5

Perhaps it's skewed heavily by the patriarchal enforcers of patriarchy, the patriarchs themselves. The response results, this time considering women only (n = 527):

Arrangement, women onlyDist%
Mother home, father full-time33.6
Mother part-time, father full-time45.7
Both full-time11.7
Both part-time8.5
Father part-time, mother full-time0.2
Father home, mother full-time0.3

The vast majority--we're talking 4 out of 5--of Americans conceive of the ideal family environment being one in which a man works full-time and a woman works either part-time or not at all. It's as though they recognize some sort of special bond between a mother and the child her body spent nine devoted months bringing into the world.

Maybe the patriarchs have brainwashed their own barefoot wives slaving away in the kitchen into falling for the breadwinner-homemaker ideal, but what about women who think for themselves? Liberal women only (n = 130):

ArrangementDist%
Mother home, father full-time23.1
Mother part-time, father full-time48.4
Both full-time12.9
Both part-time15.0
Father part-time, mother full-time0.0
Father home, mother full-time0.6

Okay, but many of these women went through their formative years before third-wave feminism really got going. Let's see what the Sandra Fluke generation thinks. ... Oh, she's in her thirties? I got the impression that she was a college student or something. Ah, she recently graduated and will be starting her career soon. After a decade establishing herself professionally, she might even procreate one unaborted, down-free kid of her own, provided she outraces menopause or has her eggs frozen--soon. Anyway, the preferences of women under the age of thirty (n = 118):

ArrangementDist%
Mother home, father full-time26.3
Mother part-time, father full-time47.7
Both full-time7.7
Both part-time18.2
Father part-time, mother full-time0.0
Father home, mother full-time0.0

Not a single woman surveyed thought it desirable for a mother to spend more time working than her husband does. Suck the marrow from the men, let work drain their souls, not ours! Good for them.

Given their illegitimacy rates, welfare utilization rates, and their positions on marijuana legalization, one may be forgiven for scoffing at the neocon assertion that Hispanics are "natural conservatives", but he should also be willing to give credit where credit is due. They are even more traditional than their white, black, or yellow brothers and sisters are (n = 73):

ArrangementDist%
Mother home, father full-time45.4
Mother part-time, father full-time36.3
Both full-time2.3
Both part-time14.9
Father part-time, mother full-time0.0
Father home, mother full-time1.1

I'm throwing in with the plurality on this one, since our conceptual approach is one in which I'll assume the role of primary breadwinner/secondary caregiver and she the role of secondary breadwinner/primary caregiver. This is as good a time as any to pass along the happy news that my fiance and I are expecting a child just a few days before Christmas. No, I'm not so audacious as to herald the coming of a savior, but I am thrilled by the thought of combining birthday and Christmas into a super day in which (s)he gets 150% of what (s)he'd separately get on either day if the two gift glut days were further apart from one another, ha!

GSS variables used: FAMWKBST(1-6), SEX(2), RACECEN1(15-16), AGE(18-29), POLVIEWS(1-3)

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