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Originally Posted by Monika
This doesn't really make much sense as in many western countries many women also choose to stay home or may be considered to be "bad mothers" by some (more traditional people) if they don't stay at home.
[cut because I have no experience with European countries, so can`t comment.]
E.g. US: As there is no 3-year or even 1-year stay-at-home period with the guarantee to get one's job back, most women return to work after about 3 months after birth, unless the husband is really earning lots and the wife probably intends to give up her job forever. However, you will often hear that day care is supposedly harmful for kids and good mothers (if they can afford it) should stay at home. There is a movie about a real case: The parents divorced, the son lived with the mother. She started to work, put him into daycare. Because he was in daycare, the father got custody! He was working full-time, too. But he had a new wife who wasn't working. So you see what the general attitude towards daycare is. Stay-at-home moms are considered the ideal.
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Really? That`s a total shock to me, as I have been bashed up and down by virtually every American woman I have encountered regarding my choice to stay home with my son. You`d think I was destroying the entire feminist movement by choosing not to work.
People may *say* that staying at home is the ideal, but in practice you end up being chewed out by every other mother around who hasn`t made the same choice. And some who have! I was even told I should be ashamed of myself, and that I "was spitting in the face of all the women who fought for equal rights". Yeah, really sounds like people think that the stay-at-home-mother is the ideal.
Sorry I`m a bit bitter about that, but it is actually something I have experienced. I`ll take the Japanese model where mothers actually can make the choice that is best for them and their children without being attacked left and right for it.
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Well, that's a thing that is really different about Japan and other industrialized countries. Not that there is a difference in salary: In the other countries, also in Germany, women still earn less than man. 85% would probably be a reasonable estimate here, too. BUT they aren't content with it! They want to earn 100%. They just don't. Earning 100% wouldn't put more pressure on them. They would still leave their jobs for a while after getting a child. So the employer paid them 100% - so what?! Doesn't give him any more rights or make her not get children.
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In Japan, I didn`t mean it placed pressure on her to return to work earlier after having a child, or that it placed pressure on her not to have children at all. Women still get just as much time off regardless of salary, and their jobs are guaranteed by law.
What I meant is when women flat out *quit*, as is pretty much the norm when they get married or have a child. Taking time off is one thing - the investment the company has made isn`t a waste. But if they invest a lot of time and training into someone who leaves within a few years, it has been a waste. Most Japanese (female and male) wouldn`t be so irresponsible as to do this.