FOR years feminists have campaigned for flexible hours in the workplace. Instead of campaigning for the family wage (and for an end to the “free trade,” open borders policies that have undermined American jobs), they have fought for accommodations in the workplace and the privilege of becoming economic serfs. These “flexible” accommodations often put women in the position of having full-time psychological commitments to jobs, but with only part-time hours. They do not change the reality that motherhood and home, except perhaps for those who have paid staffs and many paid services, absolutely constitute a full-time job. The campaign for flexibility has created the illusion that work and home can be “balanced” without cost to family life.

Yesterday, I heard of an interesting development in this brave, new, oh-so-flexible world. A woman told me of her daughter who works for a major financial management company. The daughter has “flexible” hours. She works two days at home. However, during those two days, her young children are not allowed to be home. That’s right. They are kicked out of their house. I don’t think even the Soviet Communists, in their enlightened efforts to send all women from the home and obliterate the Russian people, ever came up with this idea. (And that’s what the mass entry of women into the workforce means. If not the gradual obliteration of a people, at least a dramatic demographic and cultural decline.)

Of course, one can understand how this practice of exiling children from home came about. There’s no question that children are distracting. But the very fact that children are not permitted to remain home during those hours is an admission by everyone involved that they require care and attention. It’s an admission that the two spheres cannot be balanced.

All too often, “flex-time” is not flexible. After all, the children still exist. They cannot be flexed away.

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