Posted on 04/20/2005 10:08:55 AM PDT by qam1
Xer Ping
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effect Gen-Reagan/Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
Or because they dont stay at home and "do what they do best; Make men better" Paraphrased Ann Coulter.
They need to stay home and take care of children!
The messengers of Antonio Gramsci and his planned destruction of the family unit march on.....
>>As Warner wrote of contemporary mothers: "The moms' lives were punctuated by boxer shorts on the floor and quilt-making at school, carpooling and play dates and mother-daughter book clubs, and getting in to see the right dentist ... and, and, and, layer after layer of trivia and absurdity that sometimes made them feel like they were going out of their heads."<<
I have all of this and two loving girls that I cuddle with. I love IT!!!
Trivia and absurdity is in the eye of the beholder.
We hardly have time to be psyco-analyzing our every minute of every day.
More on Judith Warner:
Judith Warner Wants to 'Have It All' With Your Money ("Mommy Madness" Part I)
By Eva Ellsworth
Mar 14, 2005, 00:56
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Judith Warner bemoans her misery as a career woman mother in her Newsweek article, Mommy Madness. She states that women with children have two choices: You can continue to pursue your professional dreams at the cost of abandoning your children to long hours of inadequate child care. Or: You can stay home with your baby and live in a state of virtual, crazy-making isolation because you cant afford a nanny, because there is no such thing as part-time day care, and because your husband doesnt come home until 8:30 at night.
Is staying home with ones children crazy-making isolation? Many stay-at-home moms are happy. They have social lives that include their children. Since when does a healthy stay-at-home mom need a nanny? Part-time childcare is often arranged as a trade between women who have kids. Often, husbands of stay-at-home moms work more to earn the income that enables that arrangement. Sometimes, one has to choose the best among imperfect possibilities thats life in any society.
Mrs. Warner also bemoans the fact that middle class life is now so d*** expensive that in most families both parents must work gruelingly long hours just to make ends meet. I would like to know her definitions of middle class and making ends meet. Designer clothes, a new SUV every couple of years, vacations to Tahiti, etc.? Some couples whose income is at the lower end of middle class have stay-at-home moms. It can be done.
Unhappy with her choices, Mrs. Warner believes the taxpayers should fix things a recycled version of Hillary Clintons It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. The problem with that idea is the village wasnt consulted about creating the child. If career comes first or the couple
doesnt want to give anything up for a child, maybe parenthood isnt right for them.
Mrs. Warners demands on the taxpayers are: 1) tax subsidies to encourage corporations to adopt family friendly policies, 2) government-mandated child care standards and quality controls, 3) flexible, affordable, locally available, high-quality part-time day care so that stay-at-home moms can get a life of their own, 4) vouchers or bigger tax credits to make child care more affordable, by making health insurance available and affordable for part-time workers and by generally making life less expensive and less stressful for middle-class families, and 5) alleviate the economic pressures that currently make so many families lives so high-pressured, through progressive tax policies that would transfer our nations wealth back to the middle class.
Corporations exist to make money. This is what keeps the economy going. Their purpose is not social engineering. If family friendly policies are needed to attract talented employees, corporations will adopt them for economic reasons.
State and municipal regulations already exist for childcare facilities. Almost all childcare horror stories involve unlicensed daycare. Even the strictest regulations do not eliminate the need for parents to carefully vet facilities before enrolling their children.
If there is consumer demand for part-time daycare, businesses will provide it as long as market forces control prices. If government price controls are imposed, facility owners may choose to quit the childcare business.
Parents who use daycare already get a tax credit. Those who stay home to care for their own children dont get one even though one earner families typically have lower incomes than two-earner families. Why should the taxpayers fund daycare for relatively affluent families?
Some companies do provide health insurance for part-time employees. If it helps recruit needed, qualified, part time workers, corporations will provide it. Family members of a full-time earner can be included on that earner's policy.
Judith Warner must not have heard about President Bushs tax cut, which decreased the percentage of the nations tax burden for all except those in the top 20% and reduced tax rates for all income groups. If the government provides some or all of the items on Mrs. Warners list, we can say goodbye to the tax cut and hello to some hefty tax increases.
I am sorry Mrs. Warners life has been a mess since she had children. The taxpayers did not choose for her. It should not be their responsibility. I also made the wrong choice. I wanted to be a housewife and mom but pursued a career instead. I had ovarian failure at age 27. Is it someone elses fault that I thought Id have more time? No, it isnt. I may not be living the life I planned on since I was a little girl, but I am reasonably happy because I make the best of things. Women like Mrs. Warner should learn to
do that, too. There must be some aspect of being wives and mothers that these women can enjoy.
http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.org/artman/publish/article_1810.shtml
"The first chapter of Friedan's book was called "The Problem That Has No Name," and described the American woman's life: "As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night -- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question -- 'Is that all?"
poppycock...
100 years ago America was proud of the fact that we'd advanced so far that the cruel practice of mothers working outside the home was comparatively rare. Not only did we get over that quaint concern with children, but now we send young mothers off to war! Isn't "progress" wonderful?
(sarcasm - duh)
"...and then proceed to trash the man's domestic incompetence and overweening sex drive."
The book talks about a woman asking herself "Is this all?" after she "made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night", and complains about that husband not being capable of (much) productive housework, and of wanting to be intimate. Yet few women I know of are competent groundskeepers (mowing, raking, external house maintenance). What about that husband who wakes up early, slams down a tasteless (and probably unhealthy) breakfast, grinds through traffic for an hour to a mind-numbing job, grinds through traffic again to come home to a wife uninterested in physical intimacy, kids he rarely has time to spend with, and complaints about how he doesn't help around the house enough? He's probably asking "Is this all?" too. Life doesn't owe anyone, men or women, fulfillment, just the opportunity to feel that way. Actual fulfillment is up to the person. Couples can provide each other a measure of that fulfillment, but ultimately life is what you make it. Stop whining and fix what you don't like.
Gosh -- that's almost as bad as the things men get called.
I agree women do need to raise their children rather than allowing other people to raise them. That being said, in general people need to learn to live with less. I hear all the sob stories about women wanting to stay home but they just can't afford it. That is a bunch of rubbish. I left a job that paid very well when we had our children. We just learned to live with less. Less is really more in the long run. Men also need to stop wanting "toys" so their wives can feel free to stay at home. JMHO.
OKAY, Reuters is correct. Those of us in the USA are all creeps and were are wrong, wrong, wrong. Will one of you turn out the country's lights and lock the front door?
Phew. I feel better now.
Well, that item on the book about American mothers was the biggest bunch of bull durham I've read in years. The review is positvely lumpy with generalizations, presumptions and inane observations by someone who's more interested in making a buck or two instead of reporting the truth.
My God, how I loathe such anal pretense on an author's part.
No really, I DO feel better now. Honest.
OKAY, Reuters is correct. Those of us in the USA are all creeps and were are wrong, wrong, wrong. Will one of you turn out the country's lights and lock the front door?
Phew. I feel better now.
Well, that item on the book about American mothers was the biggest bunch of bull durham I've read in years. The review is positvely lumpy with generalizations, presumptions and inane observations by someone who's more interested in making a buck or two instead of reporting the truth.
My God, how I loathe such anal pretense on an author's part.
No really, I DO feel better now. Honest.
>>>Or because they dont stay at home and "do what they do best; Make men better" Paraphrased Ann Coulter.
They need to stay home and take care of children!>>>
What a crock.
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