Jaana Rogers
FULL TIME MOTHER´S STRIKE MOVEMENT
- What
are the concrete demands of the full time mother's strike movement?
- The Finnish
government has taken the financial responsibility of paying most of the costs of day care
system. Working mother is offered a very low priced care in the municipal day care centre
or municipally supervised day care at someone's home - as long as it is not the child's
own home.
- It would be only
fair considering our system to get equal benefits for one income- family as the
two-income-family gets. The system is discriminating grossly between the two. It is like
someone decided that the municipal care is so much better for the child and then decided
to put this economical pressure on the families with all the tax cuts and benefits
directed only to two income families and denying those from one-income-families.
- With two income in
the family tax rate is much lower.
- Children are not tax deductible like in most western countries.
- We want a fair chance for mothers, who want to raise their children themselves. - A fair
chance.
- Some parliament reps have suggested a voucher, which parents could use either paying the
day care or cash it in and stay home with the child. That would be one fair way to do it.
- We also need to
discuss the issue of pension especially, for those who stay home longer time with maybe
several children. Now there is no security for that. In Norway, where the system is close
to ours women taking care of their children have pension benefit for seven first years.
- Finnish people do
believe in treating people fairly and equally. I believe many do not know how this system
works all together, but those who do know are quite upset about it.
- The cost of a day care place is multiple to that of the child home care allowance.
- Also, now that we
are a part of the great European family UN, we might want to learn something from Germany
and France, where also women who work home are well respected and given a real choice
financially working either home or outside the home.
- EVERY MOTHER IS A
WORKING MOTHER. The difference is that some are full time mothers and some choose to work
outside the home, while giving the responsibility of raising their children to someone
else, while they work.
- How would
the strike be organized? Putting children into communal day care, signing up for the
unemployment allowance?
- The mothers are getting together now. We hope, we do not need to go that far. The idea
was to make everyone think about this system. How expensive it would be for this society
if all these mothers really did it! The Rural district would pay 75-100% of the day care,
unemployment money and in some cases other allowances for paying the rent etc. It really
looks like this society values us more unemployed than working at home with our children.
- Why should a
mother stay at home with her children, and for how long?
- Mothers should stay
home and nurture and teach their children to be good and productive members of this
society as long as they feel necessary. A chance should be given at least until they go to
school. That is how long the "gift" of practically free day care is given.
- Mothers do valuable
and productive work just as well as a kindergarten teacher does and even without the help
of a cook and a janitor.
- Women in our society
are all well educated and have a lot to give in the work force, but also home to their
children.
- Every child is an individual and their mothers are the ones, who are able to treat them
as such and do it with great love and thus providing the child with stronger self esteem
and emotional security.
- What lies
behind the (Scandinavian) thinking, that a child's place is not at home, and that the
mothers place is at work?
- We have good,
strong, well educated women in this country. It is only natural that women want to make a
career for themselves and develop their talents and training and given the prevailing
circumstances staying home with children even for a short time can be very risky for your
future development and critical for your old age financial security. These are not easy
decisions women are facing today. Are there other alternatives? I believe there are. This
system is the same as it used to be in Communistic Russia and Eastern Germany. They do not
have this system anymore.
- Motherhood teaches
also a great deal of people skills. Some companies in USA have discovered that motherhood
teaches effective leadership skills and are now hiring mothers of several children to
become their CEO's. If ten or twenty years of serving your children would be regarded as
great training in your CV, when you return to work, it would make thing look different.
This is a matter of perspective.
- Has this
thinking somehow got its roots at the women's lib thinking?
- Were the mothers liberated from their children in the emancipation of the 60`s ?
Is this strike movement now a backlash to this liberation?
- I believe we have
gone too far in some areas and some children in our society are paying the price. There is
quite many views about women's lib and it sure looks like the younger generations have
their own perspectives. This boils down to natural feelings of mothers and their desire to
care for their children and whether we see it as valuable and productive work in society.
I believe as a society we are starting to see the validity of this alternative.
- Who is the
beneficiary of this policy. The employers? Is anybody?
- There is lot of
unemployment in the fields, where there is lot of women. If there are more people willing
to work than there are jobs. Well , that is an excellent way to keep salaries low. If more
women stayed home longer with their children, that would have some effect on the
unemployment too. Now, government would rather pay for the day care, give unemployment and
housing benefits than consider paying child home care allowance until children start
school. Who benefits indeed, when all this is in the end raising again everybody's tax
load?
--Jaana Rogers |
