Earlier this week, The New York Times published a very thought-provoking article on new cultural trends in Germany. I know very little about German culture other than beer, wurst, lederhosen, and BMWs, having been a French student myself. So I was pretty surprised to learn that this country, with Europe’s largest economy, and headed by a woman (Angela Merkel), still goes by a culture that largely forces its women to stay at home.
I pass no value judgments on the practice itself; I’m sure that staying home gives your children innumerable benefits, but that should be an individual, or a familial, decision, not one made for you by the school system.
The article raises a lot of interesting points – you should read the article yourself, since you’ll most likely find more things to think about than I did:
1) Why shouldn’t men stay at home, too, to help with the kids? Paternal leaves sound just as logical as maternal leaves, to me. Every parent needs to spend time with his or her kids, right? And this way, both parents will understand “sacrifice.”
2) Every form of government has pros and cons. Americans tend to shriek in horror at the sight of the word “communism,” and anything that’s even remotely “socialist” (e.g. universal healthcare) is an abomination. But our northern neighbors, who are the more socialist version of us, are doing just fine, and they take better care of their elderly than we do. To go a bit more radical, it seems that if there’s one thing communist countries can do, it’s promoting women’s equality. It’s not about rights – it’s not fighting for something extra. It’s about being able to have the same options that men do. Communist governments don’t have to wait for society to change, since they’re typically not democratic. They can do certain things much faster, and much more efficiently. But in general, Winston Churchill’s words still stand. It doesn’t mean, though, that there isn’t anything to learn from other forms of government.
3) Last point is sort of unrelated to the article. One reader commented that a high fertility rate makes a country poor, citing Haiti as an example. I think the commentator has it a bit confused. Isn’t it that poverty, a lack of education and opportunity, particularly for women, makes fertility rates high?