Yesterday, the Ms. blog proposed that instead of Mother's Day, we celebrate Caretaker's Day. Premilla Nadasen wrote that Mother's Day defines women and mothers through an over-sentimentalized myth of selflessness. If what we're celebrating is giving to and caring for those who need it, then there are many others who deserve a day of flowers and breakfast in bed. She writes that siblings, neighbors, and friends all take care of the neediest, and that is increasingly true as the social safety net stretches to the breaking point.
I agree completely with her points, but I would say that what we also need is a mother's day of an entirely different sort. It's fair to say that a lot of the gender discrimination and wage disparity we see in the workplace -- the wage disparity especially -- amounts to a tax on childbearing. Compared to childless women, mothers are 79 percent less likely to be hired for jobs. And women with children make 60 cents on the dollar that men make, while childless women make 80 cents. Until health-care reform passed, women were charged higher premiums on health insurance than men, partly because women as a whole receive more medical care. Some of that is related to regular gynecological visits, birth control, and pre-natal and maternity care. That doesn't count the opportunity costs of taking time off work to recover or spend with a newborn or the fact that taking care of children still falls disproportionately on women. The burden is especially high for single parents, 84 percent of whom are mothers.
So while we praise mothers for their sacrifices, the truth is many sacrifices are not voluntary. A real Mother's Day would be one in which we work to end this disparity between how financially devastating it is to become a mother, compared with how relatively painless it is to become a father.
-- Monica Potts
