Part 25: Being a woman, a mother, back to the roots – God rest our souls, the warm-hearted ones
You would think that today motherhood would be something modern in the traditional, something that fits into 2014. There is parental leave and parental allowance, daycare vouchers, childminders and the tried and tested grandparents. And that’s great. I never once worried financially when I wanted to have children. We in Germany can consider ourselves damn lucky with that – when we look beyond the country’s borders, it becomes dreary to bleak. But. At some point, the birth is over, the stitches are healed, the mother with the offspring actually at home and alone during the day. The German 2014er/woman becomes a mother and transforms into a woman in the traditional sense. She gets out the vacuum cleaner every day, starts polishing the faucet, emptying the half-full trash can. Not because suddenly everything was so incredibly dirty or an infant made so much mess. Rather, it is the change, the unchangeable, for which space must first be made. This is the beginning. And somehow it’s your own fault. Think. You could have thought of that earlier. After all, becoming a mother is a decision.Continuing with the infamous male underpants (socks, T-shirts, pants…), which even in the rainbow family sometimes fall and fall down and remain lying and in the field of vision at some point disturb and finally washed by the woman. Because the man goes to work. The woman is at home. I don’t want to criticize that, gender-wise it could be the other way around. But the husband goes to work and the wife does the laundry. We are holding on to that. She washes anyway. For himself and the child, and besides, there was still room in the machine. And then she washes sometimes only for the underpants (socks, T-shirts, pants….), when it has become too many and is in a hurry. But that’s okay, that’s an exception. And I really don’t want to complain about that. The woman really has time, is on parental leave and gets money for it. So she goes to the doctor with the child, to physiotherapy, to the back-formation course, to the supermarket, she takes care of appointments and writes applications and sings and warbles with the offspring and sometimes she cooks in the evening and often she sleeps badly. After all, the man, even the rainbow man, worked. The woman gets money from the state to stay with the child. After all, that’s a luxury in comparison. 60% or the maximum rate. The man snows in, morning and evening and really cares touching. When it’s there. And gets his full salary, raise and steps on the career ladder. And the laundry and the food and the child taken care of. And we are really well organized. I don’t want to complain about that. But I do have one question: why actually 60%? Isn’t this figure discriminating against my role? My role in a time that is limited anyway? Doesn’t this regimentation put me back into a dependency because at least 40% is missing? Not to mention the missing steps on the career ladder.
