There must be a way to balance work and family

By DAME CATHERINE TIZARD*

It's a shame the marvels of modern science haven't found a way for the human race to give birth to self-sufficient potential adults the way turtles do - lay 'em and leave 'em and so that when they hatch they toddle off into the world to starve or survive without any parental help. I'll bet there's never been any gender inequality problem in the turtle world.

They're all about the children, aren't they, these "women's issues"? If new generations of humankind were not born helpless and totally dependent; if they didn't have to be fed and nurtured, cared for and watched, trained, disciplined, educated and supported; if our species didn't have this obligation, then men and women would have been equal from the start.

There would never have been patriarchal societies, feminist movements, child welfare departments, equal pay legislation or, probably, marriage or divorce, either.

But that's the way it is. Our biology dictates that women are in the frontline in child-bearing and in child-rearing, and that hasn't changed a lot. And, yes, I do know that many blokes do more in the home than their own dads ever did.

Despite hugely expanded opportunities for women in the past couple of decades, some things remain stubbornly the same.

One that has been discussed in this series on women is the predominance of women in part-time work and the consequent statistical discrepancy in earnings between males and females.

The reasons for this have been exhaustively investigated. The bald truth is that there is a limit to the extent that mothers can do two full-time jobs. Many able and ambitious women decide the costs are too great and settle for the part-time job, let the managerial promotion go and watch the boys pass them by on the promotion ladder.

By the time mum has space in her life to step out, she will most likely have missed that critical late 20s, early 30s springboard to the top.

Okay, this is a sweeping generalisation and there are families who, in all sorts of ways, cope well with the pressures of working parents. There are lots of women who did the family bit first and had successful careers later.

I suppose you might think I am one of them. I hope that the others do not have as many white nights as I've had, fretting fruitlessly about the risks taken, the domestic disasters, the missed school events, the errors and omissions. (A completely different set of guilt trips would probably bedevil me even if I had never gone to work.)

I can hear the writers of letters to the editor cranking up their computers to inform me that having children was my responsibility and my choice and I should not expect anyone else to share my burdens or to compensate me for my personal indulgences. If I wanted a job in the paid work force, I should not have had children.

Right. And that's the very decision thousands of educated, ambitious and intelligent women are now making. They are not having children at all or are having fewer, later, if they can. The boom in fertility technology and heroic efforts to adopt are the material of another discussion, another day.

Much more eloquently than I ever could, Diana Wichtel's column in the Weekend Herald described that biological clock on red alert. Those 1970s feminists did make us believe we could have it all. And we did buy into it. We didn't understand how hard it would be. Nor did we think about falling birth rates and dwindling tax bases and the skew that is putting into our social structure and expectations.

We are a bunch of hypocrites sometimes. We chant the mantra of clean, green New Zealand to sell our products and to impress the rest of the world, knowing in our hearts that that is largely the result of good luck and geography, not good management.

Now that it suits us, because it makes us stand out (and the sky hasn't fallen in), we brag about the number of women in top positions. We recite the litany - Governor-General, Prime Minister, Attorney-General, Chief Justice, chief executives, mayors - and we are genuinely proud of them.

Some have grown families. As many again are childless. And in politics at least, this childlessness is used as a weapon to beat them with. (If you think I exaggerate, you have not been listening to Parliament over the past couple of years).

As experienced and savvy women familiar with the pressures - savagery even - of that life, choosing not to expose children to it could be seen to be a responsible decision.

So one infers that in society's eyes families are a good thing. New generations of New Zealanders are needed not just for personal reasons but for our national way of life, our future as a society, to pay for our way of life.

This reminds me: When I was first married, we had a low-interest "rehab" mortgage. During World War II thousands of young New Zealanders gave up years of their working lives to serve their country in the forces overseas. It was a time of national need.

On their return, a grateful nation made every effort to see their futures were not disadvantaged. Provision was made for them to be established on the land, retrained in their trades or trained in new ones, bursaries were available for educational qualifications, teachers got automatic promotion credits. There was national consensus that theirs was a valuable contribution to their country and should be recompensed.

I keep wondering why bearing and rearing new generations of young Kiwis doesn't carry the same respect. We are not a children-friendly society. People who work with and care for children are not highly regarded, and most of them are women.

Is it beyond human ingenuity to devise a scheme that would give women who leave the workforce to rear a family, some re-entry credits? Retraining entitlements? After all, it is only for a few years of a woman's working lifetime - and think of those years of tax returns afterwards.

* Dame Catherine Tizard, a former mayor of Auckland, was the first woman to serve as New Zealand's Governor-General.

Read the rest of this series:
nzherald.co.nz/nzwomen