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Hello,
I am an American mom in Winterthur with many questions and would love to speak
with another mom near me who can answer these questions
in person or on the phone.
Is any mom available?
Please contact me through mamizeit: expatinfo@mamizeit.com
Thank you,
Christi from California
Parenthood/work
Hello Daniel,
I agree that women should be able to work if they want and not work
if they don't want (men should too as you say). At the end I think
that's exactly what western born and raised women do mostly to be honest,
when they live in their world. Non western born and raised women do
have infinitely less choices even if they come to live as expat wives
in the developed world.
We have to put up with discrimination and lack
of professional social networks which focus on our nationalities, lack
of contacts (let alone local language mastery) and knowledge of how
things function.
Aside from the "culture shock" myth for
a visitor there is also a culture shock coming from the host culture
towards the foreign, non-western person looking for a job for example.
I am married to a man who is a Super Everything, who
works and who understands also that I have not been able to find a
job here yet.
I am Mechanical Engineer, unfortunately I have a gap in my cv and now
jobwise it'd be better for me was I a hairdresser (I would love to
be this but to survive in my third-world country, I had to go for the
tough thing).
Still, I was born in a different culture, less puritanical
and much more hedonistic than any western one (I've been lucky to have
lived in several western countries by now) and as such i do not see
my life as a choice of duties and achievements to be completed and
little else... this is how it seems to be western culture to be. Make
money... gain power, go for achievements that can be shown.
So I think,
after receiving disappointing responses to my job applications and
seeing how hard it is to meet anybody here, I'd rather live in a less
rich country, where there is more fun to be had... thanks to coming
here I have come to understand and even value myself and life as such
better, and how I've taken for granted in the past those "non
measurable" parameters which nonetheless do make people happy.
Best regards,
Maria Eugenia Velasco Staudy
Dear Maria,
May I ask how many children you have and what profession you are in?
Thanks for the feedback.
Jules
Hi Daniel,
I appreciate your article and as a mum, I certainly don't wish or need
to do absolutely everything at home. Fortunately my partner loves cooking
and is very good at it. He even knows how to operate a washing machine
and works out when we're about to run out of clothes and takes appropriate
action!! At this point I have not been working, but certainly do want
the choice.
My fiance is employed in Switzerland and after a period of sick leave
in our home country of Australia plans to return there, implying a
relocation for me and our 1 year old son. When I visited Switzerland
in 07 I was amazed to find that married couples' income is pooled and
that families are essentially rewarded through taxation when the wife
stays home, and penalised when both partners earn an income. Hence
the current openly discussed trend of young people not getting married
until they are having children. This coupled with the social stigma
and practical childcare issues you refer to would make it a lot harder
for me to work there than in Australia.
An "interesting" society indeed!
Cheers,
Jane
Hi,
First off, let me say that I find really weird that I have to resort
to email to enter a comment to your article. This reminds me of the
middle ages of the web... maybe getting a nice CMS system and enabling
comments would be a good idea, something to consider.
Second, I read Danis Schwarz Carigiet’s article with interest,
and feel compelled to comment on our situation which is the exact opposite.
Probably you worked in the wrong places, or have the wrong profession.
As a software engineer, I never had any issue taking time off to take
care of my children, while my wife (working as a CPA for a big American
company) was expected to work 100% or more, even when the kids were
sick. I am always the one staying home when one of our little ones
(two daughters, 5 and 7 years old) are not feeling well, I even stopped
work for 3 months after our second one was born, and my wife’s
company (again, an American company) frowned when she wanted to have
a longer break than the bare minimum, and I worked for a very long
time at 80%. Yes it’s true, finding a place in a daycare is tough,
but I solved that problem by joining a committee of people creating
a new daycare in my little town, and making it happen. My kids were
really happy to go to daycare, and they learned the German language
there (we speak French, Chinese and English at home, leaving not much
room for German). Now they go to school, and if my wife stopped working
now, it’s mainly because the pressure she got from her job was
too stressful to make her feel happy anymore, and she chose to stop
working. Note that at the time she decided this, I seriously considered
stopping work instead of her (she was making more than me at that time),
but decided against it because I love my job and she doesn’t.
I think that the problem is not of the Swiss society per se, rather
of the industry you work in. As I said, in engineering, flexible solutions
such as Gleitzeit, working from home etc are often applied. In the
banks, however, these things are much less frequent, at least if I
judge by my experience and my friends’. Of course, since the
majority of the population works for these institutions, it is easy
to overlook the other, more family friendly firms out there. Also,
probably engineers, by the nature of their creative work, are more
open to sensitivity than bankers, but I never had an weird looks or
comments when I describe how much I love my kids, or how we spend time
together, etc… This simply never happened to me.
I could go on and on, but in short, don’t paint the Swiss society
with too broad a brush. Yes I agree that much needs to be done to make
this place a better one for active families. Still, if there is a will,
there is a way and I think that talking about positive examples gives
a better impulse on society than describing the negative ones without
proposing any solution.
Friendly,
Laurent Bugnion
Dear Laurent Bugnion.
We thank you for sending your comment by mail. Unfortunately we do
not have a software engineer on our staff nor the budget to implement
a
cms system from an external source, but we would of course welcome
your help on the matter.
