Busy Work.

It was International Women's Day yesterday and perhaps because of this my feminist radar was working well when a four year old girl at the preschool where I teach said to me:

"My Mum picks me up because my Dad is too busy". 

I acknowledged this statement, then said that I was pretty sure her Mum was also busy and that picking her up and looking after her was something that made her busy too.

She thought about this but then told me once more about how busy her Dad was.

What messages are we still (unbelievably) giving our children, especially girls, about the value of the work that women do? I happen to know that this Mother's 'work' is typical of so many women with young children and involves juggling unpaid and paid work, 'busily' moving between 'jobs'.

Is caring for and raising children not important enough to be considered busy work? Why not? I know people have been discussing this in much more academic terms for years, but it really bothers me! It also relates to my work as an early childhood teacher as I have struggled my entire career to have my 'professional work' valued fairly.

The power of the words we use with children must not be underestimated. If we hear something often enough we start to believe it. If a child hears that what their Mum (or Dad or whoever cares for them) does isn't seen as being as 'busy', we can translate this to being unimportant or of less value, since 'busyness' is regrettably seen as an achievement or a 'badge of honour'. (I just googled 'busyness as a badge of honour' and there are loads of articles about this as well - interesting stuff.)

I think its really important that we continue to challenge the way that our children think about the work we do, and to acknowledge the significance and hard work involved in being a parent (or carer). We can advocate for women and women's rights by valuing the complexity of what women do each day as we work to raise our children and work in our paid jobs, and somehow manage to usually do a pretty good job at both!

Vanna