Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Accygirl
Wouldn't it be better for society if your wife used her intelligence to cure cancer or teach inner city children to read??

No, she's working at a career-oriented full time job for a Fortune 100 company.

So you're suggesting that we go back to the 19th century so that housewives can feel fulfilled... I'm sure many housewives would prefer to spend their time working at a part time job or taking care of their children rather than dying their own wool. And the modern conveniences are a big help to working parents...

Not a bit of it! But the idea that the home is a prison and a waste of intellectual and creative resources is itself something of a modern phenomenon, and was not necessarily the *intent* of the arrangements. Before industrialization, men worked like dogs at hard manual labor, which was no picnic either.

Staying home and keeping house can also suck big time. I think that vacuuming and cooking pot roast for dinner would be pretty boring. The corporate scene can be pretty annoying sometimes, but it has one redeeming quality... a paycheck.

Working at home can be pretty annoying sometimes, but it has several redeeming qualities. Autonomy, lack of politics, and getting to guide, mold, and interact with your children, instead of watching them being formed into little pastiche lumps of mush without the capacity for reflection or for original thought. Try reading Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. :-)

I'm not arguing against your choice per se, but suggesting that the reasons you are currently giving for it do not hold as much water as you seem to think. A mere relationship with a spouse can sometimes be a full-time job in itself; when you add children into the mix, it can be a career in itself, in terms of demands upon you. But those demands tend to fluctuate over time; and the knowledge of someone waiting for you at home (for hot raw sex, all the way down to flirting while making dinner, to commiserating over that pr*ck in the Atlanta office) tends to make the struggle in the workplace worth it. The presence of a strong family (and therefore well-adjusted people) is one of the necessary ingredients for the social matrix in which successful businesses can grow.

In another vein, you might want to surf over to other threads and read excerpts from Mark Steyn's writings about the demographic suicide of the West...

Cheers!

105 posted on 11/26/2006 3:31:44 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies ]


To: grey_whiskers
"No, she's working at a career-oriented full time job for a Fortune 100 company."

Good for her...

"Not a bit of it! But the idea that the home is a prison and a waste of intellectual and creative resources is itself something of a modern phenomenon, and was not necessarily the *intent* of the arrangements."

But now that we have modern appliances it really is a waste of a woman's intellectual and creative resources to spend her day vacuuming and cooking dinner, which is why stay-at-home moms spend their time doing other things as well such as working on the PTA, doing fundraisers for the Junior League, or organizing candle parties...

"Working at home can be pretty annoying sometimes, but it has several redeeming qualities. Autonomy, lack of politics, and getting to guide, mold, and interact with your children, instead of watching them being formed into little pastiche lumps of mush without the capacity for reflection or for original thought."

Modern housewives get all the politics plus some.... Perhaps, they butt heads with ladies at the PTA meetings or Mrs. Green, their daughter's first grade teacher. Just because they're not at work doesn't mean that they don't deal with neighborhood politics...

"Try reading Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. :-)"

Actually, I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 when I was twelve and remember thinking that the hero's wife was a stupid ditz who attempts suicide and betrays the protagonist in the book...
110 posted on 11/26/2006 3:45:24 PM PST by Accygirl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 105 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson