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Stop Telling Women Motherhood Is the Most Important Job
New York Magazine ^ | October 4, 2016 | Laura June

Posted on 10/06/2016 11:44:08 AM PDT by nickcarraway

Yesterday, Republican nominee for POTUS Donald Trump released a campaign video about his plan for paid maternity leave. In it, his daughter Ivanka, who has become Donald’s stand-in for “women,” explains the plan for him. Unsurprisingly, the very first thing out of her mouth is kind of a problem: “The most important job any woman can have is being a mother.”

Using “any woman” here is just a nicer way of saying “all women.” What that sentence really means is that Ivanka — and by extension, her father, whose platform the video was created to advertise — thinks that all women should have children, because it’s “the most important job for them.” Of course, this line of thinking isn’t exactly reflective of American women’s lived experience: More women today are either putting off having children or choosing to not have them at all. Saying that women’s most important job in life is motherhood suggests that women without children are lacking not just children, but a true calling in life.

By declaring motherhood the most “important” job, we’re also forcing women to organize priceless parts of their lives by value. First Lady Michelle Obama has famously said that raising her daughters is her proudest achievement during her time in the White House, and that makes sense: Creating two people out of thin air isn’t easy, and it’s right to feel extremely proud when you don’t, as she said, “mess up your kids.”

But the reality is that we rarely ask men to rank their jobs in life: Is being a father more important to Keith Richards than being in the Rolling Stones? I have no idea; I didn’t even know he had children until three months ago. The question itself is an impossible test for women who have children: Which do you value more, your kids or your job? The trick is that there’s no right answer, so no matter what your response is you’re wrong.

Of course, being a mother can definitely feel like a job sometimes. It is, in base terms, labor. There is extra laundry and cooking and cleaning up. The hours are longer than anything even my forefathers saw in the mines. But many of the people who tout motherhood as their most important job aren’t single mothers juggling a kid and an actual paying gig: They’re not people who worry about the cost of day care or health insurance. In short, they’re people like Ivanka Trump.

Still, if Ivanka wants to say that motherhood is a job, I’m happy to agree with her. Because if it is, then I assume Trump’s maternity plan comes with the bare minimum of benefits for its workforce: universal pre-K, affordable and high-quality child care, and health insurance. Throw in a salary and a retirement plan and I’ll change my business cards to “Mother” right away.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: gayagenda; lesbian; lesbians; waronthefamily; whiner
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To: nickcarraway

Says someone who thinks the imported replacement population will actually work to support her and convert to her views.


81 posted on 10/06/2016 1:24:36 PM PDT by tbw2
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To: stayathomemom

It is the fault of feminists like this that multi-culturalists are importing a true patriarchal, misogynist culture to replace them ... and then covering up mass rapes because the reputation of the rapists and ideology that imported them is more important than the actual safety and rights of women.

Like the Rottheram rape scandal where police were more afraid to be called racist by arresting Pakistani Muslim rape gangs than go after men who groomed and prostituted out 1400+ underaged working class white girls. Or New Years Eve 2016 mass rapes by Muslim migrants.


82 posted on 10/06/2016 1:27:01 PM PDT by tbw2
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To: nickcarraway

Motherhood is the most important job for a woman, as fatherhood for a man.


83 posted on 10/06/2016 1:51:04 PM PDT by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
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To: Frederick303

I submit that we destroyed ourselves when we bought into the idea the two income family was something to be attained.

It reduced the level of bonding. It flooded the work market with much more people, and for that reason wages could drop due to an over-supply.

So soon it became necessary for two wages to support a home.

If women had stayed home and raised the kids, the wages would have remained high.

This may have eventually led to more outsourcing, but it shouldn’t have. We bought into the idea outsourcing was mandatory and couldn’t be stopped. It could have been, and we’re paying a very high price for not doing it.

We have anywhere from 45 to 90 million able bodied people out of work.

Anyway, thanks for the mention. I agree with your observations.


84 posted on 10/06/2016 1:52:13 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (33 days: Until Presdient Pre-elect becomes President Elect Donald J. Trump. Help is on the way!)
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To: nickcarraway

women giving birth and nurturing the young - men as provider and protector - families being the building blocks of a society - this is the natural order, a story of creation.

Of course, mankind has tried hard to upset the natural order.


85 posted on 10/06/2016 2:22:43 PM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said the goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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To: nickcarraway

Why?

Motherhood being a woman’s most important job is a true as saying fatherhood and a man’s more important job.


86 posted on 10/06/2016 3:27:57 PM PDT by Toughluck_freeper
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To: nickcarraway

The most important job any woman CAN have.

Doesn’t mean any woman HAS to have children. But if she wants what would be the most important job she will ever have, she can have children and assume that job.

Doesn’t seem complicated to me. Nobody is forcing ANY woman to have children if she doesn’t wish to.


87 posted on 10/06/2016 3:37:56 PM PDT by rlmorel (Orwell described Liberals when he wrote of those who "repudiate morality while laying claim to it.")
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To: nickcarraway

Their God is abortion,....so I can understand why they disagree..


88 posted on 10/06/2016 4:40:32 PM PDT by hawg-farmer - FR..October 1998 (VMFA 235 '69-'72)
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