Best wishes, Red.
Comment on SUPER MOM
- a Dad's perspective and response to Jules
Ritter
Bravo to Daniel Schwarz Carigiet, I could not have described Switzerland's
peculiarities better. It was a nice read, especially from a man who has
such a raised consciousness. (red. read Supermom here)
As a long-time western expat here, I would say that experiences as a
working woman does matter where you live in Switzerland. Aim as big town
as you can, if you are relocating here. Over the years, I have encountered
so many stunned expat independent women who were not warned how a rich
conservative society unruffled by wars would lack pressure to promote
equality and suffrage for women. It is said many times that Switzerland
lags behind other western countries by 20-50 years, depending on where
you live here.
I was disappointed to read the -- daresay -- typical, uninspiring, self-justifying
response to Daniel's essay by Jules Ritter. She is still needing to rationalise
her own choices and lifestyle by reason of salary and whether any working
SuperDads exist (as she has not had the benefit of being married to one,
it appears). I also see she has taken an old route in needing to define
her version of an ideal Modern Housewife - a model of herself, it would
appear.
Do women really need to go that old route, in justifying their own choices
by doubting more equal possibilities or claiming better-adjusted children
for staying at home? Jules -- whatever relationship you have with your
husband and your 3 children sounds fine that it works for you. Bravo
for that. Just do not continue that old jabber that SuperDads are unlikely
to work, clean, do laundry and read bedtime stories just like SuperMoms
do.
SuperDads exist. They may be rare, you may not know any, and you may
not be married to one who consistently does the Super bit, but the world
and its possibilities do not stop at your own experience.
Jules and many others who think this way in my generation project a defeatist
and static attitude. They describe their traditional household agreement
as a "price" for living in Switzerland. It makes me wonder
if the same arrangement would happen in other countries they would expat,
not just Switzerland. Dearies, things change, even in Switzerland. Granted,
the pace is certainly slower. Recollect that patriarchal marriage laws
were here until the mid 1980s, yet one generation later, the whole controversy
is no longer an issue, Swiss only shake their heads now asking why it
took so long.
If you do not have equality at home, it adds to the difficulty of gaining
equality at work. If you marry a man who puts his career as priority,
sure you will work around it and still can have a happy marriage - but
do not justify your version of partnership as the ONLY possible functioning
model. It is of course a very common model, yes. As I personally am married
to a ahead-of-the-times Swiss SuperDad probably 3 generations before
his time, I ask you to accept the exceptions rather than question their
existence of SuperDads. May I suggest that young mothers ignore "common
sense" typical comments or anecdotal experiences. May I suggest
that Jules Ritter brush up on some Gloria Steinem.
Would it not be nice, to no longer have to read mothers who justify staying
at home 100% or working 100%, or whatever % in between? In the end it
really is no one else's business. When society stops judging or justifying
women's roles then do we really have equality. Women judging women can
be so harsh, especially when they lead different households.
Bottom line - accept your choices as just your own, and do not justify
them as the only potential healthy working model.
Let us be glad for whatever works for any mother and father, and accept
a wide range of possibilities. Thank you to Daniel for reminding us of
the possibilities. You remind me of my wonderful husband.
Maria Jones
Jules Ritter coments on Daniel Schwarz Carigiet`s article:
SUPER MOM - a Dad's perspective.
Mamizeit August 08.
Woah Daniel you said it all! Just one slight problem.
Know any Superdads? Personally? I mean really? Ones that cook AND clean
up the kitchen afterwards not just a token roast on a Sunday? Ones that
read a bedtime story to the youngest then go and fold washing at 11pm?
I went through all of this and some when I started having my children.
I was
so determined to keep a working life for myself I even started my own
company out of desperation thinking that being my own boss would make
it easier
but dealing with an Au-pair, two toddlers, a house and a husband who
was never home out forging ahead with his own career meant I had three
jobs.
I gave in, had a third child, embraced the family and now think of myself
as a MODERN HOUSEWIFE.
A modern housewife is a woman who looks after her family primarily but
also manages a career/interest/passion on the side. I’m a freelance
writer and fit this in around the family. But the new Modern Housewife
could also be a charity worker, volunteer, President of a Gardening Group
whatever which I suppose now that I think about it, is what successful
stay-at-home women have always been doing. The bottom line is that until
salaries are equal it is the one who brings home the most money who goes
out to work. My husband wants me right here looking after his children,
doing the homework, taking care of him and as he says tongue in cheek,
keep me happy and I make more money.
It has been my biggest challenge in life to be happy at home but I managed
it. I’m not waiting for him to come home. Thanks to my writing
career I have a life of my own but also enables me to look after my children
properly - children let us not forget who did not ask to be born – run
the house and enables my husband to provide extremely well for his family.
No, I’m not married to a military guy who votes Republican. My
husband can do all the superdad stuff easily and will step in 100% whenever
I am sick or have occasional work commitments that take me abroad but
he just doesn’t have the energy left or the time to do so on a
full-time basis. Compromise? Yes definitely but I fought and won by creating
my own way of living. Old-fashioned? Also yes definitely but that is
the price you pay for living in Switzerland. Who benefits? The children
above all – the next generation. I think sometimes dancing at both
weddings means that you don’t enjoy either as much as you could.
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