When discussing the group of people that has been most affected by the pandemic, women and children are usually mentioned. In this post, I will explain why the pandemic has just exposed how bad our societies were treating them and making their life difficult. With it, I hope there can be a change in our collective behaviour and appreciate the key importance they have for the survival of mankind: without them, we become extinct, like the dinosaurs.
As a woman, you can do everything
Through the centuries, men have tyrannised women,
negating them the most basic rights and treating them more or less like
merchandise. In many societies women were valued in terms of cattle (four
goats, two camels) and were subject to all type of abuses. It has taken a lot
of effort and blood to our Western societies to put women equal to men and it
is not until very recently that we have achieved that. Two examples: voting
rights for women were shamingly introduced in the XXth century in Europe (in
other parts of the world, this remains utopian); and they could not have full
control of their finances (like opening a bank account) without the control of
the husbands until almost our lifetime.
So, important things first, women need to have the
same rights and duties as men. Full stop. Actually, our societies should
consider them equal, without gender distinction. That should be undeniably a
pillar for our advanced societies.
However, Western societies, including men and women,
have taken this to the extreme and now women are subject to extreme pressure,
often from other women. They must be pretty in all situations, be a perfect
mother and wife, and have a successful career to be accepted by our new
standards.
Somebody forgot to consider, though, that it is
materially impossible to do so. Days have 24 hours and it is not possible to
have a career and be close to the children at the same time.[1] As
a result, our society is full of unhappy women.[2]
This is a very risky development for the years to come.
In general, our societies give too much importance to
contribute to society through remunerated work and does not value unremunerated
work done in the household. For a woman to stay home to care about children and
give up a working career is not an easy experience (let’s admit it, changing
diapers is not so rewarding as showing your work to an audience of 50 people)
that will, for sure, be greeted with hostility by others.[3]
I am not calling for some type of “woman in the
kitchen” attitude, but for truly accept freedom of choice: the same respect is
due to a woman who decides not to work to be with children than another woman
who decides that career is more important than family. We are very far from
that as many role models in our society (including, sadly, women at the top
positions) are showing that women need to return to work soon after birth of
the child (six weeks in some countries). Under this view, managing work, household
and family is possible and those who struggle are, consequently, not up to the
challenge. This is just the recipe for frustration and depression, plus a great
lie.
Let me insist on this point, as I consider it very
important: our societies are mixing monetary remuneration of a work with value
added of that job. This is having very negative consequences for women, as
moving papers from one desk to another is monetarily remunerated and
automatically regarded as valuable, while raising up children is not
remunerated at all and, consequently, nobody sees any value on it. Just think
about it: in fifty years, for instance, the papers that were travelling across
desks will not any impact at all on society while our children will be shaping
that society.
Again, I am in favour of women doing all type of jobs
freely, I like when they are astronauts, bus drivers or policewomen; when doing
some job, skills and motivation should be the main criteria, never gender. Women
can have a career, of course, but it will come at its due time.
Actually, we collectively need to understand that
women are physically different than men in a decisive point: they can have
children. Denying this difference implies that we put a burden on women beyond
their powers, because women do not have superpowers: they get tired, stressed
and sad, like everybody else, and when this happens, they deserve attention and
care, not to put the head down and keep pulling their burden.
So, to sum up, women were subject to extreme pressure
by our society to be able to manage work, family and household, always with a
smile. Usually, family was the weakest part of the chain and to it I will
devote the next paragraphs.
Here is my kid, take care of her
Following on the previous points, when women are asked
by society to run smoothly work, family and household, they typically end up paying
less attention to family (that is to say, to children). Let’s spend some
paragraphs on the consequences that this had for our pre-COVID society.
To start with, I would bring here the point that
children are going to school to learn and that they are educated at home with
parents (and other members of the family). In most cases, when both parents
were working, the small child spent long hours far from them, either in
kindergarten or in primary school. So, the educational flow from parents to
children is almost absent: children wake up very early to go to school and
return home too tired in the evening to care.
Therefore, the mirror that parents are for children
disappears and their behaviour is shaped in the place where the spent most
hours: the school. The consequences of replacing parents by peers are bullying,
violence, vulnerability, …[4]
Instead of recognising this and doing something to
remedy it, the answer of the majority of parents is to demand that teachers
educate their children, complaining about the incompetence of teachers. On that
basis, society starts giving less and less value to teachers, blaming them for
the chaotic situation we have for our younger generations. Yes, I have said
chaotic, just think about alcohol and drug use, sexual initiation, mental
issues (such as depression, hyperactivity) and ability to cope with adverse results,
for instance.
The common culprit here is the education system,
because it does not work, but nobody is thinking beyond that, nobody is
reflecting that maybe not teachers but parents are responsible for the education
of the children. When a small child wants to gain attention from the parents,
she will behave badly to get it. Why should an older child be different? Many
of the extreme behaviours we observe in our youth are just a desperate cry for
attention, for love, for time together.[5]
If we now think biologically, the main purpose of any
species is to perpetuate itself through children (a virus is not different to
us humans in that respect). With the pressure on women to make the impossible,
it should not come as a surprise that birth rates in Western societies are
decreasing for many years. Let’s talk about the way forward in the following
paragraphs.
Learning from COVID-19
I have read quite often that women have been the main
victims of this pandemic. For instance, female researchers with small children
did not publish so many scientific articles as male peers. Well, one does not
need to be an eminence to understand that it was not possible to keep up
activity during the pandemic at the same levels as before.
Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as pushing
us towards spending more time with our closest families: no more long days in
the office, no more business trips, no more long schedules for children in
school… But it seems that it has just meant to add more burden to women, who
got additional tasks and little relief, and to have children home caring about
themselves, as we are all too busy teleworking long hours.
I would like to think that the pandemic should lead us
to change our attitude, to be able to spend more time with our families, even
if that is sometimes more difficult than spending long hours in the office. At
societal level, we could start to value more our children, the fact that they
are the future of mankind and that every investment in them is somehow an
investment in us.
But we need to move beyond words, not just staying
with nice sentences full of purposes and resolutions. There needs to be a real change,
to show that we care about the youngest members of our societies. For example,
it would be great to offer three years of maternity leave, instead of the usual
few weeks or months. Spending time with the young kid is really valuable for her
and mothers should not feel pressured to return to work immediately (the same
could apply to fathers, of course). Or introducing real fiscal benefits to
families as compared with couples without children.[6]
Let’s be honest, raising children in our societies was extremely difficult before the pandemic, horribly difficult during the pandemic and we should make an effort to make it less difficult after the pandemic. We can have a look at the situation in China, where couples simply do not want to have children despite the advice of the government.[7] It is then no surprise that birth rates are falling in our societies. This is an area where the “new normal” should really look like “new”, even if I have very little hopes.
[1] When I say staying close to the children, I am of
course excluding keeping children in kindergartens from 9 to 5 or under the
care of an army of baby-sitters.
[2] Have a look, for example, at the book “Why we can’t
sleep”, by Ada Calhoun, or watch carefully the TV series “Desperate
housewives”.
[3] My wife and I have some experience on it.
[4] Here, please read the book “Hold on to your kids” by Gordon
Neufeld and Gabor Mate, or “The collapse of parenting” by Leonard Sax.
[5] In some cases, unfortunately, when such behaviours
occur is already too late to revert them.
[6] These couples
are absolutely free to decide not to have children and their decision must be
respected. But they need to understand also that they are not contributing to
society to the same degree as families with children.
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