KATRIN DENKEWITZ / LAIF for TIME Job: Lawyer Woman’s Work: A judge once scolded Heydorn for asking to reschedule a hearing so she could look after her kids

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Posted Sunday, January 22, 2006; 10.33GMT
Yet the surprising thing is this: far from challenging stereotypes, says Martina Ritter, a sociologist at the Fulda University of Applied Sciences, younger Germans seem to be embracing them, and participating in a "re-traditionalization of gender roles in German families." Two recent studies, one commissioned by Germany's Family Ministry, found that even couples who believe in sexual equality revert to traditional roles the moment their first child is born. The State Institute for Family Research, based in Bamberg, Bavaria, notes that "there is a remarkable tenacity in the traditional division of labor in families." Nearly 80% of men surveyed by the Institute praised parental leave, but few took the option themselves — mostly because they earn more than their partners, say researchers.

Ulla Bock, a sociologist at the Free University in Berlin, put the point starkly: "There are these weird breaks in emancipatory progress, and we are in one," she says. "There are more and more young people who want to live according to the old values."

this new conservatism may be exacerbating a trend among working women to abandon thoughts of child rearing for fear of failing to fulfill their maternal role. The number of new births has dropped from 18.1 children per 1,000 inhabitants at the peak of Germany's baby boom in 1963 to an all-time low of 8.6 — among the lowest in Europe. Of the country's childless 28-year-olds, 83% hold jobs, while only 38% of its 28-year-old mothers are employed. That explains why Ursula von der Leyen, 47, Germany's new Family Minister, says: "The question is not whether women will work or not. They will work. The question is whether they will have children or not."

Of course, plenty of German women do both. Von der Leyen herself had seven children while building a career in medicine before she entered politics as State Minister for Family, Women, Health and Social Affairs in Lower Saxony in 2003. But her situation is far from typical. She spent her childhood in Belgium, where the concept of the Rabenmutter doesn't seem to have taken hold, and is rich enough to pay for child support when she's out helping to run the country. And she knows that she's a rarity. Indeed, Von der Leyen worries that so few women leaders have children, and that so few mothers are in positions of power. "In Germany, we've made a childless lifestyle almost a prerequisite for a good career and the ability to take on a position of leadership," the Minister says. "Of course this gives a fatal signal to young people between 20 and 25 — if you don't want to rule out becoming Chancellor one day, you are better off not having children."

That message echoes from workplace to school gates. "I was often asked why I was having children if I didn't take care of them," recalls Kerstin Niethammer-Jürgens, 46, a lawyer and mother of five from Berlin. "I never heard these remarks from men, only from women. Perhaps they envied me, but my impression was that they had this basic conviction that a mother must not act that way, that it could not be good for children." Mirjam Heydorn, 51, a lawyer and mother of two in Frankfurt, agrees. "You are reproached from all sides," she sighs. Heydorn remembers once asking a judge to reschedule a court appointment so that she could attend to her child. He replied, "Are you a mother or a lawyer?" Heydorn said, "Are you a judge or a father?" Predictably, the judge told her his wife was home taking care of the kids.

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